ABSTRACT
Bluma Zeigarnik, a Lithuanian-born gestalt psychologist, spent much of her career in Russia studying the effects of incomplete tasks on individuals. She founded the gestalt concept of unfinished business, also known as the Zeigarnik effect, named in honour of her extensive studies. Fritz Perls asserted that our life is basically nothing but an infinite number of unfinished situations. As soon as one task or situation is completed another arises. These incomplete gestalts will range from the relatively trivial such as mounting housework, to major life events such as an on-going grieving process. Zeigarnik’s research uncovered that unfinished business results in tension that in turn tends to motivate towards completion and that incomplete tasks take up more psychological space than completed task. Zeigarnik suffered several traumas and unfinished situations in her life, including one major trauma that triggered what might be described as a neurosis.
