EN
02/2020 Istituto di Gestalt Therapy Kairos Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns GTK BOOKS/04
In its quarter of a century, the institute the most illustrious representatives of
significantly contributed to the history and second generation Gestalt therapists – E. progression of Gestalt psychotherapy, Polster, M. Polster, S.M. Nevis, Ed Nevis, R.
forming about a thousand Kitzler and others – committing
psychotherapists and intersecting various themselves to international research and fruitful relationships of cooperation projects about Gestalt psychotherapy and aliation with many national as well theory and therapy. The institute weaved as international corporations and bodies didactic and scientific exchanges with the directed to scientific exchange and most prestigious Gestalt therapy institutes
research in the specific field of in Italy and abroad, as well as with the most
psychotherapy and treatment connections. qualified Gestalt Therapy associations From the beginnings, the institute has been worldwide, maintaining relationships of in contact with Gestalt psychotherapy cooperation. In 2001, the institute started a
founders that were living at that time – collaboration with the Università Cattolica
Isadore From, Jim Simkin – and handled to del Sacro Cuore, establishing second level start didactic and scientific exchanges with Master courses, today at their 16th edition.
THE INSTITUTE ORGANISES AFFILIATIONS
■ Professional Master's Programmes in Pastoral EAGT (European Association for Gestalt Therapy) Counselling" and in Psycho-oncology in EAP (European Association for Psychotherapy)
collaboration with the Italian Università Cattolica SIPG (Società Italiana di Psicoterapia della Gestalt) del Sacro Cuore, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery FISIG (Federazione Italiana Scuole e Istituti di Gestalt) of Rome, co-managed with the Institute of CNSP (Coordinamento Nazionale Scuole Psicoterapia)
Neuroscience and Gestalt Therapy "Nino Trapani”, FIAP (Federazione Italiana delle Associazioni di in Sicily, Latium and Veneto Psicoterapia).
■ Continuing Medical Education Courses - ECM
■ International training in Gestalt Family Therapy WEB
■ Higher Education School in Pastoral Counselling www.gestaltherapy.it
■ Training courses for teachers accredited by MIUR,
in collaboration with the Phronesis Center BLOG
www.gestaltherapy.it/blog/
OFFICES RECOGNISED BY THE MIUR SCHOOL MANAGEMENT
Sicily Ragusa AND SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
Latium Rome Giovanni Salonia Scientific director
Veneto Venice Valeria Conte Didactic program director
In its quarter of a century, the institute the most illustrious representatives of
significantly contributed to the history and second generation Gestalt therapists – E.
progression of Gestalt psychotherapy, Polster, M. Polster, S.M. Nevis, Ed Nevis, R.
forming about a thousand Kitzler and others – committing
psychotherapists and intersecting various themselves to international research
and fruitful relationships of cooperation projects about Gestalt psychotherapy
and aliation with many national as well theory and therapy. The institute weaved
as international corporations and bodies didactic and scientific exchanges with the
directed to scientific exchange and most prestigious Gestalt therapy institutes
research in the specific field of in Italy and abroad, as well as with the most
psychotherapy and treatment connections. qualified Gestalt Therapy associations
From the beginnings, the institute has been worldwide, maintaining relationships of
in contact with Gestalt psychotherapy cooperation. In 2001, the institute started a
founders that were living at that time – collaboration with the Università Cattolica
Isadore From, Jim Simkin – and handled to del Sacro Cuore, establishing second level
start didactic and scientific exchanges with Master courses, today at their 16th edition.
THE INSTITUTE ORGANISES AFFILIATIONS
■ Professional Master's Programmes in Pastoral EAGT (European Association for Gestalt Therapy)
Counselling" and in Psycho-oncology in EAP (European Association for Psychotherapy)
collaboration with the Italian Università Cattolica SIPG (Società Italiana di Psicoterapia della Gestalt)
del Sacro Cuore, Faculty of Medicine and Surgery FISIG (Federazione Italiana Scuole e Istituti di Gestalt)
of Rome, co-managed with the Institute of CNSP (Coordinamento Nazionale Scuole Psicoterapia)
Neuroscience and Gestalt Therapy "Nino Trapani”, FIAP (Federazione Italiana delle Associazioni di
in Sicily, Latium and Veneto Psicoterapia).
■ Continuing Medical Education Courses - ECM
■ International training in Gestalt Family Therapy WEB
■ Higher Education School in Pastoral Counselling www.gestaltherapy.it
■ Training courses for teachers accredited by MIUR,
in collaboration with the Phronesis Center BLOG
www.gestaltherapy.it/blog/
OFFICES RECOGNISED BY THE MIUR SCHOOL MANAGEMENT
Sicily Ragusa AND SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
Latium Rome Giovanni Salonia Scientific director
Veneto Venice Valeria Conte Didactic program director
D.M. 9.5.94, D.M. 7.12.01 e D.M. 24.10.08 Silvia Salcuni Member of the scientific committeeGTK books of
GESTALT THERAPY KAIRÒS journal of psychotherapy
Scientific Director Translations and English Consultancies
Giovanni Salonia Elina Carmela Guastella
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Editing
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Law Office
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Scientific Committee
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Piero Cavaleri Art director
Valeria Conte M’AS Marco Lentini
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Bin Kimura
Aluette Merenda © Copyright 2020 Gtk
Rosa Grazia Romano
Antonio Sichera The Texts of GTK Psychotherapy Review
Christine Stevens and GTK Books are subjected to a
Silvia Salcuni double-blind peer review system.
Member of the Scientific Committee
of the Institute for MIUR
Address for all correspondence: Abbreviation
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For more information
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Biography.......................................................................................................................................pag. 9
Some premises........................................................................................................................pag. 11
From Gestalt and Family Therapy (GFT)
to Family Gestalt Therapy (FGT)...........................................................................pag. 11
Gratitude...........................................................................................................................................pag. 12
Ariadne’s thread.......................................................................................................................pag. 13
Postmodernism and the family: basic relational models... pag. 17
Relational models and historical context.......................................pag. 17
Changes, gains and disturbances in family life.....................pag. 20
Developing models of family therapy between
historical continuity and present perspectives..........................pag. 25
The context of origins...........................................................................................pag. 25
Towards an epistemology of processes...........................................pag. 25
The pioneers of Family Therapy: vestiges and values.....pag. 26
3.1. Psychoanalytical (psychodynamic) theories..............................pag. 27
3.2. The Philadelphia school and the
Intergenerational approach............................................................................pag. 28
3.3. Systemic therapies.....................................................................................................pag. 30
3.4. Strategic therapies......................................................................................................pag. 31
3.5. Experiential therapies: the Symbolic-experiential
approach and Integrated humanistic approach.....................pag. 31
Occurances and models of Gestalt and Family Therapy......pag. 37
Background........................................................................................................................pag. 37
Stage one: focus on awareness and on the
expression of emotions......................................................................................pag. 37
Towards a new model of Family Gestalt Therapy,
dance of the chairs and dance of the pronouns......................pag. 45
Premise: limits of GT or limits of GT therapists?..........................pag. 45
1.1 Bodies-among-bodies: intercorporeity........................................pag. 47
1.2 Bodies change: the life cycle.......................................................................pag. 49
1.3 The Self that concentrates on the Id-function......................pag. 51
2.1 Personality-function: characteristics...............................................pag. 52
2.2 The Personality-function of the parents......................................pag. 56
2.3 Co-parental Personality-function........................................................pag. 58
2.4 Malfunctioning in the co-parental
Personality-function..............................................................................................pag. 61
2.5 The proxemics of the chairs..........................................................................pag. 64
2.6 The Self that concentrates on the
Personality-function..............................................................................................pag. 65
3.1 Ego-function: the Organism towards contact......................pag. 67
3.2 Family: contacts...seeking contact.......................................................pag. 68
3.3 Contact is corporeal................................................................................................pag. 71
3.4 The ‘right’ word of contact.............................................................................pag. 75
3.5 Contacts that pursue each other.............................................................pag. 76
Therapeutic work with families.....................................................................pag. 79
1.1 The family as hermeneutic principle................................................pag. 79
1.2 The place of family therapy: here-and-now and
now-for-next of bodily experience in-contact....................pag. 81
2.1 From one person’s symptom to everyone’s
quality of contact........................................................................................................pag. 82
2.2 Dance of the chairs..................................................................................................pag. 85
2.2 A dance to meet each other: Dance of the pronouns..pag. 88
2.4 Towards the end of the session...............................................................pag. 92
Sessions of Family Gestalt Therapy..........................................................pag. 95
Technical notes............................................................................................................pag. 95
A relative regained
A session led by Valeria Conte and Giovanni Salonia......pag. 95
2.1 Part one: from symptom to the quality of
family contact.................................................................................................................pag. 96
2.2 Part two: Dance of the chairs and Dance
of the pronouns............................................................................................................pag. 102
2.3 The therapists consult each other.........................................................pag. 117
2.4 Both therapists come back, sharing feedbacks
and tasks................................................................................................................................pag. 118
2.5 End of the session. Exploratory supplement
at the clinical level.....................................................................................................pag. 119
2.6 To conclude… restart dancing:
by day and with a child!......................................................................................pag. 121
Session led by Giovanni Salonia............................................................pag. 121
Session led by G. Salonia..................................................................................pag. 133
References....................................................................................................................................pag. 151
Giovanni Salonia pag. 17
Psychologist, psychotherapist, already professor of Social Psy-
chology at the University LUMSA of Palermo. He teaches at the
Università Pontificia Antonianum in Rome. Scientific director of
the School of Specialization in Gestalt Psychotherapy of the Insti-
tute of Gestalt Therapy hcc Kairos (Venice, Rome, Ragusa) and of
the second level Master degrees co-managed with the Università
Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Rome. He is an internationally well-
known teacher and he is invited to several Italian and foreign uni-
versities, he was the President of the FISIG (Italian Federation of
Gestalt Schools). He wrote Interpersonal Communication (with H.
Franta), Kairòs, Odòs, Sulla felicità e dintorni and as co-author, Devo
sapere subito se sono vivo, La luna è fatta di formaggio, Danza delle
sedie e danza dei pronomi as well as numerous articles published
in national and international journals dealing with anthropological
and clinical themes. He founded and directed the journal Quaderni
di Gestalt (1985-2002) and since 2008 he is the scientific director of
GTK online Journal of Psychotherapy.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 9the publishing
GTK Journal of Psychotherapy (on-line and bilingual)
GTK series, with the publisher Il Pozzo di Giacobbe
DIAPATHOS series, with the publisher Cittadella
Psychopathology
and new clinical
practice
Developmental
theory and
family therapy
title Devo sapere subito se sono vivo title Danza delle sedie
authors G. Salonia, V. Conte, P. Argentino author G. Salonia
pages 296 pages 160
publisher Il Pozzo di Giacobbe publisher Il Pozzo di Giacobbe
year of publication 2013 year of publication 2015
title La luna è fatta di formaggio title Come l’acqua…
edited by G. Salonia authors D. Iacono, G. Maltese
pages 176 pages 96
publisher Il Pozzo di Giacobbe publisher Il Pozzo di Giacobbe
year of publication 2014 year of publication 2012
title Incontri terapeutici title Edipo dopo Freud
edited by A. Merenda authors G. Salonia, A. Sichera
pages 152 pages 96
publisher Il Pozzo di Giacobbe GTK-books/01
year of publication 2014 year of publication 2013
title Tra title For Oedipus a new Family Gestalt
author B. Kimura authors G. Salonia, A. Sichera, V. Conte
pages 176 pages 135
publisher Il Pozzo di Giacobbe GTK-books/02
year of publication 2013 year of publication 2013
Anthropology
title Sulla felicità
author G. Salonia
pages 184
publisher Il Pozzo di Giacobbe
year of publication 2011
title La grazia dell’audacia
author G. Salonia
pages 80
publisher Il Pozzo di Giacobbe
year of publication 2012
title Comunicazione Interpersonale
authors H. Franta, G. Salonia
pages 170
publisher LAS
year of publication 1979
title La casa vissuta
author G. Giordano
pages 224
publisher Giurè
year of publication 1997 Journal of
title Ogni giorno merita una gestalt
edited by S. Antoci e A. Rusca Psychotherapy
pages 156 ITA/ENG
publisher Cittadella editrice
year of publication 2014
title i come invidia
edited by G. Salonia
pages 112
publisher Cittadella editrice
year of publication 2015
title La vera storia di Peter Pan
edited by G. Salonia
pages 84
publisher Cittadella editrice
year of publication 2016 the publishing
GTK Journal of Psychotherapy (on-line and bilingual)
GTK series, with the publisher Il Pozzo di Giacobbe
DIAPATHOS series, with the publisher Cittadella From Gestalt and Family Therapy (GFT) to Family Gestalt
Therapy (FGT)
versity in Palermo when, chalk in one hand, I was about to write
and new clinical the synchronic-structural dimension of the family on the board.
practice As usual, I was explaining that Gestalt and Family Therapy (GFT)
makes use of Minuchin’s concept of generational lines which is
proper to Structural Family Therapy. I had the privilege of person-
Developmental ally seeing Minuchin at work many years previously in Rome. At
theory and
family therapy the exact moment I turned towards the boad, a light went on in
my head! I turned back to my students and said, «Actually, what
title Devo sapere subito se sono vivo title Danza delle sedie
authors G. Salonia, V. Conte, P. Argentino author G. Salonia Structural Family Therapy defines the generational line has a spe-
pages 296 pages 160
publisher Il Pozzo di Giacobbe publisher Il Pozzo di Giacobbe
year of publication 2013 year of publication 2015 cific name and concept in GFT: Personality-Function of Self». I
title La luna è fatta di formaggio title Come l’acqua…
edited by G. Salonia authors D. Iacono, G. Maltese was intensely curious about what I had just realised. I carried on
pages 176 pages 96
publisher Il Pozzo di Giacobbe publisher Il Pozzo di Giacobbe with the explanation. A thousand thoughts, connections and ap-
year of publication 2014 year of publication 2012
title Incontri terapeutici title Edipo dopo Freud plications ran through my mind (Isadore From was absolutely
edited by A. Merenda authors G. Salonia, A. Sichera
pages 152 pages 96 right when he said that an idea generates a thousand thoughts but
publisher Il Pozzo di Giacobbe GTK-books/01
year of publication 2014 year of publication 2013 that a thousand thoughts do not make an idea!). It was clear to me,
title Tra title For Oedipus a new Family Gestalt
author B. Kimura authors G. Salonia, A. Sichera, V. Conte as I immediately explained to the students, that this was not a pre-
pages 176 pages 135
publisher Il Pozzo di Giacobbe GTK-books/02
year of publication 2013 year of publication 2013 text to assert the self-sufficiency of GFT, but the widening of new
hermeneutical and clinical horizons with regard to the structural
dimension of the family.
My own initial training in Structural Family Therapy had been
under Martin Kirschenbaum and Carole Gammer and I followed
Anthropology this with the unforgettable Silvia Soccorsi. I had met therapists who
title Sulla felicità combined Gestalt Therapy (GT) with principles of Structural Family
author G. Salonia
pages 184 Therapy in their work with families. I remember when I was in-
publisher Il Pozzo di Giacobbe
year of publication 2011 vited to hold a workshop at the University of Connecticut, I met
title La grazia dell’audacia
author G. Salonia a delightful couple who combined this double approach in their
pages 80
publisher Il Pozzo di Giacobbe
year of publication 2012 teaching: Frank Lynch, a Gestalt therapist, and his wife Barbara
title Comunicazione Interpersonale de Frank-Lynch, a Structural family therapist. In fact, many thera-
authors H. Franta, G. Salonia
pages 170
publisher LAS pists work mainly with couples. In GT couple’s therapy, I was lucky
year of publication 1979
title La casa vissuta enough to learn a great deal from Joseph Zinker, an undisputed
author G. Giordano
pages 224 master and pioneer, and from his colleague, Sonia Nevis, who was
publisher Giurè
year of publication 1997 Journal of also an exceptionally gifted teacher. I had consequently worked for
title Ogni giorno merita una gestalt
edited by S. Antoci e A. Rusca Psychotherapy years with families using this combination of GT and Structural
pages 156 ITA/ENG
publisher Cittadella editrice
year of publication 2014 Family Therapy, two juxtaposed models, as is clear from my first
title i come invidia article on GFT in 1987. I felt that the ‘marriage’ was not a happy one
edited by G. Salonia
pages 112
publisher Cittadella editrice (even though this was the opinion shared by Gestalt therapists) and
year of publication 2015
I considered it lacking in elegance and creativity.
title La vera storia di Peter Pan
edited by G. Salonia
pages 84 From this background, that morning in Palermo, an intuition
publisher Cittadella editrice
year of publication 2016 emerged: the structure of the family in GT is not a line that sepa-
rates/unites subsystems, rather it is the Personality-function of
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 11EN Self, a sort of Augustinian ordo amoris written in people’s bodies.
Being a parent, like being a child, in GT is not simply a concept,
a role, a subsystem, but a corporeal identity built by the numer-
ous assimilations of life experiences and of contact experiences.
The generational line, in other words, must be inscribed in bod-
ies. When it is absent or disturbed, focusing on the bodies is very
important. Years later, whilst reading about Damasio’s «Autobio-
graphical Self», I had the gratification of learning that neurosci-
ence was confirming the genial and pioneering intuitions of the
founders of GT. It is not structures nor systems, but bodies that
meet each other in full and final contact, if placed in the Person-
ality-function of the familiar Self. I remembered From’s words:
the less you know about GT the more inclined you are to resort to
‘marriages’ with other approaches.
At this point, it also became clear to me that the widely-used ac-
ronym GFT (Gestalt and Family Therapy) revealed, unfortunately,
this combining concept of GT and Family Therapy. Consequently,
I use this acronym only when referring to past Gestalt models. In-
stead I will use the acronym FGT (Family Gestalt Therapy) to des-
ignate my own model (Dance of the chairs and Dance of the pro-
nouns), since it clearly expresses the way GT as an independent
model when working with families.
From that morning in Palermo, I began a journey of theoreti-
cal development and clinical verification of this intuition of over
twenty years. In 1997, when the British Gestalt Journal accepted
an article in which I presented my new model (Dance of the chairs
and Dance of the pronouns), the referees’ comments confirmed
that I was on the right track. This confirmation also arrived from
academic contexts (I would particularly like to thank Professor
Simonelli of the University of Padua for her invitation to present
my model), as well as comparisons with other therapeutic or Ge-
stalt models. After more than twenty years of chewing over the
theory and clinical experimentation, that moment of intuition one
morning in Palermo gave rise to this book.
Gratitude
I have not been alone all these years. I particularly would like
to thank some of the workers in this field who have been close to
me and involved in this long period of research. Firstly, the Coor-
dinator of the Institute of Gestalt Therapy Kairòs, Valeria Conte.
Her contribution has not been limited to the valuable suggestions
she has made during the revision of this text, but involves many
years, more than twenty-five, of co-therapy work with hundreds
of couples and families. The model elaborated and described here
has been applied and verified by us. My way of doing and think-
ing about FGT has certainly been influenced by her: by her acute
12 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsclinical intuition, by her resolved sense of differentiation, by her EN
punctual and necessary critical observations, by her personal and
professional authenticity, by her genuine and reserved warmth.
Co-therapy, I discovered with her, is therapy in itself, the contin-
ual debate is an opportunity for growth, even when experiencing
the inevitable, and sometimes bitter, differences in opinion.
Another person whose presence can be felt in this book is An-
tonio Sichera, the Institute’s scientific consultant. We might say
that Antonio represents our epistemological apex: we are proud to
have Antonio… as our “Goodman”. With him, given the fine liter-
ary scholar that he is and his deep knowledge of the ‘Gestalt bible’
(Gestalt Therapy Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality
by Perls, Hefferline and Goodman), I have enjoyed many exten-
sive debates about both theory and practice, about their roots and
about innovative but coherent developments. At the conclusion of
our dinners together, over a glass of excellent grappa, we left our
ruminations on Perls and Goodman’s text open to further explora-
tion. By reading and re-reading it over and over again, we discov-
ered unexplored riches and compared them with the instances of
postmodernism, in harmony with Barth’s suggestion to juxtapose
founding texts with daily newspapers. His many valuable writings
about Gestalt, Pirandello, Pavese, Pasolini, Montale are evidence of
the quality of thought with which I have had the good fortune to
encounter and nourish myself. I would never have had the clarity
and strength to carry out my review of Oedipus, of Gestalt devel-
opmental theory, of the Self theory, of FGT… if I had not had his
support, his critical input and his approval. This text has also been
enriched by his precise revision and by the refined quality of his
suggestions concerning both content and style.
