The Importance of Closure
Do you have a task list that never seems to be complete? Or several DIY jobs that are left neglected? Or alternatively; did you stop getting certain social invites without a warning? Have you had a break-up that you struggled to process? Did you have someone drop out of your life and you’re not really sure why? All of these are examples of situations or tasks the conscious (and subconscious) mind would deem incomplete. In order to understand the importance of closure to the mind we need to take a trip back in time to the 1920’s. At this time the Gestalt psychologist Kurt Lewin made a discovery about the behaviour of waiters. If a tab was open and was to be bill paid then the waiter would have a good recall of the transaction. However once the bill had been settled and the customer left, when the waiter was asked to recall the transaction they had much less success. Lewin’s take on this was, ‘As long as the transaction was incomplete, it lacked closure and generated tension, mai