Presenters: Gianni Francesetti, Michela Gecele, and Jan Roubal
Description:
Field perspective is receiving a growing interest in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, and there are many different ways to understand it. In this meeting, we will share our understanding of field theory in our practice, and how the therapeutic process is a field phenomenon. In this perspective, the change is not produced by an intervention of the therapist on the client, nor by a process of collaboration between therapist and client in order to co-create the change. The process of change is rather made by the forces already active in the field and the therapist modulates their presence in order for transformations to happen. We will question why there is now an increasing interest in field perspective in clinical work and how it is related to the changes in contemporary clinical suffering. Starting from this background, we will discuss what therapy should focus on today and which kind of support is needed in our work.
Biographies:
Gianni Francesetti, MD, psychiatrist and Gestalt therapist, is an adjunct professor of phenomenological and existential approach in the Department of Psychology, University of Torino (Italy), and an international trainer and supervisor, who has published widely on psychotherapy and psychopathology. He is the co-director of the IPsiG – International Institute for Gestalt Therapy and Psychopathology (www.ipsig.it) and of the Turin School of Psychopathology. He is the president of Poiesis – Gestalt Therapy Clinical Centre of Torino and the past president of the European Association for Gestalt Therapy (EAGT) and of the Italian Federation of Psychotherapy Associations (FIAP) as well as the co-founder of IG-FEST. His last two books are Phenomenological-Gestalt Psychopathology: A Light Introduction (l’Exprimerie, Bordeaux, 2022) and (co-edited with T. Griffero) Psicopatologia e Atmosfere. Prima del soggetto e del mondo (Fioriti, 2022; first English edition, Psychopathology and Atmospheres. Neither Inside nor Outside, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2019). He is the co-director of the book series Prospettive psicopatologiche e psicoterapia della Gestalt (Fioriti) and of Field Perspectives and Clinical Practice: Gestalt Therapy Series Books (Routledge).
Michela Gecele, MD, a psychiatrist and Gestalt therapist, trained in cultural anthropology. An international trainer and supervisor, she has published books, articles, and chapters on themes of psychotherapy and psychopathology, exploring clinical suffering from a phenomenological and Gestalt therapy viewpoint. Another clinical and research topic is that of cultural and intercultural issues (risks, opportunities, trauma and post-trauma, language, communication, and connections between social and cultural context and forms of illness and care). She has been working for 27 years in public mental health services and she has coordinated, in Turin, a psychological and psychiatric service for immigrants. She is the supervisor of public mental health services and of programs for immigrants. She is also a former member of the Human Rights & Social Responsibility (HR&SR) Committee of the European Association for Gestalt Therapy (EAGT). She is the co-director of the IPsiG – International Institute for Gestalt Therapy and Psychopathology (www.ipsig.it) and of the Turin School of Psychopathology as well as the co-founder of IG-FEST. She is the co-director of the book series Prospettive psicopatologiche e psicoterapia della Gestalt (Fioriti) and of Field Perspectives and Clinical Practice: Gestalt Therapy Series Books (Routledge). She has also published fiction and educational books.
Jan Roubal, MD, PhD, is an associate professor at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic, where he also works in the Center for Psychotherapy Research. He works as a psychotherapist and psychiatrist. He founded the Training in Psychotherapy Integration and the training Gestalt Studia in the Czech Republic, and he also works as a psychotherapy trainer and supervisor internationally. He co-edited the books Current Psychotherapy, Gestalt Therapy in Clinical Practice: From Psychopathology to the Aesthetics of Contact, and Towards a Research Tradition in Gestalt Therapy. Recently, he published the book Don’t Get in the Way of Hope: A Therapist’s Guide Through the Depressive Field. He is a co-founder of IG-FEST. He is a co-director of the Turin School of Psychopathology and of the book series Field Perspectives and Clinical Practice: Gestalt Therapy Series Books (Routledge).
