Gestalt psychology or gestaltism is a school of psychology that emerged in Austria and Germany in the early twentieth century based on work by Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, and Kurt Koffka. As used in Gestalt psychology, the German word gestalt ( / ɡəˈʃtælt, - ˈʃtɑːlt, - ˈʃtɔːlt, - ˈstɑːlt, - ˈstɔːlt / gə-SHTA (H)LT