A heartfelt ‘thank you’ is also directed to the third person who
has contributed enormously to the publication of this book, Agata
Pisana. Without her literary competency and knowledge of GT,
without her passion and dedication, this book would have re-
mained unwritten. The gargantuan task of the complete, precise
and refined editing of this volume which she undertook, or rather
gifted to me with extraordinary generosity, made the final form of
the book and its publication possible.
Ariadne’s thread
I shall conclude by giving the reader an example of Ariadne’s
thread. The description of changes in the family takes place within
the framework of the theory of the Basic Relational Model (BRM),
developed during the twenty years of my teaching social psychol-
ogy at degree level. Family and postmodernism are the essen-
tial context for understanding the various approaches to Family
Therapies introduced in the second chapter. From chapter fourth
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 13EN onwards, I present my model: Dance of the chairs and Dance of
the pronouns. The title recalls the vision of FGT as the means of
restoring the dance of bodies and words in the family, that is, the
encounter with self and others.
Finally, the verbatim of the three sessions. The first one was car-
ried out with Valeria Conte, whilst the other two have been con-
ducted by myself. The comment on the first two sessions aims at
being a sort of microanalysis that highlights the key moments in
the therapy. I opted not to comment on the third session to allow
the reader’s spontaneous impressions to emerge. I realise that the
transcripts of whole sessions make for heavy reading, but I have
chosen this rocky road for two precise reasons. In the first place,
it was to prevent the model appearing to consist of just more or
less miraculous or strategic techniques, which might have hap-
pened if I had written only about the apparently significant pas-
sages. Only by following the process, step-by-step, it is possible to
grasp how the therapists in FGT are not guided by protocols, but
by the relational experiences that gradually emerge. To identify the
‘when’ and the ‘how’ to intervene, so as not to interrupt contact in-
tentionality, is the decisive quality for Gestalt family therapist. The
second reason that led to including transcripts of whole sessions
is the belief that having the time and the patience to read them is
the sine qua non for assimilating a new therapeutic model without
over-simplifying it or reducing it to what is already known. As we
all know, le temps détruit ce qui est fait sans lui.
A final point. As a Gestalt Therapist, I know that the map (theo-
ry) is not only made by the territory, but – mainly! – by the travel-
ler. Not only can the map not coincide with the city, but it is drawn
up by thinking principally about the person who is going to use it
(his/her abilities and interests). It is precisely the personal atten-
tion towards the traveller that constitutes the difference between
the various (family) therapeutic models and their diffusion. The
specificity of the Gestalt map is well described by Italo Calvino, in
Le Città invisibili when describing Eudoxia’s carpet:
In Eudoxia […] a carpet is kept in which the true form of
the city can be seen. At first sight nothing seems to resem-
ble Eudoxia less than the pattern on the carpet, […] which is
woven all along the warp. However, if you stop and look at
it carefully, you start believing that every place in the car-
pet corresponds to a place in the city and that all the things
contained in the city are contained in the pattern […]. But
the carpet proves that there is a point in which the city re-
veals its true proportions, the geometrical pattern implicit in
every tiny detail. It is easy to get lost in Eudoxia; but when
you concentrate on staring at the carpet, you recognise the
14 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsstreet you were looking for in a crimson or indigo or ama- EN
ranth thread which through a winding path takes you to a
purple enclosure which is your true point of arrival1.
‘Good theory’ (eu-doxa) describes, as Minkowski would say,
the generating nuclei of being well or ill. That is why FGT takes
the shape of the family it interacts with. Reconstructed families,
fragmented families, families with different cultures, they all find
themselves in the lowest common multiple of the search for a
good relationship, allowing the development of family members
inside and outside the various ways of contact. Bearing in mind
contact intentionality (reaching the other or being reached by the
other? And how?), the theory of contact (when and how the path
towards the other is interrupted?) and the Self theory (Id-function,
Personality-function and Ego-function), the Gestalt therapist fa-
cilitates the renewed flow of the river of life and the dance of en-
counters in a family which feels blocked.
1 This and the following quotations from Italian bibliographical references have
been translated from Italian, unless otherwise noted. Cfr. I. Calvino (1979), Le
città invisibili, Einaudi, Torino, 102-103.
to see them within the context of the society they live in and in
which they are a dependent variable1. To do so, we will examine
some key themes that characterise modern society, commonly
defined as ‘postmodern’2, and all our observations are made within
that context.
From the 1950s onwards, we have lived (and are still living) a
period characterised by rapid, irreversible, profound, generalised
changes. Such changes have had such a radical impact because,
whilst they have modified our lifestyles at a technical level, they
have also called into question (and frequently altered) the funda-
mental criteria of our anthropology3, that is, the ways of perceiv-
ing and experiencing the personal and relational meanings of
existence. Modern humankind (which, for our conceptual and se-
mantic convenience, we will define as ‘postmodern’) is collocated
in a universe characterised by language, sensibilities and original
perspectives on any and all of the themes of existence (and thus,
also regarding ourselves: the relationship between the individual
and the community, emotional ties, falling in love and love itself,
marriage, cohabitation, sexuality, ethical norms, etc.).
In order to analyse today’s postmodern society more precise-
ly, we will begin with what I believe constitutes the core factor in
generating all anthropological changes, that is, the emergence of
the priority of the subject in the relationship between the individ-
ual and the community4.
Humankind has two needs which can combine in very different
ways, depending on which of the two is historically prioritised: they
self-fulfilment (to be oneself) and a sense of belonging (emotional
ties). In fact, individuals and groups (homes, communities, soci-
ety) frequently live combining their needs in highly differentiated
manners (combinations of centrifugal or centripetal forces, the im-
1 Cfr. on these themes G. Salonia (2013), Psicopatologia e contesti culturali, in
G. Salonia, V. Conte, P. Argentino, Devo sapere subito se sono vivo. Saggi di
Psicopatologia Gestaltica, Il Pozzo di Giacobbe, Trapani, 17-32.
2 Cfr. J.F. Lyotard (2002) (ed. or. 1979), La Condizione postmoderna. Rapporto sul
sapere, Feltrinelli, Milano; G. Vattimo, Al di là del soggetto. Nietzsche, Heideg-
ger e l’ermeneutica. Rapporto sul sapere, Feltrinelli, Milano, 1991
3 Cfr. T. Kuhn (1979) (ed. or. 1962), La struttura delle rivoluzioni scientifiche, Ei-
naudi, Torino.
4 Cfr. on these themes G. Salonia (1999), Dialogare nel tempo della frammen-
tazione, in F. Armetta, M. Naro (eds.) Impense adlaboravit, Pontificia Facoltà
Teologica, Palermo, 572- 595; A. Giddens (2000) (ed. or. 1999), Il mondo che
cambia. Come la globalizzazione ridisegna la nostra vita, Il Mulino, Bologna;
Z. Bauman (2003), Una nuova condizione umana, Vita e Pensiero, Milano; U.
Beck (2003), La società cosmopolita, Il Mulino, Bologna.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 17EN portance of the subject or of the group). The tension between these
two forces cannot and must not ever be finally resolved, but remain
open to multiple declensions. The absolute dominance of one need
over the other generates inhuman situations: when the sense of
belonging is overwhelming, people become an anonymous mass
whilst, when only the ‘Ego’ exist, the consequences are fragmenta-
tion and isolation. Every community, micro or macro (Gesellschaft
or Gemeinschaft), presents a precise (and prevalent) combination of
these two forces, that is, a Basic Relational Model (BRM)5.
A basic relational model is a way of combining the two forces,
which is not chosen reflexively by the group, but is rather a func-
tional response to the group’s survival needs. It therefore happens
that when a society is experiencing a shared and immediate com-
mon sense of imminent danger for survival (war or famine, for
example), it spontaneously prioritises the sense of belonging and
subordinates the self-fulfilment of the individual (we shall call this
the BRM/Us). With today’s terrorism, the same thing does not hap-
pen, in that terrorism is generated by people with no contractual
power and generates fear and panic. Here, the need to protect and
to feel protected induces the individual to spontaneously sacrifice
every aspect of his/her subjectivity and personal freedom to the
point of feeling guilty, like a traitor, if the group is abandoned to
achieve self-fulfilment. In the BRM/Us, the advantages of being
united against a common danger are clear and it is easy and natu-
ral to obey a leader (perceived as the most competent person in the
face of danger) and to create roles and hierarchies. Moreover, the
value of the group is felt loudly and clearly (love of homeland, for
instance). The only chance of emerging in these situations is by
being a leader or hero (the mystique of the leader or hero is always
connected with the Us context). The other side of the coin is the
coward or, even worse, the traitor, who puts the whole community
in danger. The other members of the group remain anonymous to
save the collectivity. The ‘unknown warrior,’ for example, symbol-
ically represents the names of thousands of ‘unknown warriors’
who have given their lives for their country.
Social group norms may also go unheeded, but they are never
challenged. The society/community is perceived as being stron-
ger than the individual. Reality is experienced as un unquestion-
able fact, to which people must adapt themselves (maturity is the
passage from the ‘pleasure principal’ to the ‘reality principal’6). Im-
5 Kardiner already referred to a ‘Basic personality structure’ that every society
produces. Cfr. A. Kardiner (1965) (ed. or. 1939), L’individuo e la sua società,
Bompiani, Milano.
6 It is probably superfluous to point out that in early Nineteenth century Vienna,
BRM/Us prevailed and so the hermeneutical parameters used by S. Freud and
the conclusions he drew from them express typical BRM/US logics.
18 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsplicitly, in this relational model, the Us dimension is an Us-against EN
situation, since people are coming together precisely to have pro-
tection from a ‘Them’ (enemies, however they are perceived)7. The
BRM/Us is also found in other specific situations, such as falling
in love, a child’s first weeks of life, the formation of charismatic or
fundamentalist groups within social groups8.
The BRM/I differs significantly from the BRM/Us. It develops
spontaneously when a group does not have a shared perception
of danger (famine, war, epidemics) strong enough to threaten sur-
vival. In this context, the centrifugal forces become progressively
stronger and provoke the loosening and eventual disappearance
of the ties towards belonging. At the same time, interest towards
the Self and self-fulfilment emerge9. Bonds of belonging (macro
and micro) are challenged (in 1968, for example) until they become
problematical and insignificant. Once the common need for safety
has gone, and with it the need for a protective sense of belonging,
‘I’ becomes predominant and individualism is prioritised10.
First with anger and then euphoria, the individual reclaims
the freedom sacrificed for security and protection. The plurality
of the ‘I’s progressively fragments the connective tissue. Bauman
would say that it renders it ‘liquid’11. Meta-narratives12, ideologies
and metaphysical systems lose their unifying value. Even in the
choice of belonging to a group (family, political party, religious
community), the thrust towards individualism remains irresistible
so that, even though there is a common goal, it becomes subject
to multiple interpretations that render moving forward together
an arduous process. The dominant sensation is that of an inevita-
ble relativism. Even absolute values become contextualised with-
in subjective declensions. Nobody can claim an unquestionable
power of truth in relation to anyone else. The only dominating
systems of logic belong to a self-reliance which can take the form
of healthy self-confidence, just as it can be a total closure towards
others in absolute self-reliance (do-it-yourself learning methods).
Thus, the quest for self-fulfilment can produce both a positive
evaluation of individual potential or a sterile self-sufficiency.
The two relational models (BRM/Us and BRM/I) can evolve dia-
chronically (the alternation between one and the other in the West
7 For example, socio-cultural groups that give rise to terrorism have this con-
figuration.
8 Cfr. F. Alberoni (1977), Movimenti e Istituzioni, Garzanti, Milano.
9 Cfr. M. Marzano (2014), Il diritto di essere io, Laterza, Roma-Bari.
10 Cfr. L. Friedman (2002), La società orizzontale, Il Mulino, Bologna; A. Giddens,
Il mondo che cambia, cit.
11 Cfr. Z. Bauman (2003) (ed. or. 2000), Modernità liquida, Laterza, Bari; Id. (2006)
(ed. or. 2003), Amore liquido. Sulla fragilità dei legami affettivi, Laterza, Bari.
12 Cfr. J.F. Lyotard, La condizione postmoderna, cit.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 19EN since 1945 to the present, for example)13 or synchronically coexist.
In societies where individualism reigns, there are always contexts
in which the BRM/Us is active in structures with a clear hierarchy
and situations when life is at stake, from the operating theatre to
piloting an airplane14.
How do emotional ties work in an era like ours, clearly charac-
terised by the dominance of the BRM/I model?
From the 1950s onwards, marriage and the family have under-
gone many changes. Initially, from the demise of marriage as an
institution and the family seen as a patriarchal clan, new situations
have arisen, such as marriage based on the nuclear family15; after-
wards, the nuclear family gave way to the crisis of the couple and
the redefinition of gender identity16; recently, the indissoluble bond
of parenthood has been rediscovered (so-called co-parenting)17.
Taking a descriptive approach, we might say that up to the
middle of the last century, marriage was perceived and lived as
a social institution orientated principally towards the procreation
of children and thought of as a place of social and economic se-
curity. For a woman, marriage meant entering a clan. Even the
children’s upbringing was assigned to members of the family. All
of family life depended, top-down, on the head or the patriarch,
whose power (and charisma) was felt over several generations.
In the postmodern era, these structures have radically changed.
First of all, the family has become much less numerous with the
result that any family member, except a parent, is marginal. In this
sense, one can talk of a passage (transition) from the patriarchal
family to the nuclear family. Parents and children experience,
maybe for the first time in the history of the West, a new type of
freedom, but also new worries and sources of stress. For example,
women working outside the home can include consequences of
less time being present at home, problems with bringing up chil-
dren, the burden of responsibilities and professional duties with-
13 Cfr. G. Salonia (2011), in Sulla felicità e dintorni. Tra corpo, parola e tempo, Il
Pozzo di Giacobbe, Trapani, 115-120. For example, the day after the attack on
the Twin Towers in New York, people all over the USA were carrying posters
saying «United, we stand», which would not have been popular or accepted
a few days earlier. Cfr. B. Ackerman (2008) (ed. or. 2006), Prima del prossimo
attacco. Preservare le libertà civili in un’era di terrorismo globale, Vita e Pen-
siero, Milano.
14 Cfr. D. Cooper (1997) (ed. or. 1971), La morte della famiglia, Einaudi, Torino.
15 A good summary on these themes is found in M. Barbagli, D.I. Kertzer (2005)
(ed. or. 2003), Storia della famiglia in Europa, Laterza, Torino.
16 G. Salonia (2005), Femminile e maschile: un’irriducibile diversità, in R.G. Ro-
mano, Ciclo di vita e dinamiche educative nella società postmoderna, Franco
Angeli, Milano, 54-69
17 Cfr. Id. (2012), Edipo dopo Freud. Verso una nuova Gestalt della cogenitorialità,
in «Le nuove frontiere della scuola. La ragione e il sentimento», X, 28, 37-41.
20 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsout social, legislative and family support. Moreover, a marriage EN
based on love, from which the family nucleus is generated, is also
a relatively recent reality and expectation (previously, roman-
tic love could be expressed only outside marriage and had tragic
consequences)18. Themes such as falling in love and the relational
meaning of sexuality were still taboos in the 1960s (the only noble
exception The Art of Loving by Fromm19) and only from the 1970s
onwards a widening debate has been opened on such questions at
the level of the existence and in the public sphere.
Clearly, the emergence of the nuclear family has brought an
exceptional increase in the fragility of marital bonds. Starting from
the marriage as an institution beyond its contractors, in order to
give them and their children an institutional and economic secu-
rity, we are going towards the couple relationship, in its various
legal and relational forms, as a ‘relational agreement of happiness’,
that is, the encounter of reciprocal eudemonistic expectations:
(«I remain with you as long as I feel that you are positive for my
self-fulfilment, otherwise, even if with pain, I will leave you»)20. In
this context, the children are no longer perceived as a support to
the couple’s bond. It seems more common the idea that separated
but quiet parents, with the awareness of their shared role, can be
more educational than non-separated parents, but continuously
exposed to a disruptive conflict.
In other words, it is the parental bond which is indissoluble and
decisive over time for the raising of children and the formation of
society.
Conversely, on the one hand, in the BRM/Us differences of
gender do not create conflict, because the danger, or the enemy,
produces a sort of necessary and immediate agreement which is
functional to protect the community (men go hunting or to war,
women take care of the children and the elderly); on the other
hand, in a society with a prevalent BRM/I, a culture of subjectiv-
ity emerges where differences, including gender, are explored
in all their declinations21. Think about the theories about sexual
difference that, after the first phase of comprehensible contrasts
between female and male perspectives, have taken the road of
the richness of reciprocity22. Masculine and feminine, as ways of
thinking and interpreting life, have equal legitimacy. It has been
justly written that democracy has entered the home and close re-
18 Cfr. I. Caruso (2005), La separazione degli amanti, Einaudi, Torino.
19 Cfr. E. Fromm (1968) (ed. or. 1957), L’arte di amare, Mondadori, Milano.
20 Cfr. V. Conte (2008), Essere coppia nella postmodernità, in A. Ferrara, M. Spa-
gnuolo Lobb (eds.), Le voci della Gestalt. Sviluppi e innovazioni di una psicote-
rapia, Franco Angeli, Milano, 168-173.
21 Cfr. G. Salonia, Femminile e maschile: un’irriducibile diversità, cit.
22 Cfr. L. Irigaray (1994) (ed. or. 1990), La democrazia comincia a due, Bollati, Bo-
ringhieri, Torino.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 21EN lationships23. Social perceptions (or misperceptions) according
to which the mother is considered as the expert of the home but
socially ‘hysterical’ while the father is expert in the polis but emo-
tionally superficial, have been superseded.
Men discover a new interest for childcare and reveal tender
and efficacious child rearing skills while women endow the polis
with creativity and attention that enrich its quality and dynam-
ics24. From theories of child development that focused only on the
mother-child dyad, not including the father in the logic of growth
of the children25, the spectrum of attention – as we will see – has
been enlarged today towards new horizons. The parameters of ob-
servation and the definition of the concept of maturity have both
been modified26.
In other ways, the unhappiness of institutional ties and the
precariousness of relational bonds have generated difficulties in
taking decisions that include the aspect of ‘forever’. Young people
today profoundly experience this precariousness and are unable
to understand the sense of laws, rules, institutions that are not
coherent with their sensitivity and their growth. Also, one should
remember that this is the first generation of young people who
have been socialised in a cultural and familiar context of a nar-
cissistic type, that is, in the culture of self-fulfilment as the pri-
mary goal27. This must be considered together with the added risk
of widespread emotional abandonment linked to some parents’
protracted conflicts, or unhappy separations, which render them
incapable of effective coparenting.
We are therefore faced with a contrasting scenario, where light
alternates with shadows, opportunities with problems. We must
also not neglect the fundamental intercultural and inter-religious
factors which decisively influence the vision of family structure
in our time. The differences between Arab, African and Western
culture have become internalised in our societies so that the com-
23 Cfr. A. Giddens (1995) (ed. or. 1992), La trasformazione dell’intimità. Sessualità,
amore ed erotismo nelle società moderne, il Mulino, Bologna.
24 Regarding feminine dynamics and sensibility in the polis see: G. Salonia
(2011), La grazia dell’audacia. Per una lettura gestaltica dell’Antigone, Il Pozzo
di Giacobbe, Trapani.
25 The Oedipus complex has always been misunderstood and wrongly consid-
ered a dysfunction in the son’s relationship with his mother. Nowadays, in
a revised and revisited view of it, it has been situated in the context of the
family triad from a gestaltic perspective: from this point of view, it is the con-
sequence of a dysfunction in the co-parenting Personality-function. Cfr. G.
Salonia (2010), Edipo dopo Freud. Una nuova Gestalt per il triangolo primario,
in D. Cavanna, A. Salvini (eds.), Per una psicologia dell’agire umano. Scritti in
onore di Erminio Gius, Franco Angeli, Milano, 344-358; Id. (2013), Edipo dopo
Freud. Dalla legge del padre alla legge della relazione, in G. Salonia, A. Sichera,
Edipo dopo Freud, GTK books/01, Ragusa, 11-46.
26 Cfr. G. Salonia (2004), Incesto, in G. Russo (ed.), Enciclopedia di Bioetica e Ses-
suologia, ElleDiCi-Verlar-Leumann, Torino, 986-989.
27 Cfr. D. Cooper, La morte della famiglia, cit.
22 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsplexity of relationships and of family structures have reached in- EN
creasingly articulated levels. We have made significant progress
in considering the value of relationships, of differences, of shared
parental function, but there is also a high risk of uncertainty, a
dearth of points of reference28. There is a threat of violence lurk-
ing in this pregnant but unprecedented vacuum, where the ties of
couples and families have to be continuously renewed, in a cre-
ative fidelity capable of marrying genuineness and relationships.
This is a task that calls for a new approach and new clinical prac-
tices for couples and families in today’s world.
