What is gestalt theory?  I'm looking for a definition that would give
a non therapist basic understanding of gestalt.

Hi newhistorian:

Thanks for the interesting question. 

The best definitions that I've been able to find, that are
understandable by the non-therapist are:

"Gestalt theory focused on the mind?s perceptive processes (Kearsley,
1998). ... Gestalt theorists followed the basic principle that the
whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In other words, the whole
(a picture, a car) carried a different and altogether greater meaning
than its individual components (paint, canvas, brush; or tire, paint,
metal, respectively). In viewing the "whole," a cognitive process
takes place ? the mind makes a leap from comprehending the parts to
realizing the whole."
From: Gestalt and Instructional Design
URL: http://chd.gse.gmu.edu/immersion/knowledgebase/strategies/cognitivism/gestalt/gestalt.htm

"Gestalt theory first arose in 1890 as a reaction to the prevalent
psychological theory of the time - atomism. Atomism examined parts of
things with the idea that these parts could then be put back together
to make wholes. Atomists believed the nature of things to be absolute
and not dependent on context. Gestalt theorists, on the other hand,
were intrigued by the way our mind perceives wholes out of incomplete
elements [1, 2]. "To the Gestaltists, things are affected by where
they are and by what surrounds them...so that things are better
described as "more than the sum of their parts."" [1, p. 49].
Gestaltists believed that context was very important in perception. An
essay by Christian von Ehrenfels discussed this belief using a musical
example. Take a 12 note melody. Play it in one key, say the key of C.
Now change to another key, say the key of A flat. There might not be
any notes the same in the two songs, yet a person listening to it
knows that it is the same tune. It is the relationships between the
notes that give us the tune, the whole, not which notes make up the
tune."
From: Gestalt Principles of Perception
URL: http://www.usask.ca/education/coursework/skaalid/theory/gestalt/gestalt.htm

"Gestalt is the German word for "form," and as it applied in gestalt
psychology it means "unified whole" or " configuration." The essential
point of gestalt is that in perception the whole is different from the
sum of its parts. Gestalt psychologists developed five laws that
govern human perception."
From: Gestalt Psychology
URL: http://homepages.ius.edu/RALLMAN/gestalt.html
Note: This site also has an excellent, simple explanation of some of
the laws of human perception from a Gestalt perspective.

Search Strategy (on Google):
* "gestalt theory" definition
* gestalt theory parts

I hope this is of help!

websearcher

Thank you.  I think I can work with what you have shared.

Good answer.

Perhaps it may be of interest to add that the new 'holistic' approach to was
found, or at least initially supported, by quantitative experiments:
At he beginning, psychologists measured time needed to interpret a scene, a 
drawing. They expected that complex scene will take longer time and were amazed
that times needes to 'get a scene' and take same action, based on
understanding the picture were about same for all drawings.  For that
they concluded that human mind gets things 'at once' - as whole, or,
as they called, as Gestalt.

Word  came trough many shifts in meaning and now usually mean a
particular approach to therapy. Original puzzle of 'equal time' was
demystified when people realised that visual cortex (as rest of the
brain) works like a massively parallel computer.