Psychotherapy during the pandemic
– the humanist-experiential psychotherapy perspective

V Research Conference of the PTPG
(The Polish Society of Gestalt Psychotherapists)
25-26 February 2022

Press release no. 1

Mission, aim, subject matter

The forthcoming V Research Conference of the Polish Society of Gestalt Psychotherapists will naturally relate to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has forced most people to adapt to hitherto unprecedented circumstances. These have been accompanied by phenomena such as:

  • Risk to health and life, as well as the means of earning a living and economic stability
  • Isolation, restricted interpersonal contact; intense personal contact
  • Electronic methods of communication, which have, on the one hand, customized each interaction, yet on the other hand, have computed it.

People have also become more conscious of the impact of these changes on the natural world, which may well have issued humanity with a ‘yellow card’.

The processes of adaptation related to these phenomena have also been in evidence in the practice rooms of psychotherapists, as well as in the rapports that have been built therein. For this reason, following many months of psychotherapeutic practice within the confines of this new situation, we would like to take a close look at what the era of pandemic has done to humanity and at how humanity has responded during this time.

We are inviting humanist-experiential psychotherapists to present papers in which they expound on their experiences – practice-based, grounded in Gestalt psychotherapy and research findings. It is hoped that these will enable us to determine what has changed within psychotherapeutic meetings: what has made a particular appearance, and what has disappeared, and to what degree. We would also like to offer the opportunity to discuss how (within the context of the client’s development) we can benefit from these existential meetings, what is worth fostering within them, and what not to maintain.

We propose to consider these experiences from a few different perspectives, including that of:

  1. The client’s ‘problem’ or the psychotherapeutic problem: who self-referred for treatment and for what – what issues were flagged up by clients, including new clients.
  2. The psychotherapist’s encounters with him/herself (in a pandemic situation) and the consequences thereof for work with the client.
  3. The humanistic-experiential psychotherapist’s encounter with therapists and their ideas from other specialist areas and modalities.

We propose to continue with these themes during post-conference workshops and, over time, consolidate the ideas initiated at these meetings.

Organisational details

Online conference dates: 25-26 February, 2022

Abstracts of conference papers and interest in participation will be received from September 2021. There will be a further announcement about this in the following notice.

The Committee for the V Research Conference of the Polish Society of Gestalt Psychotherapists

Przewodniczący:
dr hab. Wiktor Żłobicki, prof. UWr

Członkowie:
dr hab. Krystyna Ablewicz, prof. UJ
dr n. med. Ludmiła Kosińska
dr hab. Jolanta Kowal
mgr Łukasz Krawętkowski
dr n. hum. Agnieszka Mościcka-Teske
dr hab. Marcin Rzeszutek
mgr Radosław Ścibek