28 Cfr. C. Lasch (2001) (ed. or. 1971), La cultura del narcisismo, Bompiani, Milano.
chotherapeutic worlds were sensitive to the climate of enormous
political and social change. In such a new scientific and cultural
context, a new model of psychotherapy emerged that involved all
family members in the setting. It became evident that there could
be difficulties in ‘living together’, in the postwar context, and spe-
cial attention was dedicated to the social group with which the
individual was in relation, primarily the family of origin. Interest
began to move away from the individual considered in isolation,
towards his family and his reference group: symptoms were re-
viewed as expressions of dysfunctions in family relationships2.
Different schools of thought – the psychodynamic line, the cy-
bernetic thinking, the systemic, the relational and the experiential
perspective – began to flow together towards this new direction.
Therapeutic communities and encounter groups emerged, as, cer-
tainly, alternative treatment approaches compared to the models of
the previous years (such as psychoanalysis and behaviorism).
The limitations of the previous models become evident: the im-
possibility of treating the most badly-affected patients, the duration
and the excessive costs of therapy; the poor comprehensibility of
theoretical writings; the arbitrary nature of many clinical hypoth-
eses; the absence of a spirit of research, due to high fidelity – on the
verge of the dogmatism – to the founders’ thought3. What emerges
is the possibility of developing a therapy centered on interpersonal
relationships and less based on rigid forms of interpretation4.
The growth and diffusion of family therapies5 can be traced from
1 I would like to thank Dr. Aluette Merenda and Prof. Agata Pisana for writing
this chapter.
2 Cfr. P. Bertrando, D. Toffanetti (eds.) (2000), Storia della Terapia familiare. Le
persone e le idee, Raffaello Cortina, Milano, 60.
3 Cfr. M. Selvini (2004), Reinventare la psicoterapia. La scuola di Mara Selvini
Palazzoli, Raffaello Cortina, Milano, 4.
4 See: C. Roger’s ‘Person-centered therapy’ and the interpersonal analysts H.
Sullivan and F. Fromm-Reichman.
5 A complete panorama of family therapies is given by P. Gambini (2007), Psi-
cologia della famiglia. La prospettiva sistemico-relazionale, Franco Angeli,
Milano. Regarding family psychotherapy nowadays, cfr. P. Bertrando, D. Tof-
fanetti (eds.), Storia della Terapia familiare, cit.; L. Boscolo (2011), Opinioni a
confronto. Dove sta andando la terapia familiare nel mondo? Intervista a cura
di P. Bertrando, in «Terapia Familiare», 97, 81-90. L. Hoffman (2013), Opinioni a
confronto. Dove sta andando la terapia familiare nel mondo? Intervista a cura
di U. Telfener, in «Terapia familiare», 101, 95-100; M. Andolfi (2014), Opinioni a
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 25EN their origins, back to the context of a (disorganised) transforma-
tion of the various psychotherapies. The transformation occurred
in various institutional contexts (hospitals, pedo-psychiatric, aca-
demic) where they enjoyed better financial support. Even in the
psychoanalytic movement, currents of thought oriented towards
a relational model emerged. Their objective (think, for example,
about the theories of Bowlby, Horney, Kohut) had two faces: firstly,
taking care of psychotic disorders and secondly, finding common
ground between individual work and working with families.
The symptomatic behaviour of each member of the family starts
to be considered as an expression of a dysfunctional context (the
family system) of which the patient is a member. Diagnosis and
therapy become interconnected, towards the search for the mean-
ing of symptoms that go beyond the traditional medical model. In-
deed, the medical model assumed the detection of the cause of the
symptoms, or the passive assumption of medication, as well as the
application of other techniques without the patient participation.
It is essentially the end of the dichotomous separation between
observer and observed; while, within the process of diagnosis and
cure, the figure of the therapist as ‘vehicle’ and central focus of
convergence between family organisation and individual pathol-
ogy begins to emerge.
So, in the light of this, from the 1950s onwards researchers
and clinicians started exploring the world of family, searching for
something that could alleviate some of the individual and social
suffering. They were authentic pioneers: «How do you become
a pioneer? You start doing something new, then you wait for 50
years»6 The best known among them mostly lived in the United
States, but their teaching was adopted and developed in many
countries, Italy included7. Some lines of thought are predominant.
Let us briefly review them8.
confronto. Dove sta andando la terapia familiare nel mondo? Intervista a cura
di K. Polichroni, in «Terapia familiare», 104, 77-93; M. Elkaim (2015), Opinioni a
confronto. Dove sta andando la terapia familiare nel mondo? Intervista a cura
di M. Andolfi, in «Terapia familiare», 108, 83-96; R. Papadopulos (2016), Opi-
nioni a confronto. Dove sta andando la terapia familiare nel mondo? Intervista
a cura di A. D’Elia, in «Terapia familiare», 110, 77-85; M. Andolfi et alii (2012),
Opinioni a Confronto. Riflessioni, bilanci e ‘lasciti’ nel racconto di quattro pro-
fessori universitari in via di pensionamento. Interviste a cura di A. Salerno e A.
Santona, in «Terapia familiare», 99, 77-108.
6 S. Minuchin (2002), Una coperta di pezze per la terapia familiare, in M. Andolfi,
I pionieri della terapia familiare, Franco Angeli, Milano, 9-19, 9.
7 Their progress was retraced in December 2000 during an international conven-
tion in Rome on the theme of Pioneers of family Therapy, organised by three Ita-
lian institutes of Family Psychotherapy: Accademia di Psicoterapia della famiglia,
Istituto di terapia Familiare and Scuola Romana di psicoterapia della Famiglia. Cfr.
M. Andolfi (2002), I pionieri della terapia familiare, cit.
8 Cfr. Bertrando, P. Toffanetti (eds.), Storia della Terapia familiare, cit.
26 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns3.1 Psychoanalytical (psychodynamic) theories EN
Psychoanalysis opens the doors (and windows) to the family, per-
haps through Nathan Ackerman: «We cannot see people’s thoughts
and emotions but we can see how they live their inner lives in the
interaction with other people». This affirmation marks the transition
from a psychoanalytic perspective to an examination of the family,
from intrapsychic life to interactive life. His vision of the family is
that of a unitary reality: pathology originates from a latent, relational
and social conflict, introjected by a family member. The therapeutic
objective is, in his opinion, to evoke the conflict that has been ex-
perienced in an intrapsychic manner and bring it to a level of clear,
interpersonal interaction. His two principal assumptions are: a) im-
portance must be given to individual diagnosis conceived as a part
of a difficulty of the family system; b) the therapist should be used
as a positive instrument (and as a challenge); for example, through
‘relationship games’ and other strong emotional experiences. His at-
tention to counter-transfer also constitutes a novel element.
Ackerman wrote: «In my work as family therapist I do many of
those things that are necessary to free oneself from the constraints
of rigid and formal behaviour and increase a feeling of deep fa-
miliarity, intimacy, openness and frankness. Do we, who have an
analytic background, perhaps feel shame or anxiety in showing
our personality and our actions of countertransference?»9.
If in the 1950s Ackerman works with families of disturbed chil-
dren, so does another pediatrician, psychiatrist, and psycho-ther-
apist: Salvador Minuchin, an Argentinian of Russian origin, that
took care of orphans and the children of immigrants. Interested in
the interpersonal theory of Sullivan and the cultural aspects of hu-
man nature described by Fromm, Horney and Erikson, Minuchin
explored alternative theories based on action (role games, home
visits, acting, etc.) concentrating on interactions and the family
system. His approach was a systemic-structural one: «Think in a
complex way, intervene in a simple way. The therapist does not
need to introduce anything new into the client, he just needs to
bring out what is already present», is the basic rule of his thought.
Working with ‘psychosomatic families‘ and with the families of
diabetic children, Minuchin focuses in particular on the structural
line (cohesive, enmeshed, or disengaged), that is the underlying
structure that guides the schemes of family function (Theory of
structural family therapy10). For him, family therapy is an instru-
ment of social justice. Collaboration with the social structures of
which the family is part appears to him a ‘solid construction’ that
brings vitality to the therapy itself.
9 Cfr. N. Ackerman (1970), Family Process, Basic Books, New York.
10 The term ‘structural’ in psychotherapy was coined by Minuchin in 1972.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 27EN 3.2 The Philadelphia school and the Intergenerational ap-
proach
In the wake of Sullivan’s interpersonal psychiatry and of the
dialogic philosophy of Buber, an approach to family therapy, of
a strongly relational type, emerged, that finds its root as well in
Melanie Klein’s object relation theory. In 1957, Ivan Boszormenyi-
Nagy was the director of the Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric In-
stitute of Philadelphia, the first big center of family therapy. There,
a circular reading of the symptom in the family context is carried
out, paying special attention to family loyalties and myths and to
family triads. James Framo, who collaborated as a researcher with
the group directed by Boszormenyi-Nagy, introduced co-therapy
(male and female therapists) into the practice of family therapy.
The pioneers’ progress becomes increasingly enriched with
new developments and experiments. Trains of thought, practi-
cal proposals and clinical experiments allowed for different ori-
entations to meet on a single path. Therefore, Framo integrated
dynamic and systemic concepts with the intra-psychic and inter-
personal ones, mediating conceptually between the personal and
the social level. In establishing an intergenerational approach11,
he referred also to Fairbairn’s theory of object relations12 and its
application to the couple, as well as integrating the translational
vision. His work was done with traditional family units, but also
with homosexual couples or blended or single-parent couples.
He was always searching for the intergenerational hidden forces
that move behaviours. «People in intimate relations become re-
ciprocally part of the psychology of the other, forming a system of
feedback that regulates and informs their individual behaviour»13.
Meanwhile, therapy with schizophrenic children that also en-
compassed the father figure was being conducted by the Ameri-
can Murray Bowen, at the Menninger Clinic of Topeka. In that
setting, mother-child pairs were hospitalised together, followed
later by the fathers. After moving in 1954 to the National Insti-
tute of Mental Health (NIMH) in Washington, Bowen structured
his clinical work with whole families, starting projects of family
observation (later published in Family Therapy in Clinical Prac-
tice, 1978).
This line of research proved fertile and new elements emerged
which emphasised the process of differentiation of the Self and
the theory of triangulation within a multigenerational approach.
This was the precursor of a family developmental model that
11 J. Framo (1996), Terapia Intergenerazionale. Un modello di lavoro con le fami-
glie d’origine, Raffaello Cortina, Milano.
12 Cfr. W.R.D. Fairbairn (1952), Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality, Rout-
ledge and Kegan Paul, London.
13 J. Framo, Terapia Intergenerazionale, cit.
28 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounswent beyond the observation of the individual life cycle, in terms EN
of the mother-child relationship. It focused on the process of
progressive autonomy in terms of the modality and capacity of
separation from the family of origin (study and application of the
family genogram)14. Bowen was also responsible for the formali-
sation of the concept of ‘undifferentiated family Ego mass’, as a
state or grade of group fusion ‘conglomerated emotional iden-
tity’ and the concept of ‘emotional cut’, seen as a condition of
non-belonging that negates the emotional intensity of the par-
ent-child bond. As far back as 1976, he considered the ’triangle’
as the relational unit at the base of any emotional system in the
nuclear family (and of the extended family). In a ‘calm’ period,
two members of the triangle form a pleasant alliance. Meanwhile,
the third tries to catch the attention of one of the others. In situa-
tions of ‘tension’ the third occupies a privileged position but also
a stressful one, since the other two will try to involve the third
in the conflict. Since for every individual the main task is that of
differentiating him/herself from the “‘undifferentiated family Ego
mass’, Bowen worked with the parents to try to ‘de-triangulate’
the child, using the therapist as the third element of the triangle,
through whom the tension of the married couple could be re-
leased. The approach recognised that the differentiation of Self
in a triangle was not possible if one had no way of acting on the
other interconnected triangles.
These progressive stages are followed in Italy by Maurizio An-
dolfi (Academy of Psychotherapy of the Family, Rome) and by Eu-
genia Scabini and Vittorio Cigoli (Center of Athenium of Study
and Research on the Family, Milan). Next, the systemic-relational
paradigm, formulated by James Haley was reached. Moving away
from attention directed principally towards the dyad (for exam-
ple, observing the model defined ‘double bind’), Haley began to
closely observe the triads, and identified ‘coalitions’. In particular,
he observed observed that in families with a symptom-bearing
member, the most frequent triangulation was formed by a coali-
tion of two persons, generally belonging to different generations,
to the detriment of the third. This led to the so-called ‘perverse
triangle’, an interactive model that still remains an important and
much debated diagnostic reference point15.
14 Cfr. R. De Bernart, F. Merlini (2001), Una bibliografia ragionata sul genogramma
familiare, in «Terapia Familiare», 65, 77-101; S. Cirillo, M. Selvini, A.M. Sorrenti-
no (2011), Il genogramma. Percorso di autoconoscenza, integrato nella forma-
zione di base dello psicoterapeuta, in «Terapia Familiare», 97, 5-28.
15 Concerning triangular dynamics within the family, cfr. E. Fivaz-Depeursinge,
A. Corboz-Warnery (2001) (ed. or. 1999), Il Triangolo primario, Raffaello Corti-
na, Milano; and, more recently, G. Salonia, Edipo dopo Freud. Una nuova Ge-
stalt per il triangolo primario, cit.; G. Salonia, A. Sichera, Edipo dopo Freud, cit.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 29EN 3.3 Systemic therapies
The development of so-called ‘systemic therapies’ is linked to
Gregory Bateson and to his group of collaborators (Lidz, Wynne,
Haley and Jackson). Combining the study of communicative pro-
cesses16, the development of cybernetic concepts17, the application
of certain principles of animal psychology, and the philosophy of
Bertrand Russell (for example, the thematisation of meta-mes-
sages’), Bateson deepened the study and the nature of levels of
communication, concentrating on the concept of ambiguous
communication. His interest in communicative channels led, in
psychiatry, to a special attention towards schizophrenic patients
(victims of their families), injured by a communication that often
broke the rules of the distinction between logical levels and where
it is difficult to find meaning (so-called contradictory messages).
To Bateson, we also owe the formulation of the theory of «the
double bind»18 which described the type of communication that
leads a person to develop schizophrenic behaviour. He interpret-
ed schizophrenia as the expression of incoherent interpersonal
communication in which there is logical incompatibility between
the verbal channel (digital) and the non-verbal one (analogical).
For Bateson, it was the context which made sense of behaviour.
In other words, a homeostasis is created where the family is con-
ceived as a cybernetic system. The family as a system is regulated
by its members and maintains its status quo, depending on the
nature of the family interactions or on the behaviour of the desig-
nated patient (even to the point of obstructing psychotherapeutic
attempts).
After the elaboration of these decisive propositions, Bateson’s
group was destined to lose his cohesion and it split into two direc-
tions, one systemic and the other structural. Bateson himself said:
«There is a fundamental difference between my position and that
of Lidz, Wynne, Haley and Jackson. They are clinicians. I am a the-
oretician. They will continue to look for examples of generalised
narrative, I look only for examples of formal relationships such as
to be able to structure a theory»19. Among Bateson’s pupils, Don
Jackson was destined to become director of the Mental Research
Institute with Satir and Riskin and, later, with Haley and Weakland.
It was during that period that Jackson defined some technical pre-
cepts (unidirectional mirror, supervision during therapy and work
16 Cfr. G. Bateson, J. Ruesch (1976) (ed. or. 1951), La matrice sociale della psichia-
tria, Il Mulino, Bologna.
17 Cfr. G. Bateson (1976) (ed. or. 1972), Verso un’ecologia della mente, Adelphi,
Milano.
18 G. Bateson et alii (1956), Toward a theory of schizophrenia, in «Behavioral Sci-
ence» , 1/4, 251-264.
19 D. Lipset (1980), Gregory Bateson: The Legacy of a Scientist, Beacon Press, Bos-
ton, 237.
30 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsas a team) which allowed systemic family therapy to ’go public’, EN
modifying the rules of the traditional setting, which, until that mo-
ment, had been considered untouchable.
3.4 Strategic therapies
Milton Erickson’s experience is a standalone. Perhaps because
of his multiple disabilities, which heightened his capacity of ob-
servation, together with his innate sensibility and perceptive qual-
ities, he made limited use of theory. Erickson created, instead, a
repertoire of techniques. Among them, hypnosis was often used.
Acutely attentive to all aspects of communication (he often used
metaphorical language), Erickson established a clinical praxis
characterised by extreme practicality, finalised towards tangible
and efficient results (the ‘efficient intervention’, in fact). It was an
approach which took a positive position towards individuals and
families (conducted with techniques such as reframing or relabel-
ing), and aimed at a circular orientation going beyond the prin-
ciples of linear causality. Erickson worked with the hypnotic re-
lationship in an exclusive and selective way (calling rapport the
state in which the subject responds only to the hypnotist) or in a
bilateral fashion (in which the hypnotist develops a specific rela-
tionship with the subject) and he always evinced a strong relation-
al mentality. His attention to details and his strong interest in the
patients and their problems led him to widen his vision of them, to
include their social and cultural status.
3.5 Experiential therapies: the Symbolic-experiential ap-
proach and the Integrated humanistic approach
The luminary of experiential therapies was Carl Whitaker. Hoff-
man wrote of him that he was «an expert in pushing the unthink-
able to the edge of what is even unimaginable»20. Together with
his wife Muriel, Whitaker developed a model of co-therapy that
used techniques that involved a deep co-involvement of the ther-
apist in the emotional processes of the clients and of their symbol-
ic world. In 1946, at the Emory University of Atlanta, he published,
with Malone and Warkentin, the first volume of The Roots of Psy-
chotherapy. After 1956, on leaving Emory, he became interested
in the formation of psychotherapists and organised conferences
(the 10th in 1955, at Sea Island, was the first conference on family
processes).
His attention was not directed towards symptomatic manifes-
tations, but towards the individual for whom the symptom was
seen as an opportunity. He widened and gave alternative defini-
20 L. Hoffman (1981), Foundations of Family Therapy: A Conceptual framework
for Systems Change, Basic Books, New York.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 31EN tions to the family unit observation in a trigenerational direction
(including therapeutic structure), and succeeded in engaging
himself in the sessions, using his own emotional resonance as an
efficient instrument to encounter the suffering of others (process
not progress). He achieved all of this without overstepping the line
of care-giving: he wanted to activate the resources of the families
and avoid manipulations or excessive involvement (for example,
he did not write the name of the patients in his diary and did not
give appointments to encourage families to take the initiative).
His pioneering path also led him to emphasise the use of a met-
aphorical object such as ‘relational image’ (for example, the use
of an object to activate the imaginary and symbolic world) and of
‘time leaps’ to favour processes of ‘making present’ and to enable
the clinical work with those absent family members, through pro-
cesses of exclusion-inclusion. Whitaker dismantled the concept
of ‘resistance’, which was no longer considered as a lack of co-op-
eration of the family (a force that goes against therapeutic work),
but rather as a possibility for the therapist to follow the energy of
the family without any opposition or conflict, guiding it towards
positive and fruitful directions.
In Italy, Mara Selvini Palazzoli and her School of Psychotherapy
of the Family in Milan followed in his footsteps.
Meanwhile, in 1967, Conjoint Family Therapy by Virginia Satir
was published. It contained a collection of the re-working of a se-
ries of psychotherapy sessions, both with individuals and families.
It was a turning point in the story of Family Therapy: «She did not
like to talk about theory or her techniques, fearing that her work-
ing model could be turned into recipes used to form family tech-
nicians rather than family therapists»21. Those were the years of
student rebellions, of new demands for the free expression of the
individual, of the demand for creative spaces: the Ego is the focus
of every gaze. Satir wrote: «When I start working with someone, I
am not interested in changing him. I am interested in finding his
rhythm, in being able to connect with him and help him to go to
those places that scare him»22. On the one hand, self-esteem was
considered a source of well-being, on the other hand, a lack of
self-esteem was seen as the cause of psychological suffering. She
placed attention on non-verbal language, as an expressive chan-
nel for the emotions. The two elements intertwine, and low self-
confidence was considered connected to rigid or confused family
systems and characterised by unspoken or implicit (non-verbal-
ised) ‘emotional rules’. Satir’s analysis of the different communica-
21 L. Onnis (2002), Il linguaggio delle emozioni: Virginia Satir e la sua concezione
della terapia in M. Andolfi, I pionieri della terapia familiare, cit., 52-60, 53.
22 R. Simon (1992), One on One: Conversations with the Shapers of Family Ther-
apy, The Family Therapy Network - The Guilford Press, New York, 186.
