ABSTRACT
Over the months and years to come, we will be dramatically changing our perspective on psychotherapeutic values as well as creating new tools. Humanistic values, traditionally focused on supporting human potential and individual creativity, are evolving towards the value of a relational co-creation of a sense of security in our patients’ ground experience.
Gestalt psychotherapy is contributing to this turning-point by focusing on the unfolding of experience of both patient and therapist in the here-and-now of their encounter and by using aesthetic tools capable of diagnosing and helping the client by means of the knowing provided by the senses; concentrating moreover on the “dance” between the therapist and the patient, made up of intentional reciprocal movements, and supported by the therapist’s relational aesthetic.
Trusting the “dance” allows the patient to perceive the therapist’s presence as deeply connected to their spontaneous movements and to feel the secure ground that grows out of this relationship.
In a world deeply wounded by the pandemic, it is first of all necessary to take care of ourselves, heal our ground experience in order to be able to offer up a sound and stable presence to our patients. Unlike other traumatic situations confronted in therapy, in the case of this pandemic, those who are giving the care are exposed to the same risks as those being treated. This situation radically alters the way in which we do psychotherapy. It creates a field of profound humanity, in which it makes no sense to behave with the detachment of someone who does not wish to get involved with the patient’s pain.
