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Psychotherapists’ engagement in social context and out of the therapy room
NVAGT Congress, Antwerp, Oct.18th 2015
Ivana Vidaković
Content
• How I became interested for Gestalt psychotherapy and its social application?
• Reflections on some recent social events from gestalt perspective.
• How to include more social, economic and political perspectives in gestalt psychotherapy training?
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War and conflicts in the Balkan region
The former Yugoslavia fell apart through
• War in Croatia (1991 – 1995)
• War in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992 – 1995)
• War in Kosovo and NATO bombing of FR Yugoslavia (1999)
Specific features in
• Inter-ethnic background
• Proximity of war events and range of the population affected
• Brutality and inhuman and cruel treatments, torture, ethnic cleansing
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Wars and displacements in the Balkan region
Out of 23.5 millions of inhabitants of the SFRY 3.7millions (15.83 %), i.e. every sixth citizen,
became a refugee or internally displaced/IDP.
By war regions:
– Croatia 15.58% – Bosnia 51.08% – Kosovo 47.7%
Serbia, with population of 8millions, accepted around 1million (750,000 refugees and 275,000 IDPs.)
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1995
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What we have learned while working with refugees
Programs and interventions in war affected areas have to be:
• Based of the needs of clients and communities that change during the time
• Sensitive for cultural and individual diversity
• Pro-active – in the offices, but also in the community, through the field visits, in collective centers and beneficiaries’ homes
• Flexible, pragmatic , eclectic
• With realistic goals, for prevention of burnouts
• Multidisciplinary and cooperative– working in teams, networking with other organizations and institutions
• Documented and evaluated, with research and advocacy component for influencing decision makers
• With awareness of the context and Social, Political Cultural and Ethical implications of our work
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http://www.ian.org.rs/publications available in English and free for download
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Floods, 2014
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Floods, points to be taken:
• Recognise already existing examples of community involvement and social responsibility among students
• Allow exchange of information, expression and exploration of different positions & perspectives.
• Facilitate dialogue.
• Provide gestalt framework for understanding individual and social experiences in the on-going process.
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Ukraine, 2014
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Ukraine, points to be taken:
• Be aware of the field; the wider context/background and what is emerging “here and now” in the space between us
• Follow the process, be flexible to change strategy according to recognized immediate needs
• Recognise limits
• Do not take the power from the others, share responsibilities for the outcomes
• Engage internal resources and expertise, strengthen the existing capacity
• Look for more systematic and long term strategy, build continuity and the support systems
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Exhibition “The Border is closed’ Belgrade, 2015
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• Ask people for their intentions and needs
• Notice the power of media on general public opinion
• Engage community resources
• Recognise what is missing, what is in the background
• Address polarities
• New trauma triggers the old one
Immigrants crises, points to be taken:
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Human rights and social responsibility in Gestalt Therapy Training
“… any gestalt psychotherapy training program need to incorporate and underline social, cultural, political and ecological awareness in its curriculum”, EAGT, AGM Krakov 2013
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Social Change Skills
(Melnick, 2015)
• Create Shared Awareness • Create Shared Energy • Believe that All Parties are Doing the Best They Can • Intervene and Create Meaningful Dialogue at All
Levels of the System • Have a Powerful Presence • Manage Political Power • Appreciate the Complexity of Sub-Groups • Live Out The Values
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Social healing interventions as ‘… the opening up of relational spaces . . . to promote a joining of energy to achieve collective action around an issue of concern'
(Melnick&Nevis, 2009, 2012)
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Gestalt Concepts as Applied to Social Change Intervention
1. Underlying Philosophical perspective: • Holism • Optimism 2. Principles of Learning and Change: • Awareness and the Gestalt Cycle of Experience • Multiple Realities and the Management of Energy • Completion of Unfinished Situations • Level of System 3. Centrality of Relationship building in Creating Change: • Dialogue and Contact • Presence and Use of Self • Integration of Strategic and Intimate Interactions • Joining in a Superordinate Goal
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Gestalt concepts for Social Change Int. – In a search for a hermeneutic orientation
(Vidakovic, 2015)
• Field approach and System perspective
– Human suffering from the field theory perspective & as a relational phenomenon
– Dealing with Uncertainty
• Relational and Dialogical approach
– Humans as connected and co-operative
– Balancing needs for independence and relatedness
– Responsibility and power as relational phenomena
• Values and Ethics
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Human suffering in the field
• Gestalt Therapy gives the meaning of people suffering in a field perspective - human suffering as an emergent figure expressed by the individuals/groups/ nations, but carried on by the context and the relational field. (Buber, 1958; Spagnuolo Lobb, 2005; Francesetti, 2015)
• Those that have less power –children, minorities – often have a higher degree of truth and difficulty in emerging. Becoming aware of the suffering of a relationship is a cure in itself. (Francesetti, 2015)
• This suffering becomes manifest in the individual and can be transformed by the individuals (Philippson, 2009; Francesetti, 2015).
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Cultivate Uncertainty
• Gestalt Therapy in times of Anxiety and Uncertainty… The process of formative contact is an integral part of the broader social context… it must re-act to the relational difficulties of society… the consequence is a sense of uncertainty. Unavoidable uncertainty about the future as screen for projections of fears...(Staemmler, 2000)
• There is no certainty of finding work, no certainty of remaining in a relationship, even no certainty of remaining alive - no one is safe from anything. (Spagnuolo Lobb, 2015)
• Uncertainty as a Value –not avoided, accepted uncertainty. The commitment of GT to uncertainty, process and change (Staemmler, 2000)
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Humans as connected and co-operative
• Humanistic tradition
• People lead by higher motivation, yearning to connect to the others, make a difference and contribute to some higher purpose.