32 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounstive styles of the various family members favored the role of the EN
body and the family spatial collocation. For example, ‘the family
sculpture’ was intended as a representation of the family, where
all members reproduced a scenario relative to their modality of
reciprocal interactions, activating their creativity and amplifying
their emotional capacity23. There was also the method of Family
Reconstruction’, based on encounters between family groups, in
which one could re-narrate the story of their roots using a verbal,
analogical and metaphorical dialogue which allowed the family to
look at old things in a new way. In this model, the experience of the
family members with the therapist was highly relevant: the clini-
cian invited them to talk amongst themselves in front of him, not
to teach, but to stimulate new behaviours and solutions, using his/
her emotional resonances as resources and explorative probes.
In the current context, a family therapist works with families
characterised by an interpersonal system in continual transfor-
mation, marked by new critical events24, in a scenario that brings
with it operative reflexes on his role. Since the Sixties, we have
seen new modalities and typologies of ‘being a family’. There are
now fewer marriages and an increase in non-married couples
(with children); fewer children and increased median age of first-
time mothers; an increased expression of the affective code (in-
timacy) to the detriment of ethical-normative one; an increased
number of separated families (critical event: divorce); the transfor-
mation of families from extended to nuclear and from patriarchal
to conjugal; geographical moves; and the development of bio-
technologies. In particular, there are new family types which differ
in various ways: structurally (single parent, nuclear, multinuclear,
blended); by sexual orientation (same sex unions, families of het-
erosexual couples with or without children, with adopted children
and/or biological children); ethnic origin (mono- and pluri-ethnic
families)25. It becomes possible to speak not of the family, but of
‘families’, given the multiple forms that the term ‘family’ assumes.
Bauman’s definition contains a highly pregnant expression of
23 Cfr. V. Satir (1972), Peoplemaking, Science & Behaviour Books, Palo Alto.
24 From a psycho-social viewpoint, a criterion of subdivision of the phases in
the family life-cycle is identified, showing up any ‘critical events’ that presum-
ably define their development. Among these, ‘entrances’ and ‘exits’ of family
members are particularly important, bringing changes in structure and sys-
tems dynamics. Cfr. M. McGoldrick, B. Carter (1982), The family life cycle, in F.
Walsh (ed.), Normal Family Processes, Guilford Press, New York; P. Gambini,
Psicologia della famiglia. cit.
25 Cfr. R.G. Romano (2004), Ciclo di vita e dinamiche educative nella società post-
moderna, cit.; P. Bastianoni, A. Taurino (2007), Famiglia e genitorialità oggi.
Nuovi significati e prospettive, Unicopli, Milano.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 33EN these changes in the family26: the ‘liquid’ family. It is the family
which flees from continuous definitions of its form.
From a methodological point of view, the observable horizon
is getting wider, thus including relational systems which are larg-
er and more complex: for example, the dyadic model, frequently
used to study family relationships, gives way to a model of co-
regulation (triadic), thereby avoiding the risk of a ‘wrapping up’ of
the system with a corresponding loss of the sense of its complex-
ity, and which would reduce the dyads to a simple sum. Different
technical hypotheses have influenced theory by introducing im-
portant modifications through a circular process of co-creation27.
The necessity of taking into account all elements of the family sys-
tem is already present in the work of Bateson, according to whom
– as we have said – it is necessary to consider the complexity of
the relationships between all the elements involved in a certain in-
terpersonal context. The development of research thus introduces
the possibility of studying the interaction of dyads inside a triadic
interaction (father-mother-child), considering the role of the third
as influential on the relationship of all three as well as on the qual-
ity of the group, considered in its entirety. Fivaz-Depeursinge and
Corboz-Warnery28, in Lausanne, went beyond the reductive anal-
ysis of the mother-child dyad, and opened up observation of the
child within the family triangle to systematic study, considering
the four possible declinations. This is a perspective which we will
come back to later. The origins and development of GFT occurred
within this framework: at a theoretical and clinical level, it inte-
grates the new anthropological and therapeutic perspectives on
intercorporeity, on relational proxemics, on the Self theory and on
the theory of contact.
26 Cfr. Z. Bauman, Amore liquido, cit.
27 Cfr. M. Malagoli Togliatti, Dove sono finiti i pionieri? Il futuro della terapia fa-
miliare. Opinioni a confronto, in M. Andolfi, I pionieri della terapia familiare,
cit., 149-157; M. Malagoli Togliatti, S. Mazzoni (2006), Osservare, valutare e so-
stenere la relazione genitori-figli. Il Lausanne Trilogie Play clinico, Raffaello
Cortina, Milano.
28 Cfr. E. Fivaz-Depeursinge, A. Corboz-Warnery, Il Triangolo primario, cit.; G.
Salonia, Edipo dopo Freud. Una nuova Gestalt per il triangolo primario, cit.
estalt Therapy emerged in the 1950s1 as individual and group ther-
relational theoretical-clinical principles (the wholeness principle,
the Self theory, the theory of contact, concentration-awareness,
experiment-experience), at the beginning it was not applied sys-
tematically to the couple and the family3. Only at a later date did
some Gestalt therapists begin to elaborate a model of Gestalt and
family therapy (GFT) working with families and, more frequently,
with couples. Among the models of Family Therapy4, both in the-
ory and practice, GFT focused on specific aspects such as experi-
ence, the relation of figure/background, contact boundaries, the
quality of contact and the Self theory.
In reconstructing the history of GFT, it is possible to focus on
three models which, through evolving and integrating among
themselves, have progressively rendered the Gestalt model of work-
ing with couples and families more independent. The three models
include the phase of experience (awareness and expression of emo-
tion), the contact phase (quality of the contact cycle), and the Self
phase (and of its functions), that is central to this volume.
emotions
During the 1960s, GT began to be applied to couples and fami-
lies. The therapeutic trend5 of that moment was oriented to facili-
1 Cfr. F. Perls (1942), Ego, Hunger and Aggression, Vintage Books, New York; F. Perls,
R. Hefferline, P. Goodman (1951), Gestalt Therapy, Vintage Press, New York.
2 GT initially worked with individuals in a group setting where, from time to
time, other group members were invited to intervene. Cfr. F. Perls (1980) (ed.
or. 1969), La terapia gestaltica parola per parola, Astrolabio, Roma; F. Perls (1977)
(ed. or. 1973), L’approccio della Gestalt. Testimone oculare della terapia, Astro-
labio, Roma; F. Perls, P. Baumgardner (1983) (ed. or. 1975), L’eredità di Perls.
Doni dal lago Cowichan, Astrolabio, Roma.
3 Perls worked in groups, but he sometimes used to give demonstrations of his
work with couples (not families), applying the awareness principle, polarities,
top-dog/under-dog dynamics. Cfr. F. Perls, L’approccio della Gestalt.. cit., 123-
150; F. Perls, P. Baumgardner, L’eredità di Perls. cit., 137- 140. As Further sup-
port for GT as innately appropriate for working with couples comes from Bar-
bara de Franck-Lynch (systemic) and Edward Lynch (Gestalt), teachers at the
University of Connecticut and authors of B. Lynch, E. Lynch (2000), Principles
and practices of structural family therapy, Gestalt Journal Press, Highland New
York. They told me that they had done couple’s therapy with various family
therapists and that they found Isadore From’s work (he was a GT founder) ex-
tremely helpful both at individual and group level.
4 Cfr. A.S. Gurman, D.T. Kniskern (eds.) (1995), Manuale di terapia della famiglia,
Boringhieri, Torino; F.P. Piercy et alii (1986), Family Therapy Source-book, The
Guildford Press, New York.
5 Cfr. infra, chapter ‘Developing of models of family therapy between historical
continuity and present perspectives’.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 37EN tate the members of the family to emerge from the neurotic con-
fluence (also called symbiosis)6, which characterised their past,
so as to give voice and space to subjectivity7. This new tendency
upsets the family, in that the emergence of diversity and subjec-
tive viewpoints is experienced in a rigid and destabilising manner.
When the levels of intensity and unawareness reach a head, an ex-
plosion of difficulties, often expressed by the pathological symp-
toms of one member of the family (that the therapist refers to as
the ‘the designated patient’), becomes inevitable. It is the family
member who has ‘blown a fuse’ by being the unwitting, recep-
tive antenna of a powerful developmental need to express oneself
and escape from the family con-fusion. This individual usually
does not receive support from the parents and is labeled as ‘bad’ or
‘mad’. This reaction aims at blocking him/her and leading him/her
back into the neurotic familiar confluence.
Therefore, the designated patient takes charge, with a mis-
understood and often unspeakable suffering, his own urge for
change, of his own and of the whole family: this is an urge that
the other members of the family are not ready to feel, but which –
fortunately – they can no longer hide.
To escape from neurotic confluences, to be oneself and so on,
are the key words that epitomise the anthropological and clini-
cal pathways of this historical period. Expression of this Zeitgeist
is the ‘Gestalt prayer’ by Fritz Perls which became almost an em-
blem of the first Gestalt period: «I do my thing, you do your thing/I
am not in this world to live up to your expectations/ And you are
not in this world to live up to mine. You are you and I am I/ if by
chance we find each other it’s beautiful/ If not, it can’t be helped»8.
For their part, in those years the Gestalt therapists who worked
with families preferred strategies that attempted to make the des-
ignated patients aware of their own emotions and able to express
them (feeling expressions): the emerging of an individuality, the
therapeutic objective, provoking in the family the beginning of
paths of individuation and differentiation. The fact of giving cen-
trality to the emotions9 collocates Gestalt among the family of
6 In GT, neurotic confluence means remaining in a forced contact that neither
the Organism or the Environment desires. When the Organism remains cling-
ing to or fused with the Environment, it does not become aware of the healthy
aggression that pushes for differentiation. Cfr. F. Perls, R. Hefferline, P. Good-
man, Gestalt Therapy, cit.
7 Cfr. G. Salonia, Psicopatologia e contesti culturali, cit.
8 F. Perls, La terapia gestaltica parola per parola, cit. There is a more radical ver-
sion, in which, if one does not meet the other, the latter is sent to… it is clear
that this prayer belongs to the context it sprang from.
9 The most famous Gestalt family therapist was Virginia Satir. Her writings,
apart from the ones already cited, include R. Bandler, J. Grinder, V. Satir (1980),
Il cambiamento terapeutico della famiglia, Borla, Roma.
38 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsexperiential models (together with Whitaker)10 in the manuals on EN
Family Therapy. The specificity of the GT ‘experiential’ approach
applied to the family is linked to its techniques of awareness and
reciprocal expression of feelings, the amplification of the symp-
tom (experiment and exasperate a new feared behaviour, etc.). Re-
reading, in a Gestalt key, other techniques belonging to the cor-
pus clinical of all family therapies, include the family sculpture11
and the genogram. In the family structure the designated patient,
with the members of the family, or if in a group, with other par-
ticipants, creates (including or excluding the Self) a sculpture of
their family. To each participant the patient assigns a pose, a facial
expression and the proxemics. Already the creation of the sculp-
ture and the representation of the family members stimulates,
in the patient, the emerging of archaic memories. In the second
phase, the patient, and in some cases also the other members of
the sculpture, express experiences and emotions evoked by the
sculpture. This is for finding closure with ‘interrupted gestalts’,
saying the unsaid. These are often experiences with intense emo-
tional charge, sometimes forgotten, that block the growth of the
Organism12. In the genogram13, a key techniques in systemic re-
lational therapy, the exhumation of trigenerational history is not
what is emphasised: instead, the experiment is fundamental. The
experiment, indeed, makes present the opened or ‘interrupted ge-
stalts’ (unfinished and unconscious relational situations that in-
terfere with present experience and that silently generate symp-
toms in relational style).
Using the Gestalt key, which favours the flow of emotions
and experiences, some phenomena typical of confluent families
(myths, secrets, taboos, invisible loyalties) are re-read as modalities
that maintain neurotic confluence and prevent the emergence of
individual viewpoints. Specifically, ‘myths’ exalt a member of the
clan whose fame aggregates and ennobles the family belonging to
that group, but who, at the same time, obliges all family members
to negate their uniqueness to conform to the model of the myth,
such as ‘the honourable uncle’ or ‘the widowed grandmother who
10 Cfr. C. Whitaker (1990) (ed. or. 1989), Conversazioni notturne di un terapeuta
della famiglia, Astrolabio, Roma; I. Alger (1982), Gestalt-system family therapy
in «American Journal of Family Therapy», 86-87; W. Kempler (1974), Principles
of Gestalt Family Therapy, Desert Press, Salt Lake City.
11 Virginia V. Satir (1967) (ed. or. 1964), Conjoint Family Therapy, Science & Be-
haviour Books, Palo Alto. Cfr. C. Jefferson (1978), Some notes on the use of
family sculpture in therapy, in «Family Process», I, 17, 69-76.
12 From here forwards ‘O.’ indicates the human Organism in action towards rela-
tional contacts.
13 Cfr. M. Andolfi (2003), Manuale di psicologia relazionale. La dimensione fa-
miliare, APF, Roma; R. De Maria, G. Weeks, L. Hof (1999), Focused genograms,
Brunner/Mazel, Philadelphia; M. McGoldrick, R. Gerson (1985), Genograms in
family assessment, Norton, New York; S. Montàgano, A. Pazzagli (1989), Il ge-
nogramma. Teatro di alchimie familiari, Franco Angeli, Milano.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 39EN raised five children alone’, etc. Secrets regard unpleasant events
that have dishonoured the history of those families, and even if
they are known only to a few privileged individuals, they condi-
tion the family climate since the secrets impose rigid limitations
on the children, for which they do not have historical reasons. For
example, a mother, who is ashamed of the secret story of a fam-
ily member becoming a single mother, will be particularly strict
with her daughter (unaware of these events) if she dresses in an
even slightly provocative way. Taboos are themes and situations
that, in an obsessive and rigid way, must be excluded from fam-
ily conversations because they are perceived as destructive of the
ideal image of the family (for example, sexuality). They are often
linked to introjections, that is, to rules accepted without assimila-
tion. ‘Invisible loyalties’ are called the secret connections, often
asymmetrical, in which one of the children is close to one par-
ent, perhaps to protect them, but from a distance, without clearly
showing it and sometimes even assuming the opposite external
behaviour.
The therapeutic work of the Gestalt therapist, while s/he is con-
centrating on the single individual who bears the symptoms, helps
the whole family to acquire awareness of the habitual neurotic
modalities they adopt out of fear of individualisation. Of course,
a small change in a group can trigger big changes but this model,
focused on a single aspect of growth (the individualisation of the
subject) will eventually appear to be reductive14.
The 1980s can be read as a time of radical change. Individual-
ity had come to the fore, and people lived in a fully narcissistic
society15. The emergence of individuality had de-structured the
unified thought, which, in previous generations, had dominated
in the polis and in the family. At this point, the necessity for new
relational models, capable of including diversity, was keenly felt. It
was the period in which striving for personal fulfilment generated
a crisis, not only in the spheres of belonging which were taken
for granted, but also habitual relational styles. In family therapies,
approaches moved from the psychodynamic matrix, to systems
theory, the cybernetic, to structural theory16.
14 The danger of intrapysichical drift is evident in the following erroneous com-
ments made by a famous Gestalt family therapist: «Family therapy is particu-
larly suitable for interpersonal processes whereas Gestalt therapy is at its best
in intrapersonal processes» in C. Hatcher (1987), Modelli intrapersonali e in-
terpersonali: integrazione della Gestalt con le terapie familiari, in «Quaderni di
Gestalt», III, 4, 33-44, 42.
15 Cfr. C. Lasch, La cultura del narcisismo, cit.
16 Cfr. infra, chapter ‘Developing of models of family therapy between historical
continuity and present perspectives’.
40 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsGestalt therapists started to dedicate space to the relational EN
aspects of the family members: the dynamic of polarities17. the
dialogue with ‘empty’ or ‘hot’ chairs and, especially, the contact
cycle. We entered the second phase of GFT18. In particular, Joseph
Zinker and Sonia Nevis created a model of GFT which integrated
previous acquisitions with the theory of the contact. The quality
of contact between the members of the family became the center
of attention19.
The theory of the contact cycle and withdrawal from contact –
the theoretical and clinical cornerstone of Gestalt therapy 20– was
applied. People are well and grow if they have nourished contact
with the other (the Environment21). If the contact intentionality,
that pushes two people to meet, is interrupted and does not lead
to the desired final contact, then people start to be sick. The Ge-
stalt therapist, who has experience of the manner and the time of
failures in interpersonal encounters, works in the family setting
on the interruptions of contact between the members of the fam-
ily. The process of individualisation of the subject, through feel-
ing and expressing his own emotions, is contained in a holistic
perspective: the quality of reactions between the members of the
family. At variance with Bowen22. the Gestalt therapists in those
years invited the family members to talk amongst themselves and,
by observing them, focused on competencies, times, and the ways
of interrupting the contact cycle. The partners involved in the in-
teraction were asked, during the dialogue and after, if they were
satisfied with what they had expressed and what experiential ef-
fect the other’s comments had on them. This results in an efficient
method, sometime magical, since people, by listening to their own
and others’ experiences, discover new ways of encounter and are
facilitated in reaching the contact boundary with the other. GFT,
that works with the cycles of contact in the family23. is efficient
17 Cfr. G. Salonia (1987), Il lavoro gestaltico con le coppie e con le famiglie: il ciclo
vitale e l’integrazione delle polarità, in «Quaderni di Gestalt», III, 4, 131-142.
18 Cfr. G. Salonia, M. Spagnuolo Lobb (1987), Editoriale, in ivi, 11-13.
19 Cfr. J. Zinker, S. Nevis (1981), The Gestalt theory of couple and family inter-
actions, Gestalt Institute of Cleveland: Id. (1982), How Gestalt therapy views
couples, families and the process of their psychotherapy: General questions
and answers, Gestalt Institute of Cleveland.
20 Cfr. G. Salonia (1992) (ed. or. 1989), From We to I-Thou: A Contribution to an
Evolutive Theory of Contact, in «Studies in Gestalt Therapy», I, 31-42; Id. (1989),
Tempi e modi di contatto, in «Quaderni di Gestalt», V, 8/9, 55-64.
21 From now onwards, we will indicate the Environment, human or otherwise,
with which the O. interacts, with the letter E.
22 Cfr. M. Bowen (1980) (ed. or. 1979), Dalla famiglia all’individuo. La differenzia-
zione del sé nel sistema familiare, Astrolabio, Roma.
23 Cfr. J. Zinker, S. Nevis (1987), Teoria della Gestalt sulle interazioni di coppia e
familiari, in «Quaderni di Gestalt», III, 4, 17-32. I do not agree with Bob and Rita
Resnick’s opinion that J. Zinker’s work with couples was inauthentic which
they expressed in an interview with Poli in Turin on 9 March 2014 and pub-
lished in issue n. 0 of 2015 of Figurermergenti, the Gestalt School of Turin’s
review. The positive aspect of Zinker’s method was not a forcing that avoided
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 41EN and responds appropriately to the critical conditions of the fam-
ily in that specific historical period. Its weak point, subsequently
magnified by cultural changes, is not having accurately theorised
the irreducible difference that exists, inside the family, between
symmetrical relationships and asymmetrical ones (a difference
that is decisive and at the same time constitutive of family real-
ity). If a mother says to her daughter: «I feel sexually neglected by
your father», although this communication might be valuable at
the level of feeling (neglected) and of communication (representa-
tive); it reveals a profoundly damaged parental function (these are
not confidences that a mother should share with a daughter: in
this case, the body of the mother is not living maternity adequately
and therefore does not see that her daughter’s body is small, and
incapable of bearing this type of utterance)24. When faced with
this difficulty, many Gestalt therapists looked for theoretical sup-
ports (such as the concept of the generational line) outside the GT
framework, in systemic and structural therapies25. In my opinion,
these people wasted a golden opportunity, as they lost sight of
what was already present in GT26. Consequently, with enthusiasm
and dubious pride, proposals of integrated models between GT
and Systemic Therapy abounded, but their continuous running
up just revealed the enormous limitations of their choice27. It was,
in other words, an ‘unhappy’ rather than ‘a good marriage’28. The
model of Family Gestalt Therapy (FGT) that I propose, conversely,
confrontational issues in the couple, but a Gestalt method to let their contact
intentions emerge so they could be worked on. Cfr. the original on: www.fig-
uremergenti.it/articolo.php?idArticolo=8730#bob
24 Broad reflections about this to be found in: G. Salonia (2012), Theory of self
and the liquid society. Rewriting the Personality-function in Gestalt Therapy,
in «GTK Journal of Psychotherapy», 3, 29-57.
