ABSTRACT
The addictive experience is a suffering with multiple and complex neuro-bio-psycho-social implications; recent neuroscientific research confirms the clinical intuitions of Gestalt Psychotherapy on the isomorphism between the brain areas involved in the development of relational skills and those determining the pathogenesis of addiction. From an evolutionary point of view, we look at addiction as a persistent traumatic background experience just from its onset, and we highlight the role of possible failures in the primary relationship of recognition as a vulnerability factor. Gestalt work with addictive experiences does not aim, therefore, at the “management” of the addictive-object but at the promotion of a real experience of recognition, at the revitalisation of the self, at the perception of the safety of the ground, at the mobilisation of the background, or at a new perception of time. Through the presentation of a clinical case, the authors show us how to understand, in a hermeneutic view, the suffering in the addictive experience and co-construct, in an aesthetic perspective, and the ground of relational security necessary for change.
