Alessandro Cini
Psychotherapy, research and training.
These are fields that speak to one another, each with its own language and purpose. In the way I work, they share a common spirit. They intertwine and engage with one another: each enters into the movement of the others, changing it and being changed in turn.
Opening up possibilities
Every experience is a process that unfolds as it is lived. Trying things out within that process means exploring the possibilities it offers, recognising their different qualities and moving in the direction one chooses.
The work
The three fields
Psychotherapy
People may come to therapy when suffering has taken up too much space. At other times, they realise that life is not going as they would like, or they no longer know what they want. What happens in a session is shaped together, and the course of therapy takes form around the person.
When suffering and fear take up less space, parts of life that often remain out of reach can emerge. The range of feeling broadens and thoughts open onto new horizons. Even actions that once seemed impossible become within reach.
Research
Doing research means choosing what to look at and taking responsibility for that choice. The method needs to make the choices and steps visible, so that readers can follow the process and discuss the findings.
When what emerges contradicts the starting idea, it is the idea that needs to change. Qualitative research proceeds somewhat like psychotherapy. It begins with an open question and a way of working; encountering the material can change both.
Much of the research presented here concerns what happens in Gestalt psychotherapy, respecting the uniqueness of the encounter and its phenomenological foundations.
Training and residential workshops
A school passes on a tradition and teaches a profession. In Gestalt training, learning also draws on the way more experienced practitioners work. Over time, what has been learnt finds a place in each therapist’s own way of practising.
Teachers offer points of reference and opportunities to experiment. A personal style begins to emerge in the learner’s choices and in the effects those choices produce.
Roots
What happens between the parts.
During my Ph.D. in complex systems and nonlinear dynamics, I worked in sociophysics, studying the evolution of opinions and the dynamics of small groups. I later specialised in phenomenological and existential Gestalt psychotherapy, where I found the same attention to relationships and to the way the parts shape the whole.
The two worlds proved less distant than they had seemed: both ask us to keep the observer connected to what is observed, the person to their environment, and the parts to the whole. In that interplay, I found surprising connections and a way of working simply with what is complex.
Writing and research
Selected publications.
Articles and books in which clinical practice, research and their theoretical roots are explored in greater depth.
From the whole, from the part
The Dialogical Recursive Approach and qualitative research into experience.
How the world became
A phenomenological and systemic reading of trauma and the possibilities for change.
Di amore, presenza e rivoluzione
Therapeutic presence as participation, with love as its horizon.
Semplicità e complessità
Philosophy, science and Gestalt psychotherapy.