25 In my interview with Resnikoff, he related how he used the Polsters’ Gestalt
techniques (awareness, contact, experiment) together with those of the strate-
gic school of Milan (paradox, structure, growth): G. Salonia (ed.) (1985), Terapia
familiare e terapia della Gestalt. Intervista a Roy O. Resnikoff, in «Quaderni di
Gestalt», I, 1, 73-76. Cfr. V. Goldin (1987), Terapia della Gestalt e Terapia fami-
liare: integrazione di modelli o integrazione di elementi della personalità del
terapista, in «Quaderni di Gestalt», III, 4, 45-50; Id., Terapia della Gestalt e te-
rapia familiare: il programma GIFT. Intervista a D.J. Clark, in ivi, 120-127; J.M.
Robine, Terapia della Gestalt e Terapia familiare Strutturale. Intervista a B. De
Frank- Lynch, in ivi, 51-58. Three models (Systemic, Transactional Analysis
and Gestalt) are connected in the ‘fury’ for integration: cfr. I.B. Kadis, R. Mc-
Clendon (1983), Chocolate pudding and other approaches to intensive multiple
Family Therapy, Science and Behaviour Books, Palo Alto.
26 Cfr. I. From (1985), Requiem for Gestalt in «Quaderni di Gestalt», I, 1, 22-
32, 32; G. Salonia (2011), Requiem per gli slogan gestaltici. Intervento
introduttivo al II convegno della Società Italiana Psicoterapia della Ge-
stalt, in G. Franceschetti et alii, La creatività come identità terapeutica,
Franco Angeli, Milano, 51-54.
27 As From used to say, every marriage of Gestalt with other approaches reveals
a lack in Gestalt’s clinical and theoretical framework, and always ends up by
weakening GT even more.
28 Cfr. R. Lampert (1987), Terapia della Gestalt e Terapia della famiglia: un buon
matrimonio, in «Quaderni di Gestalt», III, 4, 59-73.
42 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounstraces its roots back to a current of theoretical and clinical aspects EN
of GT which had previously been overlooked (I refer, in particular,
to the Self theory).
The loss of the sense of belonging and the exasperated self-re-
liance that characterise our time has led to widespread situations
of ‘borderline’ confusion, both in the polis and in the family29. It
became a priority to establish anthropological and clinical paths
about identity and ‘borders’30. In family therapies, there is much
talk about the return of super egoistic instances of regulation and
containment31, of recuperating family structure and the genera-
tional line, of navigation ‘by sight.’ However, GT had the resourc-
es to respond in an original way to the new psychical difficulties
by rediscovering the pregnancy of the Self theory with its three
functions: Id, Personality and Ego. The third phase, Family Gestalt
Therapy.
29 Cfr. Z. Bauman (2002), La società individualizzata. Come cambia la nostra
esperienza, Il Mulino, Bologna.
30 Kohut’s intuition – the passage from ‘guilty man’ to ‘tragic man’– is declined
as a loss of identity due to the fragile loyalties and weak sense of belonging in
postmodern society, Cfr. H. Kohut (1976) (ed. or. 1971), Il narcisismo e l’analisi
del sé, Boringhieri, Torino; cfr. Z. Bauman (2003), Intervista sull’identità, Lat-
erza, Roma-Bari.
31 In an interview, Mark Solms says: «In future it will principally be a question of
‘dealing with’ emotions, rather than bringing them to light» in M. Solms (2012),
La coscienza comincia dall’Es, in «Psicologia contemporanea», 233, 6-13, 11;
cfr. G. Salonia, Theory of self and the liquid society, cit.
Premise: limits of GT or limits of GT therapists?
tact model claim that it is essential to resort to Systemic Family
Therapy (SFT)1, since GT does not have a theoretical framework
and a coherent praxis to work with the two coordinates which
determine the family, the generational line and the life cycle (the
structural dimension and the developmental dimension)2. Per-
haps, as From suggested3, the search for juxtapositions was de-
rived from an insufficient knowledge of GT’s theoretical heritage
and new opportunities4. I increasingly agree with my dear Isadore.
After years of study, research, teaching and practicing GFT, I have
come to understand and claim that the contribution of GT (ne-
glected but decisive) in working with families is the theory of Self
and of its functions.
Looking more deeply5, one discovers that it is a powerful theo-
retical and clinical instrument for understanding processes and
working on the structural dimension (generational line) and on
the developmental one (family life cycle) of the family.
But let us start from the beginning. In GT the Self is not an in-
ternal homunculus that directs the human being6, but it is equiva-
lent to the Organism-as-a-whole (O.) in action (his/her contact
system). The Self acts through functions, three of which are de-
cisive for the growth of the O.: the Ego-function, the Id-function,
and the Personality-function. These three functions contain the
dynamics of growth of the individual and of the family.
The Id-function concerns the energy of excitement – bodily
sensations that take the form of emotions7 – which pushes the
1 I am particularly referring to Salvador Minuchin: S. Minuchin (1981) (ed. or.
1974), Famiglie e terapia della famiglia, Astrolabio, Roma.
2 We analysed this aspect many years ago in G. Salonia (2009), Letter to a young
Gestalt therapist for a Gestalt Therapy approach to family therapy, in «The Brit-
ish Gestalt Journal», 18/2, 38-47.
3 Cfr. I. From, Requiem for Gestalt, cit; E. Rosenfeld (1987), Storia orale della psi-
coterapia della Gestalt. Conversazioni con Isadore From, in «Quaderni di Ge-
stalt», III, 5, 11-36.
4 Cfr. G. Wheeler (2000), Per un modello di sviluppo in Psicoterapia della Gestalt,
in «Quaderni di Gestalt», XX, 30/31, 40-57.
5 Cfr. G. Salonia, Theory of self and the liquid society, cit.; A. Sichera (2012), The
Personality-function in Gestalt Therapy, in «GTK Journal of Psychotherapy»,
3, 17-27.
6 When Antonio Damasio says that reason does not command the emotions,
but rather it cannot function without the (cognitive) information provided by
them, he gives neuroscientific confirmation to Gestalt theory. Cfr. A. Damasio
(1995) (ed. or. 1994), L’errore di Cartesio: emozioni, ragione e cervello umano,
Adelphi, Milano.
7 «‘Feeling’ is a crucial problem to be addressed if one wishes to reincarnate the
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 45EN O. towards a new contact with the Environment (E.). The energy
that is expressed in the sensations and the emotions finds his first
containment in bodily and relational intentionality. Where does
the O. want to go? What new contact with the E. does it want to
experience to grow? All this emerges in the inevitable confronta-
tion with the bodily biography, with the ‘already’ of previous expe-
riences (who have I become? How do I want to grow? How much
continuity and how much discontinuity?). Let us take an example:
a diabetic wants to eat a cake. With the Id-function the Self be-
comes aware of what he feels (‘I want to eat a cake’) and feels the
correlative energy. Contextually, the Personality-function awak-
ens the consciousness of the bodily identity ‘I, who feel the desire
for cake, am a diabetic’)8. If the confrontation is genuine, that is, if
one feels fully the desire for cake and one assimilates it into one’s
own corporal autobiography as a diabetic, the Self in its unicity
and in its autonomy of choice (what we call the Ego-function), will
decide adequately in a creative and coherent fashion.
It is necessary to reiterate a fundamental concept: the Ego-
function is not the result of the pòlemos between the ‘what I feel’
of the Id-function and the ‘who I have become’ of the Personali-
ty-function, but is rather the agent of the creative solution which,
through processes of identification with the ‘me’ and of alienation
from the ‘non-me’, gives life to a creative adjustment. In this way, a
new genuine experience can be assimilated at a bodily level which
brings the ‘Autobiographical Self’9 up to date, that is, the ‘who have
I become now.’ In the Gestalt Self theory, two sets of dynamic re-
alities of human existence (energy and containment, movement
and structure, to be and to become, emotion and sensation, what
lasts and what is renewed in growth) are therefore conjugated in
an elegant and convincing fashion.
Excitement and structure, the Id-function and the Personali-
ty-function, are two decisive and indivisible elements of human
growth. For growth to occur, energy must have the possibility of
being expressed but, at the same time, it must be contained and
directed by a flexible structure. Without structure, energy is trans-
formed into agitation and does not take the form of experience
that assimilates and produces a bodily biography. In a rigid struc-
mind» in E. Barile (2007), Dare corpo alla mente. La relazione mente/corpo alla
luce delle emozioni e dell’esperienza del sentire, Mondadori, Milano,101.
8 The presence of the Personality-function in the orientation phase is a novitas
that emerges from a re-reading of Perls, Hefferline and Goodman’s book (cfr.
G. Salonia, Theory of self and the liquid society, cit.; A. Sichera, The Personal-
ity-function in Gestalt Therapy, cit.) and is in net contrast with Gestalt litera-
ture: cfr. J.M. Robine (ed.) (2016), Self. A Polyphony of Contemporary Gestalt
Therapists, L’exprimerie, Paris.
9 Neuroscience has confirmed this GT intuition. Cfr. A. Damasio (2012) (ed. or.
2010), Il Sé Autobiografico, in Id., Il Sé viene alla mente. La costruzione del cer-
vello cosciente, Adelphi, Milano.
46 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsture, on the contrary, the energy is blocked and the Self is devital- EN
ised or somatises, producing existential stereotypies.
Let us now apply these basic notions to family therapy, taking
into account the fact that in the O.’s practical actions, the three
functions are profoundly connected and are activated together in
a dynamic of figure and background. For obvious reasons of ana-
lytical clarity, the three functions will be hereafter presented one
at a time.
E tutta la vita è in noi fresca aulente,
il cuor nel petto è come pesca intatta,
tra le pàlpebre gli occhi
son come polle tra l’erbe,
i denti negli alvèoli
con come mandorle acerbe.
E andiam di fratta in fratta,
or congiunti or disciolti
(e il verde vigor rude
ci allaccia i mallèoli
c’intrica i ginocchi)
chi sa dove, chi sa dove!
Gabriele D’Annunzio, La pioggia nel pineto
1.1 Bodies-among-bodies: intercorporeity
The Id-function makes the Self that concentrates10 aware of the
excitement and of its moving towards new experiences of contact.
Excitement is revealed in sensations. Sensations, in turn, if heeded,
take form and configure themselves as emotions. Emotions – as
their etymological meaning indicates – push towards action, that
‘fit’ that goes directly towards contact. If they follow the decision of
the O., in giving himself to the E., contact – finally - happens.
This process, that needs to become conscious (living body)11,
emerges from feeling not only what happens within one’s own
body (proprioception) but also the sensations that flow between
one’s own body and other bodies (exteroception)12.
10 Cfr. F. Perls, R. Hefferline, P. Goodman (1997) (ed. or. 1994), Teoria e pratica della
terapia della Gestalt, Astrolabio, Roma.
11 On the meaning of ‘being-in contact-with-one’s-body’ cfr. G. Salonia (2008),
La psicoterapia della Gestalt e il lavoro sul corpo. Per una rilettura del fitness
in S. Vero, Il corpo disabitato. Semiologia, fenomenologia e psicopatologia del
fitness, Franco Angeli, Milano, 51-71.
12 Cfr. E. Barile, Dare corpo alla mente, cit.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 47EN One cannot understand fully what has happened in a family if
one does not look at their bodies as individuals and at their bodies
as interactions (intercorporeity). Being a body-among-bodies in
an intimate and daily way is what constitutes the proprium of life
and of family ties. The family intercorporeity is that background of
feelings produced precisely by the close proximity of bodies: bod-
ies that touch one another, that kiss, that look at each other, that
talk, that get close, that reject each other, that smell, that hug, that
bite and sometimes that clash. The communication of the senses
precedes and is more decisive than non-verbal communication, a
karst river that flows in all directions among the bodies of family
members. As the neurosciences have confirmed13, before words
and non-verbal communication, bodies communicate through
the senses14. Sensations, pleasant or unpleasant, positive or nega-
tive, of nearness or distance, progressively stratify and form the
weft of the intercorporeity which, as we will see in the Personality-
function, constitutes the intimate and active archaic background
of family relationships. From this background of sensations that
occur between bodies15, emotions and feelings, judgements, be-
haviours, sometimes apparently incomprehensible, emerge and
take on meaning. As the poet says: «...let the words float in your
blood»16.
When Marisa tells me that she does not understand why her
seven-month-old son Luca, who is usually calm, sociable, and all
smiles to everybody, has an agitated reaction and cries when he
sees his grandfather, I ask her what effect seeing her father pro-
duces in her. A moment, a smile, and Marisa answers surprised
and amused: «He makes me very agitated...», then concludes with
a knowing smile «Ok, I understand».
The generative and explicative matrix of the family’s ideas of
identity and relationship, of the growth and of the blockages in
the family, is to be found in the woof of the sensations and of in-
tercorporeity. If the parents, faced with a sensation or an emotion
of their own, or of the children, are filled with anxiety and they are
not aware of it, they will give them the wrong name17, thus building
13 Cfr. E. Tronick et alii (1978), The Infant’s Response to Entrapment between
Contradictory Messages in Face-to-Face Interaction, in «Journal of the Ameri-
can Academy of Child Psychiatry», 17, 1-13.
14 Emotional gestalt begins and embodies into each experience starting from ev-
ery feeling creating step by step.
15 On inter-corporality cfr. G. Salonia, La psicoterapia della Gestalt e il lavoro sul
corpo, cit.; Id. (2011), The Perls’ mistake. Insights and misunderstandings in Ge-
stalt post-Freudianis, in «GTK Journal of Psychotherapy», 2, 51-70.
16 Cfr. R. Carifi (2014), Madre, Le Lettere, Firenze.
17 To further explore these themes, cfr. G. Salonia (2014), La luna è fatta di for-
maggio. Traduzione gestaltica del linguaggio borderline (GTBL), in Id. (ed.) La
luna è fatta di formaggio. Terapeuti gestaltici traducono il linguaggio borderli-
ne, Il Pozzo di Giacobbe, Trapani, 11-55.
48 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsthe basis for additional possible difficulties in their children. Not EN
attributing the right name to what happens in their lived-body,
or in that of another family member, (that is, being unable to feel
emotions), creates certain difficulties, somatisations, confusions,
in particular in children, who are more vulnerable. For a genuine
encounter which is a source of growth, one must be aware of his/
her own experiences and open to understanding those of others.
When, in the background of a family, there is a stratification of
confusion, wrong names, denied bodily experiences, this will pro-
duce contractions (both in the body and relational) and it will not
be possible to have a contact functional to growth.
How much energy is it possible to express in the family? And
when the energy emerges, how is it received, contained, directed?
A typical place in which the family revels its confidence in the self-
regulation of the O. and of the relationship is precisely how fami-
lies raise their children’s awareness of their corporeity, and how it
is adapted towards different stages of growth. To tell a fourteen-
year-old boy, ‘Cover up because it is cold’ meta-communicates to
him that he does not have the instruments to recognise the tem-
perature. Alternatively, telling him ‘if it is cold, one needs to cover
up’ is an invitation to use his own self-regulation, to listen to his
body and the sensations it transmits to him.
The Id-function, in contrast with its linguistic consonance, is
completely different (I would say almost the opposite) with respect
to the Freudian Id. Perls, by replacing the Freudian technique of
free associations with concentration (the Self who concentrates)
translated the ancient wisdom of St. Augustine into a therapeu-
tic approach: «In interiore homine habitat veritas»18. The truth of
the individual and of the family is found in their bodies and their
intercorporeity. Heeding this corporeal truth is to follow the path-
ways which, out of needs, sensations, and emotions, become in-
tentionality and lead to full contact and to growth.
1.2 Bodies change: the life cycle
Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the
table: she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which
the words ‘Eat me’ were beautifully marked in currants: «Well, I’ll
eat it» said Alice, «and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the
key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door:
so either way I’ll get into the garden, and I don’t care which hap-
pens!».
She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself, `Which way?
Which way?’, holding her hand on the top of her head to feel which
way it was growing, and she was quite surprised to find that she
18 Cfr. Agostino d’Ippona, De vera religione, book XXXIX, chapter 72.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 49EN remained the same size: as we know, this is what generally hap-
pens when one eats cake19.
In this lively page by Carroll, which starts with the exclamation
of Alice («What a strange sensation it is to grow!»), describing the
discomfort of a young girl, who feels her body changing from day
to day in significant and unpredictable ways. Indeed, the growth
of bodies is not uniform: linear changes that mark daily interac-
tion and changes that transform the body alternate and therefore
cause worry. This succession of personal and family body trans-
formations is called the ‘life cycle’. These are events that mark the
significant and decisive changes, first in the life of the couple and
later of the family (to decide to stay together, to get married, the
first child, becoming an adolescent, the first and last child to leave
home, the ‘empty nest’, etc.). They are, first and foremost, physi-
cal transformations, from woman to mother, from child to adoles-
cent. Like Alice, those who live these changes feel strange sensa-
tions that produce moments of incomprehensible discomfort and
anxiety. The life cycle generates a crisis in the family through key
moments of deep and significant inter-corporeal change (without
return) which will also call for the restructuring of the Personality-
function of the whole family.
A woman tells me about her eleven-year-old daughter who has
had an obsession for some time, that of closing all the doors of the
rooms in the house. It is not a choice, but an obsession. At a cer-
tain point I tell her: «She is trying in every way to close the door to
the stormy change that is coming». The mother’s face lights up and
she tells me about some episodes confirming her daughter’s anxiety
and worries about her changing body. And, in telling me this, I see
that even the mother’s body relaxes. Indeed, the inter-corporeal in-
volvement, which assumes a significant value in the polarity bodies-
of-the-parents/bodies-of-children, emerges precisely from these
transformations of a body. If the child living the change (from going
to nursery school to becoming adolescent) feels scared, this emotion
will go into the bodies of the parents. If they contain it, there will be a
physiological period of tensions, of discomfort, but this change will
be lived through and the family will enjoy a new phase of the family
life cycle. If, however, the bodies of the parents are scared, instead of
containing the fear of their children’s bodies, then the children will
be afraid again (‘even the adults are scared’ will be the message). Not
being able to stand the anxiety, they will easily develop symptoms.
The symptom is not linked to the changing body of the child, but to
the rigidity and the fear of the bodies of the parents when faced with
the changes in their children’s bodies.
19 L. Carroll (1978) (ed. or. 1865), Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, McMillan,
London, 45.
50 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsAn example of this type of process will be shown in the section EN
‘Start dancing with your belly’20. In a family, during the mother’s
new pregnancy, the youngest daughter suffers and does not want
to go to school. It may look like the daughter’s difficulty, but in
reality, during therapeutic work (carried out, obviously, using the
FGT model explained in this book) it emerges that the mother, who
does not feel supported by her partner, has linked to her daughter
in a confluent way to reduce her own feelings of solitude. When
the couple is asked to move both physically and emotionally clos-
er together, the younger daughter moves her chair towards her
older sister’s and, by interacting, they discover their sibling bond21.
The mother’s ‘belly’ had revealed the blockages in the parents and
children’s Personality-function, that for some time had prevented
genuine contacts in this family, and it becomes an opportunity to
rediscover a healthy relational proxemics which leads to a rebirth
of the family through full and nourishing contacts.
1.3 The Self that concentrates on the Id-function
As is clear, in FGT the work of the therapist, which is aimed
at restoring the Id-function, does not happen through the use of
interpretation or systemic interventions, but through helping the
members of the family to become conscious of personal and rela-
tional experiences. It is a question of asking the right questions to
favour the concentration of the Self.
I will give some examples:
• What do you feel?
• What do you feel when you hear these words or say these
things?
• Listen to your body and feel what it wants to ask or receive
• How present are you feeling right now?
• On a scale of one to ten, how much of what you have said/
listened to calms you?
Here are some questions that are markers of the growth and the
blockages of the members of the family:
• How much space is given to energy, to excitement, to
needs?
• Is it possible to feel and express sensations and emotions?
• How much attention is paid to bodies, intercorporeity and
to the physical changes of the life cycle?
20 As we will see in the following chapter, I like to give a ‘title’ as a teaching defi-
nition of the sessions I cite as examples. Here the reference goes back to a
simulated session held during an FSIG training conference in Turin, Italy from
16-19 April, 2015. Cfr. infra, chapter ‘Sessions of Family Gestalt Therapy’.
21 Cfr. P. Aparo (2013/14), Beyond Oedipus, a brother for Narcissus, in «GKT Jour-
nal of Psychotherapy», 4, 95-114.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 51EN 2. Rethinking the Personality-function of the Self
Θυµήσου, σώµα…
Σώµα, θυµήσου όχι µόνο το πόσο αγαπήθηκες,
όχι µονάχα τα κρεββάτια όπου πλάγιασες,
αλλά κ’ εκείνες τες επιθυµίες που για σένα
γυάλιζαν µες στα µάτια φανερά,
κ’ ετρέµανε µες στην φωνή – και κάποιο
τυχαίον εµπόδιο τες µαταίωσε.
