ABSTRACT
Fluidity is synonymous with descriptions of aesthetic criterion and central to the gestalt approach is the promotion of fluid creative expression. Spagnuolo-Lobb outlines that grace (good form), rhythm (emotional regulation), and fluidity (movements) are aesthetic criteria for seeing how much spontaneity or anxiety the client and the therapist experience in their contact making. The aesthetic values of gestalt are articulated well by Bloom who describes them as one of gestalt’s unique attributes and that ‘the intrinsic sensed qualities of the forming figure contain the vitality of the organism/environment and is the radical core of Gestalt therapy’s understanding of life’. In gestalt therapy the formation of self is not defined in the same way as psychoanalytic theories, from the inside out, neither is it seen as forming as the behaviourists have it, from the outside in. It is seen as an aesthetic activity that takes place at the contact boundary where meeting between person and environment form in the moment.