(Wikipedia, Mozilla Fire fox, Linux, etc)
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… change interventions and social healing can be formulated more accurately as a task of supporting pro-social human behaviours, rather than a reparative task of problem diagnosis and remedial action.
(Denham-Vaughan, S. 2011)
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• … the tension generated by the two competing cultural drives that get played out in situations around the world: one for inter-dependence and inter-connectedness and the other for increasing autonomy and independence.
… balancing these two factors and fostering field conditions that bring out the cooperative aspect in individuals (Melnick &Nevis, 2009)
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Balancing needs for independence and relatedness
How to balance independence and relatedness in the Gestalt psychotherapy training?
• “Belonging independence” (Spagnuolo Lobb, 2015)
Training in psychotherapy must guarantee:
Individuated and creative opening up to society.
Tolerance for diversity. Opening up for the “differences and being different”
The ability to self-regulate in relations, above all in conflicts. … putting faith in the conflict, as experience of contact-with-the-different which has in itself the potential for self-regulation.
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Responsibility and Power in relationship
• One of the aims of Gestalt therapy: To enable people to take part in society and be co‐responsible.
Responsibility for the self inevitably includes responsibility for the others who share our world.
No self can be separated from its environment.
• Power as 'an experience occurring between or among people and not something lodged in an individual person or group’. (Melnick &Nevis, 2009)
Having empathy and taking care for the vulnerable persons we are caring for parts of our self, regaining our own power and authonomy in response-able connection to the wold. (Clarkson &Cavicchia, 2014)
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Values and Ethics • It is not easy to transmit ethical values in a time of social
corruption like ours (Spagnuolo Lobb, 2015).
• “A Culture of Growing Indifference” (a crisis of ethics and values, as the effect of long-term impact of economic, sociocultural, and political factors to people’s inner lives) vs. “Gestalt of Hope” (an ethos of solidarity and collective responsibility where the interrelation between personal and social factors, and individual and cultural aspects, will be truly considered in our work within a field perspective)(Ciorna, 1999)
• A crucial issue for gestalt practitioners is ensuring that the outcomes achieved by the projects we work with are those that we ethically subscribe to. (Denham-Vaughan, 2011)
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… it is impossible for anyone to be extremely happy until we are more happy more generally.
(Perls, Hefferline, and Goodman, 1951, pp. 250–251).
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In a quest for: Examples of the Application of Human Rights and Social Responsibility issues in Psychotherapy Training programs
Examples of the Application of Gestalt approach in Social Healing and Social Change Interventions
EAGT HR&SR Committee http://www.eagt.org/hrsrcommittee.htm
Ivana Vidakovic
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References: • Buber, M. (1958) I and Thou, Scribner, Edinburgh
• Ciorna, S. (1999) Paths for the Future: From a Culture of Indifference Toward a Gestalt of Hope, Gestalt Review, 3(3):178–189
• Clarkson,P updated by Cavicchia, S. (2014) Gestalt Counselling in Action, SAGE Publications, London
• Denham-Vaughan, S. (2011) Gestalt as social intervention: supporting a process or repairing a problem? British Gestalt Journal, 20(1), 5.
• Francesetti, G. (2015) The Emergent Suffering. Field perspective on psychopathology in Gestalt Therapy, in Klaren, G, Levi, N. and Vidakovic, I. (Eds) Yer We Care! Social, political and cultural relationship as therapy‘s ground, Gestalt perspective, deBoekdrukker, the Netherlands
• Melnick, J. &Nevis, E.(2009) Mending the world, Social Healing Interventions by Gestalt Practitioners Worldwide, South Wellfleet: Gestalt International Study Center
• Melnick, J. (2015) Introduction, in Klaren, G, Levi, N. and Vidakovic, I. (Eds) Yer We Care! Social, political and cultural relationship as therapy‘s ground, Gestalt perspective, deBoekdrukker, the Netherlands
• Perls, F., Hefferline, R. and Goodman, P. (1951) Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality, New York: Dell Publication, pp. 250–251.
• Philippson, P. (2009) The emergent Self. An Existential-Gestalt Approach. Karnak Books, London
• Spagnuolo Lobb, M. ( 2005) Classical Gestalt Therapy Theory. In Woldt A.L. and Toman S. M. (Eds.), Gestalt Therapy. History, Theory, and Practice . Sage Publications, California, USA, pp. 21-39
• Spagnuolo Lobb, M. (2015) Human Rights and Social Responsibility in Gestalt Therapy Training, in Klaren, G, Levi, N. and Vidakovic, I. (Eds) Yer We Care! Social, political and cultural relationship as therapy‘s ground, Gestalt perspective, deBoekdrukker, the Netherlands
• Staemmler, F.(2000) Like a fish in water: Gestalt therapy in times of uncertainty. Gestalt Review 4/3, p.205- 218.
• Vidakovid, I. (2009) Leben (and Psychotherapeutin warden) in einer Nachkriegsgesellschaft, in Schulthess, P., & Anger, H, Gestalt und politik, IGW Publikationen in der EHP
• Vidakovic, I (2015) After the war and conflicts in the Western Balkans, in Klaren, G, Levi, N. and Vidakovic, I. (Eds) Yer We Care! Social, political and cultural relationship as therapy‘s ground, Gestalt perspective, deBoekdrukker, the Netherlands
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