Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy, desire and change
People may come to therapy because they are suffering or because something in their life no longer works. At other times, they no longer know what they want.
Sometimes the work is about coming to do what one wants; at other times, about wanting what one does.
The person and what they bring
We all share the range of human emotions, but each person lives them within a different story. This makes us unique, while still allowing us to reach one another. Words, too, acquire their meaning within that story: the same word can describe experiences that are very far apart.
The symptom and what it says
The work allows time to encounter the symptom, what the person brings, or the point where they seem to be stuck. A symptom is often experienced as an enemy to be eliminated. It can also be a sign that something in life is not going very well. Sometimes it takes up so much space that a person comes to see themselves mainly through it. Finding a different relationship with what weighs on life can help reveal the place it has taken. From there, it becomes possible to try responding differently to what happens.
Inside and outside
Every day, events and encounters involve us. As they happen, something moves within us and may be felt in the body. Sometimes we recognise it as an emotion or a sensation; at other times, it appears as an image or a memory. What a person feels changes how they are in the world, and what happens to them changes what they feel.
Telling the story of an event and noticing what happens while telling it are different experiences. In a session, attention can move between the event and its effect, bringing an emotion that had remained at the edges of the story into the foreground. In Gestalt work, that emotion can be experienced through to its full expression, and feeling takes an active part in both the session and life.
There is what is there, and there is the effect it has.
The shape the work takes
What happens in a session guides the work. The same person may find a certain kind of experience useful in one meeting and need something else in the next. The choice depends on the situation and on the response to what is offered. During a session, the way of being present can also change. Sometimes something significant can be sensed in the light in a person’s eyes, as though they were closer to themselves.
Expressing oneself and choosing
Expressing what one wants and making a choice can become difficult when there is a fear of disappointing someone. Therapy offers opportunities to recognise what matters personally and to explore how to stand by it in everyday life, while facing the consequences of one’s choices.
One person, many voices
The parts that speak
It is possible to want something and fear it at the same time. One part pushes in a direction, another holds back; both take part in the way a person acts and chooses.
Over the course of life, some voices gain authority while others fade into the background. An “I must” that leaves no alternatives, or a repeated “I can’t”, often reveals how this inner world has become organised.
In therapy, these parts can find a voice. Each carries a desire and tries to protect something. When the relationship between them changes, a choice that seemed blocked can become possible.
What is worth pursuing
Wanting rests on feeling. When a person no longer knows what they want, the work returns to what they feel in their body and emotions, and to the effect of what they are living through. From there, a desire can begin to take shape and guide the way they move in the world.
Moving towards something one wants can take effort and feel frightening. Sometimes it also means bearing some pain. The possibility imagined beyond that fear needs to matter enough to the person; otherwise, the attempt risks becoming a struggle that continues without direction.
Resignation, too, can have dignity. Giving up the pursuit of what remains out of reach opens other ways of inhabiting the present. It can become a new place to make camp and look at one’s world again. From there, with a different landscape ahead, one can choose how to continue.
Ways of working
Adults, couples and groups
Sessions take place at my practice in Florence and online. The format is chosen together, according to the situation.
Individual therapy
For adults going through a difficult time or finding themselves once again in something painful. The session involves the way they relate to themselves and to the world. Change becomes visible outside the consulting room, when everyday life allows something that was not possible before.
Couples
For couples going through a crisis or returning to the same conflicts. The work follows what happens between the partners and how each takes part, including when they need to understand whether and how to continue together.
Groups
In therapy groups, each person works on what they choose, in the presence of others. What happens between people becomes part of the work and sometimes reveals things that cannot be seen alone.