ABSTRACT
PHG acknowledge the word ‘aggression’ has usually used to describe an unprovoked attack but its broader meaning, the way it is used in gestalt includes ‘everything that an organism does to initiate contact with its environment’ (1951: 70). Aggression is necessary in the contacting process to destructure in order to assimilate; liberating healthy aggression frees the individual to live creatively and spontaneously. Through healthy aggression we mobilize and organize our energy to act on our field to satisfy our emerging need. We need aggression to maintain a healthy flow in relation to our situation, to take in from our environment when needed and to armour ourselves when field conditions indicate a need for self-protection. To avoid what is toxic, unhealthy or unwelcome in the environment often takes an act of aggression. The child that does not want to eat clamps her jaw shut or spits the food out, the adult ‘spits out’ the unreasonable request from the other. When a healthily aggressive response is unsupported by the environment, our ability to creatively adjust may on the one hand lead to our contact boundary becoming less permeable or alternatively the creative adjustment can lead to an adaption to avoid conflict through confluence.
