Abstract

Mind-wandering is often seen as the result of a certain attention behavior or even an attention deficit. However, Gestalt psychological research points to other explanations: The phenomena referred to as “mind-wandering” can be understood as a reorganization of the total phenomenal field of perception and experience as a result of experiencing serious discrepancies in this field (“non-Prägnanz” or “Imprägnanzen” in Gestalt psychological terminology). If the “non-Prägnanz” in the field is strong enough, the related facts and events are experienced as not being compatible in a single common field. As a consequence, the field of perception and experience is split into two or more fields, each comprising its own phenomenal ego with its own phenomenal world. This approach allows the identification of certain rules for the occurrence of these phenomena and an informed handling of them. The paper introduces this Gestalt psychological multiple-field approach and discusses its conditions, implications, and potential applications. Examples from Gestalt theoretical psychotherapy, in the context of which this approach was developed in a differentiated way, and from other areas of application, serve as illustrations.