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The classic premise in a Gestalt is that a need organizes our field of perception. When we are hungry, we only see potential food. A mother, who takes a walk with the baby in a stroller for the first time and encounters the stairs in front of the house, will be surprised to learn that she hasn’t noticed the same stairs before (Čanić, 2013).

In Gestalt psychology the figure represents the subject of our interest, influenced by our needs, towards which we direct our attention and consciousness at a given time. To form a figure means to become interested in a particular thing and to attach meaning to the experience (Nevis 1987).

Gestalt coaching is based on working with the material the client himself brings to the process, material that is important to him. The theme develops from the process of sharpening this material into a specific figure.

Let’s take an example of a client who enters the coaching with the goal of achieving higher visibility inside her organization. During the coaching she describes many examples of her company peers who are receiving praise and other forms of rewards. The feeling of inadequate organizational visibility sharpens as a figure and becomes the coaching theme. At the end of the coaching process, after the client has successfully improved her visibility, she stops noticing the same thing – the figure becomes ground.

Background includes everything that is not a figure in a certain point of time. Each element has the potential to become a figure. Constant changes between the figure and the ground constitute the basis of our experience and our perception of the environment.

If we look more broadly, the background includes the way we see the world and operate in it. It represents our beliefs and way of thinking. Thus, the background affects our approach to creating new figures (Bluckert 2006). For example, if a person feels insecure in her professional abilities, he or she may fail to notice an interesting project opportunity and ask the boss to engage in it (Čanić 2013).

Therefore the process of learning in the coaching process can happen on two levels: through assisting a client in overcoming current problems (figures) and through his/her overall development as an individual (background) (Bluckert 2006). For example, the client can present a problem with a »disobedient« associate who refuses to perform certain tasks as a theme or a figure. At the same time, in the background, he can realize that his problem is connected to under-developed influencing skills (Čanić 2013).