COURSE FOR SPECIALISTS

Field Theories in Gestalt Therapy and Contemporary Clinical Issues

In this workshop we focus the field theory as a way to conceptualize the phenomenal field, i.e. the emerging field dynamic in the therapeutic process. The implications of field theory in psychopathology and therapy are profound. We want to explore how we can apply this theory in practice, how therapists can modulate the way they are present in the session in order to support the process of change.

The theory that Gianni Francesetti is presenting is a way to address, from a Gestalt therapy perspective, the relational phenomena that psychoanalysis have called ‘transference and counter-transference.’ Gestalt understanding, however, builds on a different epistemology, one that is radically relational and based on field theory, which considers the self and the other as incessant and unending emerging processes.

From this basis, we can discover that what is emerging in the therapeutic relationship are, somehow, characters seeking for an author, pushing in order to exist, in order to become present. These characters – or unprocessed affects - are of course relevant for the personal history of the client and of the therapist. But they are also the result of the contemporary society and culture.

In this sense, psychopathology is always changing, mirroring the society’s development in a ‘prophetic’ way. Accordingly, therapy must change accordingly to the changes of the social and cultural context.

Gianni Francesetti

Psychiatrist, Gestalt therapist, Adjunt Professor of Phenomenological and Existential Approach, Dep. of Psychology, University of Torino (Italy), international trainer and supervisor, he has published widely on psychotherapy and psychopathology.

He is Co-Director of IPsiG - International Institute for Gestalt Therapy and Psychopathology and of Turin School pf Psychopathology. President of Poiesis - Gestalt Therapy Clinical Centre of Torino and Past President of the EAGT (European Association for Gestalt Therapy), of the SIPG (Italian Society for Gestalt therapy), of the FIAP (Italian Federation of Psychotherapy Associations), member of the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy.