ABSTRACT
Gestalt therapy, with its peculiar holistic, relational, and field vision, makes it possible, in a complex environment such as oncology, to create a space of acceptance and containment of the sense of destructuring of the physical integrity and family and social roles of those who receive a cancer diagnosis. Answering to grief aims at supporting a process of integration of the illness into one’s own life and one’s own body experience.
In this chapter, the authors explore a clinical case. Through it, they want to analyse the tools to face up to the psychotherapeutic work with those who live the experience of oncologic illness. The perspective of the authors aims at respecting the feeling of loss of the patient and of his/her family member and at supporting the contact intentionalities emerging from the drama of the situation. Working with patients affected by chronic illness asks the psychotherapist to be a safe background in front of their terror, in order to go together through everything irresolute, worrying, and extremely variable that turns up.
