EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION

FOR GESTALT THERAPY

IISSUESSUE No 2299 • DDECEC 22016016

GGESTALTESTALT PILLSPILLS [26/35]

Inspiration by writings about Gestalt Therapy / Antonia Konstantinidou & Astrid Dusendschön

The amount of articles and books es of words, paragraphs, phrases, ex- welcomed to suggest it. Recommend about Gestalt Therapy is certainly cerpts from journals and books about an article or a book, write one or two big and overwhelming. A lot of in- Gestalt Therapy that left a deep im- paragraphs about it, and send it… We teresting writings exist all over the pression. These kinds of moments we will store it and edit it for the forth- world. At times though, we all have would like to share. coming issues of EAGT Newsletter. read something that inspired us and All of you, who have to propose Contact: [email protected], add to had an impact on us. There are piec- something that inspired you, feel the subject: For EAGT Newsletter

Donna Orange: “My other’s keeper: Resources for the ethical turn in psychotherapy” by Antonia Konstantinidou

his issue is deeply infl uenced need as therapists to undertake this by the joint conference of responsibility. Among many things, TEAGT and AAGT under the she said: “…Let us assume that trau- title “The Aesthetic of Otherness: ma is both event and experience. meeting at the boundary in a desen- Something terrible has occurred: sitized world”. It was a rich, some- an earthquake, a rape, the death of times overwhelming meeting where a child, torture, genocide, a cancer we challenged our fi xed concepts diagnosis. Nothing can be as it was about Gestalt therapy, the other and before, or can be trusted to be as we ourselves in various ways. assumed it to be. One’s world is just deranged (Stolorow, 2007), and even • Donna Orange’s speech when gradually reorganized around “…One of the strongest stimula- the tornado’s devastation or the dic- the face of the Other, just as Emma- tions, that created a lot of inspiration tator’s dictates, this reality is always nuel Lévinas wrote. One expression and discussions, was the fi rst plena- haunted by the sense that terrible he used for this condition of infi nite ry speech by Donna Orange along things can happen at any moment… responsibility, when we are so fi nite, with comments by Dan Bloom, Lynn …The clinician, like other hu- was traumatism. Critchley explains Jacobs and Margherita Spagnuolo manitarian workers, lives in a double that for Levinas “my relation to the Lobb. The title of the presentation: asymmetry. From a surface point of other is not some benign benevo- “My other’s keeper: Resources for view, we have all the power in the lence, compassionate care or respect the ethical turn in psychotherapy”. clinical relationship. We set the time, for the other’s autonomy, but is the In her speech, Donna Orange talked the place, the fee, and decide whether obsessive experience of a respon- about the ethical responsibility of the to see this troubled person or not. On sibility that persecutes me with its psychotherapist toward the “suff er- the other side, once we are involved, sheer weight” (Simon Critchley, ing” other and the resources that we we are besieged and persecuted by 2007), pp. 60-61. “The ethical de- GESTALT PILLS • Inspiration by Gestalt Therapy writings / Antonia Konstantinidou & Astrid Dusendschön [27/35] mand,” Critchley goes on, “is a trau- questions that arose from your other. matic demand, it is something that speech was about the focus on suf- That said, radical ethics, in the comes from outside the subject from fering and the ethical responsibil- voices of Levinas, Knud Logstrup a heteronomous source, but which ity of the therapist to suff er with and others, placing the care of the leaves imprint within the subject” (p. the other. What about meeting the other before self-involvement, 61). The condition of the subject per- suff ering other, while also keeping emerged from dark times. Radical secuted by preoriginal responsibility, alive our connection and grounding ethics asks why some passed by while traumatism never ends…” * of ourselves as therapists/profes- the Samaritan cared for the abused sionals accompanying the suff ering and abandoned stranger. Radical * Excerpt from the speech of other in the joy and lightness of exis- ethics confronts us with bystander- Donna M. Orange. The speech you tence? ship in the face of massive injustices. can fi nd at: http://www.taorm- DONNA: Yes, I often hear this It asks how we cannot see that the inaconference2016.com/eng/ question about how radical ethics is destruction of our earth threatens presentations/ oriented to suff ering and ignores the the most vulnerable people fi rst. It We asked Donna Orange to beauty, joy, and lightness (I would keeps us awake about mass incarcer- comment on a question we heard a add humor) in human life. These ation, genocides, including those of lot during the discussions there in more positive aspects, I think, actu- indigenous peoples. Taormina: ally sustain us--patients and ther- So you are right, we need to sup- Dear Donna, thank you very apists--while we cope with trauma port lightness and joy, but not at the much for accepting to comment for and injustice. We need them for our- cost of normalizing injustice. EAGT Newsletter. One of the many selves and must support them in the