Τώρα που είναι όλα πια µέσα στο παρελθόν,
µοιάζει σχεδόν και στες επιθυµίες
εκείνες σαν να δόθηκες – πώς γυάλιζαν,
θυµήσου, µες στα µάτια που σε κύτταζαν·
πώς έτρεµαν µες στην φωνή, για σε, θυµήσου, σώµα
Kostantin Kavafis22
2.1 Personality-function: characteristics
The Personality of the Self becomes figure in the post-contact
phase and controls the assimilation of experience. It is what re-
mains in the O. after the encounter with the E. Poetically, one
could say that assimilation is the ‘You which remains in my body
after the encounter with you’.
What is assimilated is slowly stratified and forms a sort of flex-
ible structure which coincides with bodily identity (‘who I have
become’) and relational identity (‘who have I become in front of
you’). It is what we define as the Personality. In addition to this
classical role of the Personality-function (the assimilation of ex-
perience), I have highlighted how this function is enabled since
the beginning, already when a need arises, that cannot disregard
without facing the ‘who I have become’23. To be aware of ‘who
have I become’ is another way in which the Personality-function
is activated24. In this perspective, the Id-function (the ‘what I feel’)
22 Kavafis K, Settantacinque poesie,Einaudi, Torino 1992, 147.
Remember body
Remember, my body...Remember, Body...
Body, remember not only how much you were loved,
not only the beds on which you lay,
but also those desires which for you
plainly glowed in the eyes,
and trembled in the voice -- and some
chance obstacle made them futile.
Now that all belongs to the past,
it is almost as if you had yielded
to those desires too -- remember,
how they glowed, in the eyes looking at you;
how they trembled in the voice, for you, remember, body
23 Cfr. G. Salonia (2012), Theory of self and the liquid society, cit.
24 Regarding disturbances in the Personality-function, From recounted being
struck by a patient who had rung on the doorbell with extreme delicacy, even
52 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsis always a dependent variable of the Personality-function. The EN
‘what I feel’ depends on ‘who I feel I am’ and on ‘who I feel I am
before you’. If a therapist works on the Id-function of a patient
without having first checked the functioning of the Personality
(if the patient defines himself as a ‘patient’) they run the risk that,
at the end of the work, the patient will ask a slightly provocative
question: «Now that I have understood that, what do I do with it?»
In FGT, the Personality-function is central and decisive. When a
family asks for help, it presents interruptions and blockages which
have been activated and remain pertinent because those who
have created the family, that is the two parents, have suffered and
continue to suffer from a disturbed parental Personality-function.
The difficulties that the family experience always refer to the in-
ability of the parents to face it and contain it, that is to their inabil-
ity to be parents. For this reason, the primary therapeutic objective
of this FGT model can be formulated as follows: work to recover
the Personality-function of the members of the family and, spe-
cifically, of the parents.
When this happens, the Id-function also recovers its function-
ality and the Ego-function becomes present. At this point, the
family therapy will move towards its conclusion to open other
paths of growth, whether dyadic or personal.
In a healthy family, each member reveals a sense of his own
identity which emerges from the quality of the assimilated contact
experiences. In this sense, in GT the identity is written, step by step
– assimilation after assimilation – inside the body. One can there-
fore talk with Ricoeur of ‘narrative identity’25, but emphasising that
which has been written in the body, day by day and assimilation
after assimilation. In the Gestalt definition of identity – ’who I have
become’ – it is the past participle of the verb ‘to become’ that ap-
pears as the structure of the being-with. In other words, GT draws
a dividing line between identity made by introjections, by ideals
of the Ego, by masks, by open gestalts, by ‘You must’ and Gestalt
identity, seen as ‘embodied awareness’” constructed by the assim-
ilation in the body of personal contact experiences.
Confirmation of this pioneering intuition in GT came from
Damasio, who speaks of the ‘autobiographical Self’ written in
physical memory26, and by new studies in the neurosciences,
which start to hypothesise a ‘molecular memory.’
Growth is compromised when the Self and the O. are discon-
nected. When experiences are not assimilated, the Self cannot adapt
to changes in the O. and this leads to a sort of fracture between the
though he turned out to be a rough-and-ready soldier.
25 Cfr. P. Ricoeur (1988), La componente narrativa della psicanalisi in «Metaxù», 5;
Id. (1993) (ed. or. 1990), Se come un altro, Jaka Book, Milano.
26 Cfr. A. Damasio, L’errore di Cartesio: cit.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 53EN body and the Self27. An extreme example was a patient, in the mid-
dle of an episode of post-partum psychosis, continuously asking
me (or better herself) if she had already given birth or not. It is what
happens, certainly in a less serious context, when, after passing an
exam (even brilliantly) we dream that we must still sit for it. How is it,
we ask ourselves, that sometimes experiences are not assimilated?
GT answers with the Self theory and the theory of contact.
An experience of contact between O./E. is assimilated if lived
fully. If, instead, the contact has not taken place (interruption-to-
contact)28. the experience will not belong to us and therefore will
not be assimilated as a factor of growth. To go back to the example
of the cake and the diabetic, if the information on being diabetic is
not accepted and assimilated adequately by the subject, it will nev-
er become corporeal identity, so that at each ‘epiphany’ of a cake,
the conflict will be renewed with dysfunctional answers which be-
come chronic: «I made a mistake by eating it, and now I am sick»,
«I was wrong in refusing it, and now I feel angry...».
In the family, to be a body-among-bodies places bodily identity
at the center, since day by day one learns the differences between
bodies: to be male or female, adult or child29. It is clear that the most
important learning difference is distinguishing between being
bodies-of-parents and being bodies-of-children. In GT, subsys-
tems are corporeal diversity. In this sense, identity is both of the
body and relational. Each body is located between bodies, but with
defined borders: body of a son, brother, sister, father, mother… The
sign of a healthy Personality-function is the clarity of these dis-
tinctions. In a ‘good enough’ family, the gender (male/female) and
generational (parents/children) differences have been assimilated.
Identity also implies, as we were saying, a relational collocation:
‘who I am’ also means ‘who I am in front of you’30. Affective matu-
rity is the clarity of one’s own corporal and relational identity. That
the affective link finds its authentication in the clarity of distinc-
tions (which does not mean opposition) was stated centuries ago
in a brilliant way by Augustine of Hippo, who talked of Ordo Amo-
27 «Bodily identity in GT can be deduced from posture in the widest sense (way
of living and carrying the body: tense or relaxed, tightness, breathing). Anta-
lgic posture speaks of a dysfunctional identity and wordlessly speaks about
interrupted and incomplete contacts. Every habit we are not in contact with
is a ‘second nature’: it belongs to the body but not the Self», in F. Perls, R. Hef-
ferline, P. Goodman, Gestalt Therapy, cit., 343.
28 Cfr. G. Salonia, From We to I-Thou: cit.; Id., Tempi e modi di contatto, cit.
29 On the sense of corporeality as bodily identity cfr. C. Peri, G. Salonia (1997),
Corporeità, in J.M. Prellezio, C. Nanni, G. Malizza (eds.), Dizionario di Scienze
dell’educazione, LAS-LDC-SEI, Roma, 265-269.
30 Ronald Laing had already introduced this reflection, but on a cognitive basis.
Conversely, in Gestalt it regards bodily sensations, an entirely different matter.
Cfr. R.D. Laing (1979) (ed. or. 1978), Conversando con i miei bambini, Monda-
dori, Milano.
54 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsris31 to underline how affective structures and affective ties are in- EN
timately connected. Love is genuine if ‘ordered’32. In this sense, it
is confusing to talk of ties without adding an adjective which place
them: love is always given within a context (filial, of siblings, con-
jugal, of friendship, etc.).
This is to say, the Personality-function qualifies the genuine
nature of the tie. If a woman loves her partner as a son or the son
as partner, the tie is already dysfunctional, whatever its intensity.
In family therapy, Minuchin33 emphasised the centrality of family
structure and analysed the clarity or confusion of the generational
line, which distinguishes parents from children, as the decisive el-
ement for family mental health.
The founders of GT, unknowingly confirming Augustine’s in-
tuitions and anticipating the generational line of Structural Family
Therapy, understood the importance of the Personality-function
(although they talk about it with a sense of unease34). The real origi-
nality of GT is in having underlined that the Personality-function of
the parents is in the body. In other words, to be parent is not a theo-
retical awareness, it is not a role or an ideal of the Self, but it is a re-
ality written in the history of the body. A mother knows in her guts
that she is a mother35: it is in her own body that knows (and feels)
she is a mother. «Mother...what an absurd mystery. They hit you
hard, but it does not matter, you cannot hate the children you have
generated»36, exclaims Clytemnestra on hearing the news (which
will be revealed as false) of the death of her son Orestes. A father also
immediately learns in his body to be father: «When a newborn baby
squeezes his father’s finger in his little hand for the first time, he has
31 Apart the original references in Agostino d’Ippona, De civitate Dei, book XV,
chapter 22 and De doctrina christiana, book I, chapters 22-27, §23.26-28, also
cfr. R. Bodei (1991), Ordo amoris. Conflitti terreni e felicità celeste, Il Mulino,
Bologna; J.F. Lyotard (1998), La confession d’Augustin, Editions Galilée, Paris;
R. De Monticelli (2003), L’ordine del cuore. Etica e teoria del sentire, Garzanti,
Milano; B. Hellinger (2004) (ed. or. 1998), Ordine dell’amore. Un manuale per
la riuscita delle relazioni, Apogeo, Milano; M. Scheler (2008), Ordo amoris,
Franco Angeli, Milano; G. Salonia (2013), Ordo amoris e famiglia d’origine, in
AA.VV., Amare sempre o amare per sempre, Il Calamo, Roma, 17-40.
32 «Love is a part of order. Order precedes love, and love can only develop accord-
ing to order. Order is predisposed. If I turn this relationship upside-down and I
want to transform order through love, I am doomed to failure. It is no good. Love
is subordinated to order, and then it can grow. Just as a seed is subordinated to
the earth and grows and flourishes there», in B. Hellinger (2004) (ed. or. 1998),
Ordini dell’amore. Un manuale per la riuscita delle relezioni, Apogeo, Milano, 37.
33 Cfr. S. Minunchin, Famiglie e terapia della famiglia, cit.,35.
34 Cfr. A. Sichera, The Personality-function in Gestalt Therapy, cit.
35 This awareness develops in adoptive mothers. A mother relates that one day,
while lying in bed with her two adopted children aged five and seven, they
ask her to get a blanket they use to cover her belly and say: «Let’s play. We’ll go
under the cover and then we’ll come out». This need was both the mother’s
and the girls’.
36 Sofocle (1981), Elettra, in Id. Aiace, Elettra, Trachinie, Filottete, Garzanti, Milano,
147, vv. 770-771.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 55EN captured it forever»37. With that gesture the baby writes ‘you are my
father’ in the father’s body and the father reads ‘you are my child’.
Finding the somatic markers of the Personality-function opens
new horizons, not only at the hermeneutical level, but also in clin-
ic and educational procedures. The model of FGT which we call
‘Dance of the chairs and Dance of the pronouns’ is built precisely
on this phenomenological and existential data.
In a family session I asked the mother and the daughter, who
were fighting in a stereotypical fashion, to sit opposite each other
and talk to each other. When they are seated facing each other, they
look at each other as if it were the first time. Then the mother, over-
whelmed by worry, immediately started talking in the same accus-
ing and denigrating style as before, without looking at her daugh-
ter. I asked the mother for a moment of silence in which, alternately
looking at her daughter and feeling her own body, her womb38. After
a few minutes, she started talking again. The tone of her voice had
changed... it seemed to come from her womb. The words, connect-
ed with her womb, had become ‘maternal’, understanding and firm,
they came and went from the body of the mother to the body of the
daughter. Consequently, confrontation becomes an opportunity to
grow rather than merely a sterile argument.
2.2 The Personality-function of the parents
In the family, the Personality-function of the bodies of the par-
ents determines the relational climate and the mental health of its
members. Even in the most difficult moments, their bodies offer
containment and support to the bodies of the children. That is
why, more than teaching or explaining to parents how to behave
as parents, it is necessary to help them to enter into contact with
their parental body. The Personality-function of the parents, in
turn, contains three levels that have to be kept distinct, because
they serve different functions: the Personality-function of being-
a-couple, the Personality-function of being-parents, and, finally,
the Personality-function of being-co-parents. Being-a-couple,
being-parents, and being-co-parents are three levels of the Per-
sonality-function, of which only the first (being-a-couple) can
cease to exist, whereas the other two remain forever39.
The Personality-function of being-a-parent is a sine qua non
for the healthy growth of the children. Winnicott would say as a
joke: to raise their children, parents must remain sitting on the
37 Beyond the debate about its attribution and intrinsic value, this text talks about
Lettera agli amici, which was first attributed to Garcìa Màrquez but was actu-
ally written by Johnny Welch, and acutely expresses the ’birth’ of father-child
inter-corporeality.
38 See comments above on Clytemnestra.
39 The subject of the couple’s Personality-function is treated in another work,
while this remains focused on the parental, co-parental Personality-function.
56 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsthrone of parents even when the children, especially in adoles- EN
cence, rebel. Parental caregiving creates a taking-care-spontane-
ity which is very different from that of peers or friends. When a
father plays with a child, he has fun even if he has additional wor-
ries and is careful that the child does not get hurt. The son does not
(and should not) have the same worries with respect to the father.
The care-giving function also includes the parents’ ability for em-
pathy. Communicative empathy – unlike philosophical40, psychiat-
ric41 empathy, or that of the neurosciences –42 does not just mean to
understand the other, but to make empathy the center of the listen-
ing process, so that it would be better to talk about the ‘empathetic
answer’ as the seal of empathetic communication43. To a young per-
son who says: «I am mad at my parents... they do not understand
me», a lot of answers can be given. It is clear, anybody can under-
stand the individual’s feelings. Those who choose empathetic com-
munication answer by starting from their own recognition of the
experience of the young man: «If I understand you correctly, you are
sad and mad because you feel that your parents do not understand
you». Communication of the ‘empathetic answer’ style is funda-
mental in being a parent and in care-giving. It includes, in addition
to understanding the other, initiating a dialogue about personal and
relational experiences. Before each educational moment, one must
’see’ the state of mind, the experiences of the son, trying to put one-
self in his perspective and in his emotional word to open the space
for a comparison with other perspectives. If a boy, while studying at
home, complains about how much homework he must do, a com-
ment like «It is true that studying tonight seems particularly hard for
you: I wonder what solution we could find», creates contact and al-
lows the reactivation of relational circuits and generates energy. It
will be the boy himself who comes up with efficient solutions for his
afternoon of study. Every encounter with the ‘must be’ has to begin
from a recognition of ‘where’ the person ‘is’ in that moment.
‘Extended empathy’44 is defined as being able to understand the
experience of the other even if in few words. The simple explana-
40 Edmund Husserl was the first to speak of empathy in philosophical circles, and
it was studied in greater depth by his pupil, Edith Stein: cfr. E. Stein (1985) (ed.
or. 1917), Il problema dell’empatia, Edizioni Studium, Roma.
41 Jaspers introduced the concept of empathy for serious patients in the psychi-
atric field: cfr. C. Jaspers (1968) (ed. or. 1913), Psicopatologia Generale, Il Pen-
siero Scientifico, Roma.
42 Nowadays, neuroscience has confirmed the physiological bases of empathy,
innate to our neuronal capacities: cfr. G. Rizzolatti, C. Sinigaglia (2006), So quel
che fai. Il cervello che agisce e i neuroni specchio, Raffaele Cortina, Milano.
43 Cfr. H. Franta, G. Salonia (1979), Comunicazione interpersonale, LAS, Roma.
44 Regarding ‘widened empathy’ see Ginott’s work: H.G. Ginott (1969) (ed. or.
1965), Bambini e genitori, Garzanti, Milano; Id. (1973) (ed. or. 1967), Bambini
e maestri, Garzanti, Milano. Also: T. Gordon (1994) (ed. or. 1970), Genitori ef-
ficaci, La Meridiana, Molfetta, who, however, is sometimes over-technical to
the point of compromising communication.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 57EN tion «What hard work, this is!», from a child coming home from
school, receives an answer of extended empathy if the parent’s
answer is, for example: «Some days at school are really heavy go-
ing!». An empathetic answer opens up the dialogue in a fluid way,
compared to answers and judgments.
If it is the Personality-function which intervenes in empathetic
presence with children, the Id-function, the emotional level, also
has to be subservient to the Personality-function. A lady com-
plains because her three-year-old child does not obey her and
she tells me about a recent episode: he eats sitting on the edge
of his chair. She tells him: «I do not like how you are sitting». The
child replies: «I like it». This is an example of a distorted style of
child-rearing: ‘I like’ or ‘I do not like’ belong to the sphere of the
Id-function, but when the mother gives orders, she imparts them
as a parent. The mother, as mother, should have said something
like: «You should not sit like this. I am your mother and I tell you
that this is dangerous».
In postmodernity, the importance given to the emotional
sphere and to the prominence of subjectivity has brought the risk
of significant dysfunctions of the Personality, in the area of child-
rearing. Insisting on authority is at the risk of forgetting that child-
rearing is based on the Personality-function (who am I to say this)
and authority is a method, but not the founding principle. One can
be authoritative without necessarily being an authority and vice
versa.
2.3 Co-parental Personality-function
If being a parent refers to the maternity/paternity of a child, be-
ing a co-parent refers to ‘being-a-parent-of-this-child-with-this
parent’45. Recent studies have shown how the raising of children
depends on the growth of the parents in their coparenting46. In oth-
er words, the quality of being-parents-with determines the quality
of the function of being-parents-of47. According to GT, healthy co-
45 Cfr. A. Merenda (2016), Il cuore della cogenitorialità nella Gestalt Therapy. In-
tervista a Valeria Conte e Giovanni Salonia, in «GTK Rivista di Psicoterapia», 6,
39-59; G. Salonia (2017), Verso un nuovo stile di cogenitorialità. La prospetti-
va gestaltica in A. Merenda (ed.), Genitori-con. Modelli di coparenting attuali
e corpi familiari in Gestalt Therapy, Cittadella, Assisi; Id., Edipo dopo Freud.
Una nuova Gestalt della cogenitorialità, cit.; J.P. McHale (2010) (ed. or. 2007), La
sfida della cogenitorialità, Raffaello Cortina, Milano; J.P. McHale, W. Maureen
(eds.) (2012), Coparenting in fragile families, special section, in «Family Pro-
cess», 51/3, 281-360.
46 There is a new innovative prospective on the primary triangle that elaborates
the child’s diagnosis beginning from the four co-parenting situations (the
relationship between co-parents when the child plays alone, when he plays
alternately with each partner, when playing with both parents). Cfr. E. Fivaz-
Depeursinge, A. Corboz-Warnery, Il Triangolo primario, cit. Their analysis falls
into the category of systemic/behaviourist.
47 Cfr. G. Salonia, Edipo dopo Freud. Dalla legge del padre alla legge della relazio-
ne, cit.
58 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsparenting does not mean getting along at any cost or denying (and EN
prematurely solving) conflicts. Rather, it means fully confronting
diversity, being receptive to embrace one’s own fragment of limits
and the other’s fragment of reason48. Conflict and diversity, if lived
through fully listening to oneself and to the other, render contact
valuable and nourishing. For instance,, two parents who have dif-
ferent opinions about a daughter’s curfew time, do not solve the
conflict in a creative and efficient way if they reduce the diversity
to a rational agreement (between the proposal of returning at mid-
night and that of returning at two, the compromise will be return-
ing at one). However, if the agreement, whatever it is, stems from
the appreciation of the different proposal of the other, enriches our
own initial idea of a child-rearing point of view. In fact, even the
parent who proposes that their daughter comes home at midnight,
if sterile conflict is avoided, might recognise in him/herself an ex-
cess of worries and over-protectiveness towards the daughter. On
the other hand, the one who proposes coming back at two could
recognise inside him/herself a little fear, given the real nature of the
risk. As the children need both prudence and daring, they should
be reared in a style that includes both polarities without false divi-
sions. If there is respect and gratitude for the ’different’ ideas of the
co-parent, all decisions will turn out to be valid. Even in the case of
an absent parent, the other will exert a valid function if s/he does
not live this absence as a sort of freedom to find ‘shortcuts’ to raise
the children according his/her own style.
Healthy co-parenting is shown mainly in three types of attitude
towards the co-parent: trying to understand the other’s point of view
with interest, respecting it even if we do not immediately understand
and, I dare to say, feeling gratitude for a view point that certainly will,
in some way, turn out to be complementary. Even the thorniest con-
flicts over child-rearing, if treated with interest, respect and grati-
tude, can become an asset for co-parents and children. Forming an
opinion of the gravity of the symptom of a child, as we will see in the
work with the families, is to be calibrated taking into account the dif-
ferent shades and evaluations of the two parents49.
