2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
This vignette describes a case of face-to-face, included supervision that took place during one of the supervision groups as part of a long-term professional training program for gestalt therapists. Therapist J., a young girl of 32 years old, worked with a client Z., her age. The application formulated by Z. related to her complaints of social phobia, which caused her quite a lot of inconvenience
Z. experienced a terrible anxiety, almost panic, whenever she found herself in the company of more than one person. It seemed to her that those around her were constantly observing her and at the same time assessing her very negatively, and the negative assessment had to do with almost all spheres of Z.'s life - from appearance to intellect.
From the very beginning of the session, J. looked rather confused, asked many questions and behaved as if the answers to them did not interest her. After the client informed her that she was never entitled to her wishes, the therapist shook her head and fell silent. After a pause for several minutes, J. asked the client to pause the session in order to receive supervision.
During supervision, J. looked depressed and said that she was unable to continue therapy. To my question about the reasons for her condition, she replied that the client's story falls exactly into the zone of psychological difficulties of herself: J., just like her client, every time she found herself among people she did not know, experienced significant, almost unbearable, shame, while she wanted to "sink into the ground."
The views of those around her were interpreted by her only as condemnation or ridicule. She felt a burning sense of shame even now, as she viewed the current session as a professional failure and failure. To my question about whether she has the right to her mistakes and desires in relations with others, J., of course, answered in the negative.
I expressed my surprise that a certain similarity between Z. and J. deprived the latter of the right to maintain a therapeutic position. I asked the therapist if she saw any therapeutic resources in these similarities. J. replied that she could only try to place her remarks about the similarity of psychological problems with Z. in contact with her, although she did not see any particular prospects in this. I asked J. if she saw an opportunity to allow herself to experience the feelings she was talking about now in the presence of the client and to continue the conversation with him, giving Z. an opportunity to experience what was happening.
It seems that this idea inspired J. a little and she cautiously asked: "Is it possible?" Having received the appropriate "permission for their own imperfection", J. returned to the session.
Having shared her feelings about the similarity of the psychological characteristics that disturb both participants in the therapeutic process, J. invited Z. to talk about her feelings associated with this. The therapist and the client soon moved into the zone of their experiences associated with feelings, fantasies, etc. that arise in contact with other people. This situation turned out to be a fertile ground for discussing their desires, arising in some of the most important social situations. Moreover, the client was encouraged by reporting a similar phenomenological picture from her therapist.
Thus, the process of experiencing was restored, and not only for the therapist, but also for the client. Shame ceased to manifest itself in a toxic way and could be placed in therapeutic contact. The emerging desires underlying shame - acceptance, recognition and care - could now exist not in an "autistic" mode, but in the process of experiencing in contact with another person.
Moreover, by receiving this kind of mutual support, the therapist and client were even able to organize a space for group experimentation in which lucid desires could find a way to satisfy.
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