Rome, 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During university lessons, the teacher, to explain to us what a psychotherapist was, started with a roundup of \u201cit’s not\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He’s not a friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He is not a priest who absolves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He is not a parent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He is not an advisor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s not, it’s not, it’s not\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And we’re there wondering \u201cyes, okay, but what is it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I imagine who, in this increasingly absurd historical period and in a time of need, after having taken a little\u2019 courage, finds themselves looking for a professional to regain their mental health\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2026and looking a little\u2019 into the world of social media and beyond, it makes him wonder \u2026what kind of thing is this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because unfortunately we are witnessing so many \u201cit is not\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For a few years now, we have finally understood that mental health is important and we are witnessing a growing demand: investing in mental health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But what was and what is the answer?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The psychologist who is caring, gives advice, tells his business, \u201cforgets\u201d the sessions, arrives late. The advertisements with the free sessions. People who are miscalled \u201ccustomers\u201d as if they were buying a product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It seems that caring has taken the place of caring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Will it perhaps have to do with the idea one has of the human being?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyone with a broken leg would go to the orthopedist for treatment and walk again\u2026 but if the answer is a combination of advice, comfort zones\/good parent\/friend, and patches that are worse than the hole\u2026 the hope of treatment and resolution is gone\u2026 leaving room for what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The difference, however, is that a terrible orthopedist who doesn’t treat my leg, I can change it by finding another\u2026. instead the risk is that all of these \u201care not\u201d, far from being clinical, give the idea that psychotherapy is simply \u201cpaying someone to take on the role of parent present\u201d, attacking (or filling) a hole\u2026which necessarily empties again\u2026creating only dependence and not autonomy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If only it were cynicism, but just look at the myriad of advertisements where the key word is no longer care, but welcome and the turn unfortunately can be seen from the large number of those (the younger ones) who start using chatbots as their own \u201ctherapist\u201d. In the end, he’s compliant, he remembers everything, he’s always there\u2026 and not even if he pays!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, listening and reading, watching reels, interviews, listening to podcasts\u2026 that question (unfortunately) seems to come back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Who is the psychotherapist?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vienna, late 1700.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An old German doctor, Mesmer, talked about animal magnetism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was the idea, in embryo, that in one relationship, one human being could influence another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A bit\u2019 like when you get sick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But also a little\u2019 like when you fall in love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A bit\u2019 like the spells of witches, which in the Middle Ages made the most rational pale and those who saw them as women and not as monsters with brooms fall in love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paris, Early 1900.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Minkowsky, a French psychiatrist, wrote that in front of the patient \u201chaving an \u2018idea of curability is already therapeutic\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If the therapist thinks there’s a cure, you can cure yourself; otherwise, you can’t. It seems simple and obvious. It would be absurd to go to a dentist to treat cavities if he doesn’t think they can be cured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet, precisely certain approaches, advice, techniques\u2026underlie that thinking there. Sometimes it would be enough to ask at the first session \u201cExcuse me, do you take care or do you take care?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And sometimes it seems that artists, more than professionals, are clear about how a human being is made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rome, 70s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Massimo Fagioli, an Italian psychiatrist, writes the birth theory after discovering the nullification drive. Nonconscious dynamics that, with the illusion of making what hurts us disappear, makes its own emotional dimensions disappear, impoverishing, sometimes to the point of losing, our internal image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Human beings do not take their identity from others; they have their own internal image from birth, albeit fragile, and what falls ill is unconscious thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s a revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s not genetic, it’s not hereditary, it’s not bad. You get sick in a sick relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And you can heal in a relationship that is therapeutic if it is the care of the unconscious person who has fallen ill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This gives back a chance to those seeking a cure, whether patient or therapist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Human beings, over time, have seen those like them get sick, suffer and die. And one step at a time he tried to reject all of this. He invented medicine, he invented vaccines, he invented what his interest in others could make him invent or discover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And he also invented psychotherapy, to reject the illness of others, seeking a cure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The psychotherapist is a human being who, with an idea of cure in his head, feels, sees, knows, interprets and rejects the illness of another human being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2026and since the relationship is done by two people and no one is passive\u2026 who is the patient?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gianluca Ambrosini<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rome, 2012. During university lessons, the teacher, to explain to us what a psychotherapist was, started with a roundup of \u201cit’s not\u2026\u201d He’s not a friend. He is not a priest who absolves. He is not a parent. He is not an advisor. It’s not, it’s not, it’s not\u2026 And we’re there wondering \u201cyes, okay, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":7632,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n