Considering the decisive centrality of co-parenting for the
healthy growth of children, the primary objective – the first thera-
peutic project of Gestalt work with the family – will be to fix or
build the co-parental Personality-function. In the perspective of
GT, co-parenting, to underline this point, might, at the level of ter-
minology, recall other approaches. However, GT differs substan-
tially because its roots are founded on corporeity or, better, on in-
48 Cfr. G. Salonia, Dialogare nel tempo della frammentazione, cit.
49 In the case of a minor, a peadiatrician’s opinion is very important in making
an initial diagnosis.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 59EN tercorporeity. The ‘focus’ of our intervention is not based therefore
on the behaviour, on roles, or on the system, but on the corporeal-
relational experiences of each family member, since they are at
the heart of the quality of the relationships in the family. One can
affirm that each psychological difficulty in a child can be traced
back to precise dysfunctions of the co-parenting couple.
While a parent, even the best and most well-informed, thinks
and talks as if his/her relationship with the child is better than that
of the other parent, the child will not make progress. I believe that
one of the failures of the technique of ‘holding’ with autistic chil-
dren has been the erroneous emphasis on the mother/child rela-
tionship, excluding the father50. The level of children’s excitement
of energy is a variable which depends on the structure, rigid, flex-
ible or absent, of the co-parenting Personality-function.
Sara, a five-year-old Brazilian girl who was adopted as a baby,
had been diagnosed as hyperactive (another syndrome for ADHD
children): she never stopped. When she and her parents came to
therapy, we therapists noted not only Sara’s agitation, but also the
mother and father’s rigid bodies, as if they were in plaster casts.
During the third session, in agreement with my co-therapist51, I
asked the mother to take Sara onto her lap and the father to sup-
port his wife by positioning himself behind her shoulders. There
was need for a lot of support, because Sara initially started to wave
and express aggression against everybody and against me in par-
ticular (a stage predicted in any manual of holding’)52. Suddenly,
almost miraculously, the change happened: the body of the moth-
er, supported by the co-parent and warmed by Sara’s passionate
and agitated body, started to let go, it curved to contain Sara’s body
and began to talk in a new and moving way. She talked about the
surprise and the joy of the day when they saw her for the first time,
the first tender bath-time, the first and little kisses, the first nurtur-
ing gestures. Sara began to calm down, finally relaxing against her
mother’s body which, at this point, was completely opened up to
welcome her without any tension. The father’s physical support
behind his wife was such that he could touch Sara. The music of
the mother’s words and the light and harmonious dance of the
three bodies seemed to create a silence which was almost magi-
cal in that room, the magic that happens in life (and in therapy),
when bodies and souls meet. Before leaving my office, a calm and
warmed Sara looked at me with badly-concealed complicity and
said: «You are Naughty!». How sweetly that insult rang in my ears!
50 Without mentioning that it is a mistake to do ‘holding’ with a therapist.
51 Dr. Valeria Conte.
52 Cfr. M. Zapella (1983), Treating autistic children by parent through holding in
Symposium on New directions in psychotherapy: anger-arousal, holding and
attachment, Western Psychological Association, San Francisco, 27-30 April.
60 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns2.4 Malfunctioning in the co-parental Personality-function EN
If a parent has a disturbed relationship with the co-parent, s/he
not only runs the risk of transmitting a negative perception of the
co-parent, but often creates confused and conflict-filled alliances
with the children53. I will now illustrate some examples of the Per-
sonality-function of the Self and their coherent resolutions.
In some periods, a couple can experience such a strong and
neurotic stage of confluence that the arrival of a child (especially if
unplanned) can feel like a threat to their relationship. If this stage
does not evolve, opening itself up to differences and novelties,
then the couple remains blocked. When the couple experiences
neurotic confluence, it is afraid of differentiation so it is inclined
to suppress the desire for differentiation and healthy aggression.
Consequently, it will have difficulty in taking on the parental
Personality-function since it will perceive the child as a threat to
its dysfunctional confluence. The denial of healthy differentia-
tion and aggression frequently produces psycho-somatic symp-
toms in children. It certainly gives them an experience of being
that which the literature calls ‘affective orphans’. In these cases,
the children find themselves faced with an impenetrable conjugal
‘Us’. Neither partner can draw their gaze away from the other, not
even to care for their children54. The children, for their part, feel-
ing that they are uninteresting for their parents and emotionally
very alone, exasperate both their self-sustaining strategies (pro-
cess of self-parenting) and their fraternal relationships (the typical
solidarity of ‘affective orphans’). Frequently, there are situations in
which the negated aggression (that is, a too rapid solution of con-
flicts) can lead to somatic symptoms.
A family from a poor district of a metropolis is brought to me
for supervision. Their difficulty consists in the fact that the parents
are incapable of giving rules, of ‘being parents.’ After speaking a
while, it emerges that they belong to a clan which has moved from
a village in the south and which lives in the suburbs, and which
possesses the typical structure of this group, with a patriarch at
its apex. In other words, the parents have remained ‘children’ be-
cause whenever they have a problem, they turn to the head of the
clan. This is a common case in patriarchal families, both past and
present55 in which parents do not develop a parental Personality-
function because they remain blocked and rigid in their roles as
53 Hellinger affirms that «After a separation, the children should be with the
parent with greater respect for the other parent», in B. Hellinger, Ordini
dell’amore, cit.
54 It is clear that we therapists do not make judgments about the parents’ affec-
tion but refer only to contact quality. Cfr. G. Salonia (1992), Time and relation.
Relational deliberateness as hermeneutic horizon in Gestalt Therapy, in «Stud-
ies in Gestalt Therapy», I, 7-19.
55 Consider royal families or mafia clans.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 61EN children dominated by a clan leader who is external to the family56,
to whom they turn in cases of internal conflicts and emergencies
in the family. The parents feel ill-at-ease in experiencing nurtur-
ing. For example, if a child has a problem, they answer that s/he or
they need to talk to the grandfather or uncle. The contact bound-
ary which distinguishes (separates and unites) parents from chil-
dren, is missing in the family. Interaction with the children occurs
at a level of false equality and without the assumption of parental
responsibility. The children, who do not receive parental support,
grow up with a confused Personality-function, and they cannot
feel the difference, even physical, between being adults and being
children (a disturbance of the Personality-function). These par-
ents do not provide much physical support like hugs and kisses to
their children because they still need them themselves57. Therapy
begins by getting the parents to sit in an armchair as if it were a
throne, in order to rediscover their parental Personality-function
that makes the rules.
Rita, on the other hand, is a sixteen-year-old with disruptive
behaviour. She is aggressive at home and transgresses outside it.
In the family session it transpires that the mother, a well-respected
psychologist, is the queen of the household. Her father is a sur-
geon who, by claiming he knows nothing about parenting, always
backs up his wife towards whom all his love and even his attention
are directed. He literally has eyes only for her. Mario, aged twelve,
is fine and is his mother’s pet. He is obedient and, in agreement
with his parents, considers his sister the source of all the family’s
problems. Rita, relegated to the role of Cinderella58, sits apart and
listens but says nothing. It is evident how difficult it is for Rita to
grow up in a family in which the only woman that the males (father
and brother) see and appreciate is her mother. The dysfunction in
the parents consists of the confluent dependence between hus-
band and wife. The father perceives his need for his wife, whom
he cannot take care of. He is also unable to support his adolescent
daughter. The mother, on the other hand, seems so needy of her
husband’s veneration that she cannot make room for her daugh-
ter. The daughter lives her adolescence without any parental sup-
port for this important transformation of the Personality-function,
that of becoming a woman. Even for Mario, the son who has no
problems, it will not be easy to become a man if he is not sup-
56 Cfr. E. Scabini, V. Cigoli (2000), Il famigliare. Legami, simboli e transizioni, Raf-
faello Cortina, Milano.
57 This situation commonly occurs in underprivileged people, where the patriar-
chal family still exists, with a ‘head of the clan’ who has the role/pretension to
exert parental functions alone over three generations.
58 I call this «the theory of the main altar»: cfr. G. Salonia (2003), Il silenzio degli
ultimi, in AA. VV., Quando I silenzi gridano. In famiglia, nella chiesa, fra le chie-
se, nella società, Cittadella, Assisi, 66-81.
62 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsported and encouraged by a father who knows to stand upright in EN
front of his wife rather than on his knees. Therapeutic work is to
prepare a background which allows Rita to have a heart-to-heart
talk with her father (to receive male confirmation of the beauty of
her becoming a woman) and with her mother (to create feminine
intimacy that confirms and recognizes her identity). The reactiva-
tion of the Personality-function will probably encourage the fa-
ther to develop strength and independence and help the mother
to trust herself, her husband, and feel her maternal Self in her body.
Incest, affective or consummated, reveals a situation in which
one of the parents does not feel deeply their parental function and
experiences a profound laceration at an affective level59. And so,
if a parent becomes the sexual partner of a child, the other parent
consents, either because s/he denies the evidence to themselves
or for fear of losing their spouse. Incest is an extreme case of seri-
ous dysfunctions in the parental Personality-function, but the in-
volvement of children in situations of parental conflict, with the
ensuing suffering and psychological disturbances in the children,
is extremely common. A parent who humiliates the other parent
creates a double laceration, both on the level of nurturing, s/he
presents two styles which are presented as incompatible, (‘I know
how to bring you up, s/he doesn’t’), while, at the level of gender
identity, a message to the child of the same sex as the parent is
experienced as saying: «You are going to grow up to be just like
him/her».
Clarifying and bringing conflicts to their diverse functions,
conjugal and parental, helps the couple to live through conflict
and raise their children to experience a precise, but collaborative
sharing of differences.
The metaphor of the ‘double bed’ sums up the salient moments
and the dynamics of the dysfunctional problems in the parental
Personality-function. If the parents are blocked in their filial Per-
sonality-function, they see themselves as children like their chil-
dren. The double bed, in this case, belongs indiscriminately to ev-
eryone, and the ways and means of ‘inhabiting’ it are indistinctly
carried out by all. If the couple is rigidly closed in on itself because
they experience parenthood as a threat to conjugal confluence,
the children will never be allowed to sleep in the bed and this de-
cision will be rigidly maintained. If the couple lives a ‘one up/one
down’ (whether dependent or conflicting) in obsessive contrapo-
sition, the double bed will be exclusively occupied by one parent
and a child, and the decision will be paradoxically agreed on and
sustained by both of them.
59 Cfr. G. Salonia, Incesto, cit.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 63EN 2.5 The proxemics of the chairs
A special place where the Personality-function of parental
bodies is expressed is in relational proxemics60, that is, the ways
in which the spaces between the bodies in the family are expe-
rienced and arranged: ‘who do I want to be near?’ ‘who can I be
near?’ ‘for how long?’ ‘when?’ are some obsessive and underlying
questions which vibrate in the body-to-body situation the family
experiences every day. Over time, a certain proxemics is stratified:
if it is rigid as the result of an interrupted contact (contracted bod-
ies, friendly gestures which remain undone or not understood),
it becomes an antalgic proxemics, a layering which avoids full
contact between family members. Indeed, many experiences and
many family conflicts concern attempts (some successful, others
not) to find the right distance and time between one’s body and
those of others: it is not simply a question of distance (who to be
near and who to stay away from), but also of time (how long to stay
close… who decides the time?).
A couple who had been assigned the parental task of staying
physically closer to their child, to carry him, caress him and cuddle
him, reported back after two weeks with a certain surprise, that
their hyperactive son was calmer, more serene. Only one question
had rather perturbed the father: «Daddy, are you hugging me be-
cause someone told you to?». Obviously, the father was surprised.
I reassured him and verbalised the intentionality of this seemingly
innocent question: «Perhaps your son is only asking if the hugs
are permanent or temporary. That is what interests children».
How many loving looks in a family are bestowed from afar,
without getting close… and how often does nearness hide the fear
of feeling the desire to leave! Disturbances arise when spacing is
uncomfortable and rigid, so that each family member may feel
suffocated by a nearby body and another body feel cold because
incapable of coming nearer, of being reached by someone else.
An antalgic relational proxemics expresses relational and bodily
disturbances. In other words, in the antalgic proxemics, the vari-
ous contact interruptions between family members are expressed.
One can say that the family that comes to therapy immediately
expresses their antalgic proxemics which has become layered
over time: the way they sit down (so, how they experience the
distances between them) is the symbolic equivalent of their prob-
lem. The session reactivates the family’s growth if, in the end, the
proxemics has been modified, from antalgic to functional. Chang-
ing places, for example, sitting opposite someone you always sat
elbow-to-elbow with and never frontally, or sitting next to anoth-
er member of the same generational line, not only modifies the
60 Cfr. E.T. Hall (1968) (ed. or. 1966), La dimensione nascosta, Bompiani, Milano.
64 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounslayered proxemics (with their related experiences), but provokes EN
deep changes at the perceptual level: ‘I see you and me differently’.
Changes in antalgic posture bring out relational gestalts and past
experiences which are still incomplete. To go from one-next-to-
the-other to opposite-each-other always generates a strong con-
tact experience which enables people to reach each other even in
situations of conflict and/or splitting up in a good way, without
leaving opened gestalts that inevitably stay in the field, influenc-
ing not only future parental choices but also future affective ones.
Indeed, to be sitting-opposite activates all three of the functions
of the Self: one begins to have new feelings and sensations (Id-
function), the perception of Self before the other becomes clear-
er (Personality-function), and one must decide if and how to go
towards contact (Ego-function). That is why the model is called
‘Dance of the chairs’.
2.6 The Self that concentrates on the Personality-function
Concerning the family Personality-function of the Self, the
Gestalt therapist’s actions cannot be prescriptive or interpretative.
The goal is that of helping family members become aware of how
their bodies experience the Personality-function. Some questions
help people to concentrate and restore the disturbed function.
First of all, the therapist assumes a hermeneutic of awareness
of his/her own experiences (‘what sensation does the proxemics
they brought to the office evoke in me?’). Subsequently, the rela-
tionship between the life cycle and the Personality-function is fo-
cused on (‘what phase in the life cycle are they having problems
facing?’). Then, the parental Personality-function is taken into ac-
count (‘in what way are the parents unable to support the child’s
changing body?’, ‘what type of disturbance is there in the parental
Personality-function?’, ‘do the parents stay sitting on the parental
chair? And in an authentic way?’). Besides, the therapist asks him/
herself in what way proxemics games of physical closeness and
distance are fixed or adaptable to individual changes and needs.
Here is another series of questions, to ask the family members,
with the right words and in the kairòs of the therapeutic relation-
ship:
• Try looking at your daughter and being aware of your pa-
ternal body: what is there to clarify in your relationship with
her?
• What do you feel when you are talking to your sister?
• What effect does it have on you to know you have a brother
and you can talk to him?
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 65EN 3. Reconsidering the Ego-function of the Self
Duszę się miewa.
Nikt nie ma jej bez przerwy
i na zawsze.
Dzień za dniem,
rok za rokiem
może bez niej minąć.
Czasem tylko w zachwytach
i lękach dziecińśtwa
zagnieżdża się na dłużej.
Czasem tylko w zdziwieniu,
że jesteśmy starzy.
Rzadko nam asystuje
podczas zajęć żmudnych,
jak przesuwanie mebli,
dźwiganiewalizek
czy przemierzanie drogi w ciasnych butach.
Przy wypełnianiu ankiet
i siekaniu mięsa
z reguły ma wychodne.
Na tysiąc naszych rozmów
uczestniczy w jednej,
a i to niekoniecznie,
bo woli milczenie.
Kiedy ciało zaczyna nas boleć i boleć,
cichcem schodzi z dyżuru.
Jest wybredna:
niechętnie widzi nas w tłumie,
mierzi ją nasza walka o byle przewagę
i terkot interesów.
Radość i smutek
to nie są dla niej dwa różne uczucia.
Tylko w ich połączeniu
jest przy nas obecna.
Możemy na nią liczyć,
kiedy niczego nie jesteśmy pewni,
a wszystko nas ciekawi.
Z przedmiotów materialnych
lubi zegary z wahadłem
i lustra, które pracują gorliwie,
nawet gdy nikt nie patrzy.
Nie mowi skąd przybywa
i kiedy znowu nam zniknie,
ale wyraźnie czeka na takie pytania.
66 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsWygląda na to, EN
że tak jak ona nam,
równiez i my
jesteśmy jej na coś potrzebni.
Wislawa Szymborska, Trochę o duszy61
3.1 Ego-function: the Organism towards contact
The Ego-function of the Self has the task of realising contact be-
tween the Organism (O.) and the Environment (E). In the polemos
between the energy felt by the Id-function which pushes towards
change (‘what I want’) and the Personality-function (‘what I have
become’), understood as assimilation/identity (even physical), it
is the Ego-function that invents the creative adjustment between
the O. and E. This is an intimate and spontaneous integration of
pre-existing structures (adjustment) with what is new (creative)
and emerging from the relational field. Without novelty, the O.
dies, without structure, it crumbles. The Ego-function, therefore,
is decisive for growth and contact.
In GT, creative adjustment is not the result of cognitive path-
ways62 nor of energy logics (the Freudian Ego, the remains of the
clash between the Id and the Super- Ego63), but of the acceptance
of two thrusts, both of which are corporeal, towards newness and
identity. It is the organismic judgment of the body which allows
the Ego-function to discriminate what is proper to it and what is
alien. As we have already said, for a diabetic caught between the
desire to eat a cake and the awareness that he should not, creative
adjustment does not consist in denying the delicious taste of the
cake nor of the individual’s identity, it is not an infinite series of
mind games, but it is finding a third way. Subsequently, the O.
might feel a sad sort of wisdom, but also a sense of integrity and
61 Szymborska W, Qualche parola sull’anima, in Id. Attimo, Libri Scheiwiller, Mi-
lano 2009 (2002), 51-55.
A Few Words on the Soul: We have a soul at times /.No one’s got it non-stop, /
for keeps. / Day after day, / year after year / may pass without it. / Sometimes / it
will settle for awhile / only in childhood’s fears and raptures. / Sometimes only
in astonishment / that we are old. / It rarely lends a hand / in uphill tasks, / like
moving furniture, / or lifting luggage, / or going miles in shoes that pinch. / It
usually steps out / whenever meat needs chopping / or forms have to be filled. /
For every thousand conversations / it participates in one, / if even that, / since it
prefers silence. / Just when our body goes from ache to pain, / it slips off-duty.
/ It’s picky: / it doesn’t like seeing us in crowds, / our hustling for a dubious
advantage / and creaky machinations make it sick. / Joy and sorrow / aren’t
two different feelings for it. / It attends us / only when the two are joined. / We
can count on it / when we’re sure of nothing / and curious about everything.
/ Among the material objects / it favors clocks with pendulums / and mirrors,
which keep on working / even when no one is looking. / It won’t say where it
comes from / or when it’s taking off again, / though it’s clearly expecting such
questions. / We need it / but apparently / it needs us / for some reason too.
62 Impossible to demonstrate neuroscientifically.
63 Cfr. P. Goodman (1995) (ed. or. 1966), Individuo e comunità, Eleuthera, Milano.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 67EN wholeness. Orpheus reminds us that to avoid falling into the Si-
rens’ trap, there is a third way, apart from blocking up the sailors’
ears or tying Ulysses to the mast, and it is to play music so en-
chanting that it seduces the very sirens.
An adolescent son speaks to a parent in a provoking way. The
parent first feels like he has been punched in the stomach (Id-func-
tion), but also feels aware of his/her being a parent (Personality-
function). At this juncture, if the Ego-function is present, it will take
both corporeal reactions into account and will invent a creative and
spontaneous response which was previously unpredictable and will
have emerged from the here-and-now of the full contact.
As Szymborska reminds us, the soul may be absent in routine be-
haviour and habits, but it must be present when there are choices
which precisely involve the O. Here, the Ego-function expresses it-
self and reveals itself in producing growth and contact: every time the
Ego-function is present at the contact boundary with the E. in an au-
thentic manner, the experience will be assimilated (Personality-func-
tion) and realise growth. An interpersonal contact is authentic if, at
the contact boundary where the Ego-function is found and operates,
it occurs within the bodily identity of those who meet (Personality-
function) and connected with their bodily experiences (Id-function).
If, in these precise existential situations the ‘soul’ is not pres-
ent, in GT one speaks of a ‘loss’ of the Ego-function64. Experiences
which remain incomplete, which present themselves as distur-
bances in the Personality-function (for example, the woman who
does not know whether she has given birth, or not, the adult who
continues to dream about sitting for exams he passed years be-
fore, the parent who speaks to his child as if he were a friend, the
fifty-year-old who acts like a thirty-year-old, and so on), are due to
the fact that in significant moments of the Organism’s life-cycle,
the Ego-function was missing.