Tonino Griff ero: “Atmospheres as themselves (in the right way). … “ * quasi-things – for a pathic aesthetics” by Astrid Dusendschön * Excerpt from the speech of Tonino Griff ero. The speech you • Tonino Griff ero’s speech mospherical aesthetics (…) empha- can fi nd at: http://www.taorm- In his speech, Tonino Griff ero pre- sizes (…) the cooperative relationship inaconference2016.com/eng/ sented fi rst the defi nition he gives to between perception and the more presentations/ the concept “pathic aesthetics”, fol- nuanced dimension of quasi-things We asked Tonino Griff ero to lowed by the one of “atmospheres”. which (…) emotionally tune their comment on a question we heard a He then explicited how “atmos- surroundings. I want to off er an ini- lot during the discussions there in pheres” opened up to the concept tial aesthetological and philosophical Taormina: of “quasi-things”, and concluded on analysis of this pathic area, inter- “Dear Tonino, thank you very “authority of atmospheric feelings”. mediate (“in between” indeed) but much for accepting to comment for Among many things, he said: “… predualistic. … EAGT Newsletter. Your speech has the philosophy I embrace explicitly … In short: we must learn to ‘expe- been for several of the auditors pres- favours ontological infl ationism – rience pathically’ (in the right way) ent a demanding one to follow just that’s the authentic leitmotif of my … We must pay attention (…) to the by listening. It brought us to a rich works – and a phenomenology en- pathic “to me” (…) that precedes ego- place of philosophical concepts and gaged with what appears (the phe- logical solidifi cation, which as such is also gave us a small insight into your nomenon) as it appears and in the af- fatally destined to the dualism typical work which, from what refl ected fective-bodily involvement it implies, of cognitivism. Having this program through your presentation, seems besides its genesis or causes… in mind, I wish to try to conceive of passionate. Among the panel of …Pathic aesthetics (…) intends to human beings not as ‘subjects-of’ but your speech: Monica Botelho Alvim, remain (…) as faithful as possible to rather as ‘subjects-to’ – not independ- Gianni Francesetti and Jean-Marie the presence – to the way in which ent and autonomous as modernity Robine, the latter raised the question “appearances” resound in our lived would it, but sovereign and adult just about the concept of quasi-things as body… … The present pathic and at- because they were educated to expose being reifi cation. Would you agree to GESTALT PILLS • Inspiration by Gestalt Therapy writings / Antonia Konstantinidou & Astrid Dusendschön [28/35] this?, or not – and could you explicit.“ precise name), diff erentiating them diff erent kind of “fi ltering” process, from the derivative (objective, exter- which corresponds to the diff erent TONINO: I know well that what nal and intentionally produced) and felt-bodily dispositions and degree of irritates the most within the atmos- even quite spurious ones (subjective personal emancipation of the diff er- pherologic approach is not just the and projective). According here only ent subjects. partial (sociological, anthropologi- to the prototypical atmospheres: 3) Another claim might be that cal) desubjectifi cation of feelings, but 1) it’s impossible to consider emo- this objectivity of feelings entails that rather their ontologization, even in tional dimensions as reifying, since all the feelings should be constantly spatial terms. This thesis shockingly their spatiality is toto coelo diff erent present in the given space. However, distances itself from introjection and from the local-thingly one. In short, this can be true only if we both disre- aims at underlining the external, not atmospheric feelings cause an illicit gard the typically intermittent state just projective, nature of (atmospher- reifi cation only for those who admit of atmospheric feelings: in fact they ic) feelings. Such externality is also the sole existence of a physical, ge- come and go and (like the wind and proven by the fact that sometimes ometrical, dimensional space on the unlike the things in a strict sense) we we can also simply observe feelings one hand, as well as the existence of cannot wonder where they’ve been. with a distanced attitude, we can talk things as cohesive and discrete enti- 4) One further objection is that about them with other people and ties on the other. the desubjectifi cation of feelings understand each other almost com- 2) What’s subjective in my ap- prevents them from being localized pletely, as well as speculate about proach, then, is simply the perception within the lived-body: but in this their eff ectiveness through counter- of an atmosphere in its own specifi c case we may reply that the felt-bod- factual reasoning and skilful situa- space (predimensional, surface-free, ily dimension is not integrally singu- tional manipulations. This ontologi- populated not just by things, but larized, that it’s not anything private cal objectifi cation has obviously been rather by quasi-things). Shame, for I can own and control, but instead seen as a dangerous reifi cation, even example, consists of an atmospheric something in which sometimes (as as a pseudo-transcendence similar to involvement coming from the out- in the case of the atmosphere of ho- that of Platonic ideas! However, this side and that is my own not because ly-day relaxation) the felt-body dis- objection falls short, at least faced “I” own it, but rather because it as- solves in a real felt-bodily communi- with those atmospheres I call proto- saults me. The only relative diff erent cation (with the inorganic too). typical (objective, external and unin- perception of an atmospheric feel- tentional, and sometimes lacking a ing can be explained by a somewhat