All three—structuralism, Gestalt psychology, and Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis—are early schools of psychology that focused on describing and understanding inner mental experience rather than just observable behavior.

Quick Scoop

  • Structuralism, Gestalt psychology, and Freud’s work are all considered major “schools of thought” that helped establish psychology as a formal discipline in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
  • Each school tried to explain how the mind is organized and how subjective experiences (thoughts, feelings, perceptions) arise.
  • Despite big differences in methods, they all prioritized what goes on inside the mind over purely external, measurable behavior, which later behaviorists criticized.

What they have in common

  • All three approaches are concerned with understanding conscious or inner experience—what it feels like to think, perceive, or struggle psychologically.
  • They ask questions like: How is experience structured (structuralism)? How do we perceive meaningful wholes (Gestalt)? How do unconscious conflicts shape mental life (Freud)?
  • In typical multiple‑choice phrasing, the shared element is: “They were all concerned with describing and understanding the inner experience.”

Mini breakdown of each school

  • Structuralism : Tried to break consciousness into basic elements (sensations, feelings, images) using introspection to “map” the structure of the mind.
  • Gestalt psychology : Argued that the mind organizes experiences into wholes (“the whole is different from the sum of its parts”), focusing on patterns and perception.
  • Freud’s psychoanalysis : Emphasized the unconscious, internal conflicts, and symbolic meaning of thoughts and dreams as drivers of experience and behavior.

One-line test-style answer

If you see this as a quiz question—“What do structuralism, Gestalt psychology, and Sigmund Freud all have in common?”—the best answer choice is:

They were all concerned with describing and understanding the inner experience.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.