3.2 Family: contacts… seeking contact
The members of a family build their ties through four forms of
contact: reciprocal contact at parental and conjugal levels in the
couple; reciprocal contact between brothers and sisters; contact
between parent/s and child; the various forms of contact between
family and outsiders (the wider social family context). The main
responsibility of contacts belongs to the parental couple. Parents
must create an atmosphere in which every family member (in
their Personality-function) can express their needs or viewpoints,
be heard and responded to.
64 The Id-function and Personality-function can be disturbed but they can’t be
lost, because they are ways of perceiving the body and time, which are inelim-
inable.
68 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsThe family’s relational background is made up of layered con- EN
tacts in the background and contacts that, as they happen, become
figures (in the here-and-now). Two people experience full contact
when they achieve the reciprocal intentionality that inspired their
encounter. At the end of the meeting, they – by listening to each
other – will be the ones to judge if their contact has really been
full65, by answering the question: ‘Is there a fusion of horizons that
includes reciprocal intentionality?’. From the answers given to this
question, they will be able to determine whether the contact has
been ’fit’ (‘I spoke and I knew what to expect’) and ’full’ (‘I spoke and
I knew everything I expected’). It will be equally clear to everyone
if the contact has not produced what was intended and will appear
incomplete (‘I did not speak and I did not know what/everything
I wanted to say or know’) or else confused (‘I feel more confused
than before: I expressed myself in a confused way’, ‘his words con-
fused me’). We might also mention avoided contact, when one of
the pair, or both, feel the urge to encounter the other, but s/he or
they do not manage to make contact.
Assimilated fit and full contacts create a secure base66 of con-
fidence and belonging. On the contrary, the interrupted ones67
(incomplete, confused or avoided contacts) – like a thorn in the
side, when a need pushes to be satisfied, it determines a perceptive
dysfunction68 – create difficulties and distorts the perception of
everyday experiences. That is why in human relationships, there
is frequently a spontaneous gap, which is hurtful or problemati-
cal, between being-one-next-to-the-other and encountering-
each-other. This often happens in families and is prolonged and
repeated over time: feeling in one’s body the impulse to enter into
contact with a parent or with another family member and to ex-
perience that the contact is not happening – even though time
elapses and you are living in close proximity with them – produc-
es the most painful (and pathological) disturbances.
In the texture of the everyday of routine contacts, every so often
new contacts arise: a more direct glance, a smile returned, an un-
expected or planned conversation, a sexual encounter. All at once,
going back to the poem, the soul is there, is present. These are ex-
amples of contact-events or contact-figure. In French they would
say that one passes from the entre in the sense of ‘between’ to entre
65 Likert’s scale is very useful because it is based on an organismic and not ex-
ternal assessment.Cfr. R. Likert (1932), A technique for the Measurement of At-
titudes, in «Archives of Psychology», 22/140, 1-55.
66 Cfr. J. Bowlby (1989) (ed. or. 1988), Una base sicura, Raffaello Cortina, Milano; Id.
(1972) (ed. or. 1969), Attaccamento e perdita. L’attaccamento alla madre, vol. I, Bo-
ringhieri, Torino.
67 They remain as opened gestalts. Cfr. B. Zeigarnik (1927), Das Behalten erledig-
ter und unerledgiter Handlungen, in «Psychologische Forschung», 9, 1-85.
68 It is need that organises the field.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 69EN of the verb J’entre. If these contacts can be full, they restructure the
relational background. Parents know this when, in the morning,
after a sleepless night spent looking at their sick baby, a smile from
the baby is enough to restore the energy they felt was lacking.
On the other, if the relational background is woven with ‘inter-
rupted’ contacts, even the ‘new’ ones will not be enough to give
energy and wholeness. For example, a husband says to his wife
one morning: «Sure, we haven’t been intimate for a long time».
His wife, perplexed and stunned, aswers: «Actually we made love
last night…». The husband replies: «Forgive me, it was unforget-
table». This ironic (and extreme) example is to show how contact
is not behaviour, but a relational and physical experience.
Any type of behaviour remains purely external if the soul is not
present. And every time the soul appears, it demands three quali-
ties: attraction, fear, and courage. Authentic contact is open to
what is new, to what is unpredictable. As Szymborska says: «We
can count on her when we are certain of nothing and curious
about everything».
GT has elaborated a microanalysis of how and when the inten-
tions to reach the other and to be reached, fail. To feel that one
is small in the presence of the other or to perceive as small the
other before you, are the forms that fear of the encounter assumes.
To act on attraction, the desire to meet the other, it is essential to
combine personal strength and faith in the other. When fear and
resentment become stronger than the attraction and courage, the
pathway towards meeting will be blocked by anxiety. This, then,
will be another failed contact, which will add its weight to the
background of assimilated contacts69.
Full contact can occur even in experiences which are theo-
retically unpleasant: to disagree, have different interests, to part…
There is nothing to prevent full contact occurring. If the differ-
ences are fully and respectfully expressed by both parties, even
a possible separation can become an experience of growth. The
positive quality of the process is given precisely by having com-
pletely expressed one’s experience and by having listened equal-
ly attentively to the other’s point of view. It is not similarities or
differences, neither tiredness nor problems that block a family’s
growth, it is only the poor quality of assimilated contacts and the
inability to realise new full contacts.
In a family, the primary responsibility for the quality of con-
tacts lies with the parents whose Ego-function, we shall say again,
will be expressed in their actions if their Personality-function is…
functional (staying ‘in their chair’). The characteristics of an asym-
69 Cfr. G. Salonia, L’Anxiety come interruzione nella Gestalt Therapy, in G. Salo-
nia, V. Conte, P. Argentino, Devo sapere subito se sono vivo, cit., 33-53.
70 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsmetrical parent/children relationship are very different to a sym- EN
metrical one. In the parents’ Personality-function we find instinc-
tive nurturing skills concerning their contact with their children. If
they have listened to their bodies as parents, they will realise that
they spontaneously take note of the moments and ways in which
the children can and want to be ‘held’ to begin a dialogue. Asking
oneself ‘what is my child feeling now?’, ‘what don’t we understand
about him?’ and knowing that their relationship with their parents
is fundamental for the children even if they do not show it; remem-
bering that, with the passing of the years, it is more important for
the children to know that they are good, than to know their parents
are. These are all forms of awareness that emerge naturally in the
body of any parent that is synchronised with his/her parenthood.
Self-irony is one way70: a parent (who ‘shrinks’71) allows his grow-
ing children to not feel crushed by his greatness and have confi-
dence in themselves despite any difficulties. A mother relates: «I
was cleaning my fourteen-year-old daughter’s room, and I found
contraceptive pills in her drawer. I went bananas and thought: ‘at
her age! Without speaking to me, her mother, even though I’m a
therapist! And without talking to her father, who’s a doctor! Who
knows what friends have influenced her!’ Then I spoke to my hus-
band on the phone about it. Then, I listened to my body, to my
womb. I don’t know what happened. When my daughter came
home I called her and sat down next to her and said: ‘My darling,
how lonely you must feel if you made such an important decision
for a woman, going on the pill, without talking about it! I’m sorry.
Something is evidently wrong in my relationship with you and it
stopped you from speaking. I am really sorry that I didn’t succeed
in making you understand that I am a mother, I am a woman, and
just how important you are to me’». At first, the daughter is a little
intimidated and uncertain, but then she relaxes and is moved. That
is how they found themselves in a mother and daughter heart-to-
heart, riding a wave of emotion as women.
3.3 Contact is corporeal
Contact experiences (successful or interrupted) are connected,
in many ways, with the body. Authentic contact, in fact, emerges
as an urge from the body and is executed if the body continues to
be open to inhaling in a wider way. Contact occurs when the body
lends itself and it is assimilated in the body as an experience which
satisfies and relaxes the body. On the other hand, failures in con-
70 Cfr. G. Salonia, Sulla felicità e dintorni, cit.
71 In Hebrew it is called ‘Tzimtzum’, literally ‘withdrawal’ or ‘contraction’, and
was initially used by Kabbalists when referring to an idea of God’s ‘self-lim-
itation’ when he ‘withdrew’ in the act of creating the world. Cfr. G. Scholem
(1986), Creazione dal nulla e autolimitazione di Dio, Marietti, Genova, 70-86.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 71EN tact occur when body and breathing are closed during the contact
process. They are written on the body as shallow breathing and
unexpressed gestures. Bodies are the first and most reliable mark-
ers of contact.
Saverio’s story provides an interesting example: during an in-
ternational meeting, he found himself working with Miriam Pol-
ster. He remembered a dramatic moment in his childhood; it liter-
ally took his breath away. His mother had taken him in her arms
and when he saw panic in her eyes, he collapsed. Remembering
the experience, Saverio feels ill and cannot breathe. Miriam talks to
him and the interpreter, a friend of Saverio’s, translates. At a certain
moment, Saverio stops the translation: «Don’t translate!». He listens
only to the therapist’s voice. Slowly getting his breath back, he starts
to smile again. Then he turns to the translator and says: «Sorry if I
stopped you, but Miriam’s voice was helping me to breathe. Yours
was disturbing me. I couldn’t understand a single word, but it was
her voice that slowly helped me to breathe again». All children have
the experience: a voice, a full and vibrating tonality, creates contact
before the words and within them. Contact is corporeal, always and
everywhere, in the sense that it is made by and in bodies. We have
the body that our contacts have gradually formed.
An antalgic posture is all the failed contacts written in the body.
Not simply because the body keeps tally72 of every relational failure
by closing in on itself, seizing up, holding in its breath and move-
ments, but also because every interruption of intentionality for
contact occurs through blocking a specific gesture that the body
wanted to carry out or receive, a specific word that the body would
have liked to say or hear to advance towards full contact. Antalgic
posture73 is the premise of antalgic proxemics: what chronic suf-
fering there is in being near a person from whom one has forever
wished for a caress or wanted to say something to! One feels tense,
one prefers to keep one’s distance or, if obliged to be near, one
stiffens one’s posture and breathing.74 This is the story found in
every family who comes for therapy. The body keeps the score, as
Van der Kolk75 would say. GT would add: it is true, the body keeps
score, yes… but only of unsettled debts!
Loss of the Ego-function, due to a background of failed con-
tacts that have not provided adequate support to energy and di-
rection, block the way of intentionality towards contact. For this
reason, the O. and E. do not make contact and generate another
72 The original title of B. Van der Kolk’s work is much more evocative than its Ital-
ian translation: The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transfor-
mation of Trauma. Cfr. B. Van der Kolk (2014), The Body Keeps the Score: Mind,
Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma, Viking Press, New York.
73 ‘Antalgic’ posture is one we adopt to bear the pain of missing or desired contacts.
74 Cfr. G. Salonia, La Psicoterapia della Gestalt e il lavoro sul corpo, cit.
75 Cfr. B. Van der Kalk, The Body Keeps the Score, cit.
72 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsinterrupted contact. From a phenomenological perspective, the EN
signs and places where contact interruptions take place are de-
tails76, what is obvious77, and that, for Gestalt therapists, is the main
path towards awareness. Details are the gesture or the word that
would have carried on the movement towards the encounter and
that have been contracted, blocked. The ‘missing gesture’ is the
way in which GT expresses the key concept of psychological dis-
turbances, as contact interruption. Even Hellinger emphasised the
importance of interruption, which he called the ‘missing move-
ment’: «Other symptoms are connected to the interruption of the
movement towards the person who is loved. Heart and head aches,
for example, are accumulated love, and backaches frequently are
the result of refusing to bow down in front of a mother or father»78.
Authentic contact occurs at the end of a dance between the O.
and the E., in which each movement, each word continues or in-
terrupts the dance. So, the held-back gesture or unspoken word
have the same obligatory logic of the words in a poem. Nobody
can say any longer, ‘I light myself with infinity” or ‘I light myself
with infinite space’, because – even if a dictionary of synonyms
would have nothing to complain of – we feel that Ungaretti’s
words, «I light myself with immensity», do not respond to a dic-
tionary’s digital logic but, much more, to music. Thus, the words
of an encounter are musical: only if the right ones are said, the
body can be sated.
Indeed, when contact is interrupted on an unconscious level,
gestures are performed and words spoken instead of the right
ones. Many symptoms are forms of behaviour that, unconscious-
ly, are substitutes for specific words and gestures to move towards
full contact79. This becomes a challenge for the therapist, helping
the patient to find the word or gesture (exactly that one!) which
opens the road towards full contact again.
Giusy is a patient who feels she is a child, although she is 35;
she consequently acts like a child and is frequently treated like
one. I ask her to imagine the scenario in which she was just about
to leave home and was going to say goodbye to her parents, by
76 As ancient wisdom reminds us: «The intimate nature of things loves to hide
itself». Cfr. Eraclito (1978), I frammenti, La Nuova italia, Firenze, DK 22 B1123.
77 Already underlined in F. Perls, R. Hefferline. P. Goodman, Gestalt Therapy, cit.
Also in B. Bettleheim, A.A. Rosenfeld (1984) (ed. or. 1993), L’arte dell’ovvio. Nella
psicoterapia e nella vita di ogni giorno, Feltrinelli, Milano.
78 B. Hellinger, Ordini dell’amore, cit., 447.
79 Hellinger says: «If a person who has experienced this interruption in their youth
turns to someone, their partner, for example, the memory of the interruption
returns, even if only unconsciously, in the body. The movement is interrupted
again, exactly at the same point as then. Instead of reaching the loved one, the
movement becomes circular. It starts at the point of interruption and returns to
it». The quotation is in F. Checcin (2010), Le ragioni del corpo. Ruolo del corpo
nelle costellazioni familiari, Crisalide, Spigno Saturnia, 59.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 73EN the front door. I ask her to look at them for a long time and to
let her body come up with the right word (or gesture80) that she
would have liked to perform, ask for or receive from each parent.
After a while she answers: «I would have liked to receive a caress
from my father and to have heard the words, ‘You can do it it!’».
I ask her to concentrate and to answer the following question:
«What would have changed in your body and in your life if you
had received that confirmation?». After a while she answers me:
«I would have felt my chest as stronger and more open». At this
juncture, in harmony with the point therapy had reached, I could
add three more questions, with musical and progressive tempo:
«If you had been stronger and had been more open, what would
be different about your life, yesterday and today?». «If you were
stronger and more open, what would you change about your
present life?» and, finally, «What would you change between us,
in the therapeutic setting?». The third question – the most difficult
but the most effective one – provoked a change in antalgic pos-
ture, from child to woman, and facilitated the sharing of experi-
ences of nearness and dissent, which would have previously been
inconceivable. What struck me, in fact, was the inter-corporeal
sensation of having a woman and not a child in front of me81. It is
amazing how taking back the (blocked) ‘missing gesture’ - espe-
cially regarding the parental figures – it reopens bodily circuits82
to wholeness and makes it possible to experience full and nour-
ishing contact. The ‘missing gesture’ – even if it cannot always be
instantly and precisely identified – is the icon which figuratively
expresses the body’s world of ‘unfinished business’ (the unsaid
and not done). Their stratification makes children insecure, in-
capable of growing with joyful bodies and encountering other
bodies83. Only when the mind gives in to the body and allows it
to freely and authentically express itself, that long withheld and
80 A human being is always present here-and-now in a unique and unrepeatable
movement of his/her life, in a specific context and in relation to somebody
concretely present (visible, or not), therefore, every gesture or any words al-
ways have a unique quality: organismic wisdom knows that only that gesture,
that word, can satisfy the need that, in that specific, existential and relational
context, will be figure with regards to the background.
81 This theme can be taken up again when considering the mother’s ‘missing
gesture’.
82 It is now clear that psychotherapy has a positive effect at the level of neuronal
synapses: cfr. E.R. Kandel et alii (1994) (ed. or. 1981), Principi di neuroscienze,
Ambrosiana, Milano; M. Cozzolino (2011), La comunicazione invisibile, Firera e
Liuzzo Publishing, Roma. Janet’s comments are particularly precious: «Trau-
matized patients are continuing the action, or rather the attempt at action,
which began with the event and they remain in this stalemate of endless be-
ginnings». In D. Siegal (2012) (ed. or. 2006), Prefazione, in P. Ogden, K. Minton,
C. Pain, Il Trauma e il corpo. Manuale di psicoterapia sensomotoria, Istituto
Scienze Cognitive, Sassari, XXII.
83 Cfr. G. Salonia (2016), Peter Pan: il bambino non baciato, in La vera storia di
Peter Pan. Un bacio salva la vita, Cittadella, Assisi, 11-43.
74 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounslong-awaited gesture will be possible. That is why – as we shall EN
see – so much attention is dedicated to ‘missing gestures’ and
word-relations in my model of FGT.
3.4 The ‘right’ word of contact
If the place where the Ego-function shows itself is in language,
talking is a challenge to one’s wholeness and relational compe-
tence. The spoken word, to be right, must contain all of the back-
ground it emerges from, and must pay heed to the background it
is moving towards (the other’s world).
When one is in contact with the Id-function (‘what I want’:
sensations and emotions) and aware of the Personality-function
(‘who I have become… in your presence’), then the Ego-function
will find the ’full’ and ‘fit’ word/gesture to meet the other at the con-
tact boundary. One can say that the bodies of the speaker and lis-
tener are satiated only after the ‘right’ word has been spoken and
heard. The therapist’s task becomes that of helping the patients to
achieve, word after word, the right word, that which the Self creates
and which expresses full contact. Helping two family members to
speak face-to-face, supporting the journey of the O. and the E., of-
ten means assisting the search for the right word at the right time,
avoiding useless discussion. «If the words I say to others / can only
carry the meaning that those words have for them / and I stay on
this side what I say, hidden / like the skeleton in my flesh / invisible
support of the visible / different and essential»84.
To grasp the complexity of speech, it may be useful to delineate
the grammar of mutual understanding85, which expresses some
principles making language a meeting-place.
• Speak to the other in the first person to share one’s own ex-
perience and perception of reality, one’s meanings, sensa-
tions, emotions (representative communication). When this
does not occur during a session, the therapist should help
the patient to concentrate and communicate his/her expe-
riences. Thus, frequently, one moves from an impersonal ‘It
is wrong to be late’, to a sharing of experience, ‘I get angry, I
feel neglected when you arrive late, I feel it as an injustice’;
• Describe reality as you subjectively perceive it, without ob-
jective evaluations;
• So, no expressions like, ‘The room is tidy,’ but, for example,
‘I like the tidiness of this room’;
• Make the background explicit, ‘an hour is not long’ will have
meaning if it refers to a morning, another to a month; mak-
ing it clear will avoid useless conflict;
84 F. Pessoa (1989) (ed. or. 1988), Faust, Einaudi, Torino.
85 Cfr. H. Franta, G. Salonia, Comunicazione interpersonale, cit.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 75EN • Look for the reference index, that is, make it clear who you
are talking to, what about, and what times and means you are
referring to: «Nobody helps me…» «Who doesn’t help you?»;
«I am always ill-treated…», «When do you feel ill-treated?»86;
• Declare your intention (illocutionary act) with the person you
are speaking to: «I said ‘Sorry about the rush’ to let you know
that I am sorry not to have more time to spend with you»87;
• Declare your expectations (perlocutionary act): «I’m telling
you that I feel neglected because I would like you to pay
more attention to me when I am speaking to you».
In therapeutic work, we must dedicate a lot of attention to the
performative88 aspect of what is said, that is, the intersubjective
side of communication. Unlike the theory of communicative acts,
in interpersonal relationships, every sentence is always performa-
tive89 on two registers: personal and relational. When a child tells
his mother ‘I feel sad’, the therapist asks him: “What effect does
having said that, and to your mother, have on you?». Then s/he
might ask the mother: «What effect does hearing your son say
these things have on you?».
3.5 Contacts that pursue each other
The common thread within the deluge of words that flows in-
side a family every day is precisely, in fact, the continual definition
of the relationships. Within all the words, one implicit type of con-
tent – ‘who am I for you?’, ‘are we getting closer or farther apart?’,
‘are you still where we left off?’ – is to be sought and found. Only
when the words emerge from the speaker’s attention towards cor-
poreal experience, they can reach others’ bodies and create con-
tact. And one feels calmed, like after full contact. Unfortunately,
fears, misunderstandings, disappointments, moments of anger of-
ten make the language of relationships cryptic. A communicative
style that hinders and complicates rather than facilitates meeting
is created. Words separate people if we do not listen deeply to our
own body. Therefore – as the poet says90 – ‘uninhabited words’, or
better, distant and confused words regarding our own experience
and intentionality, are used. The-words-which-are-unsaid-but-
which-clamor-to-be-said make for stiffened bodies and make the
family atmosphere tense, stressful and ripe for misunderstandings.
86 G. Salonia, C. Di Cicco (1982), Dialogo interno e dialogo esterno: contributo per
un’integrazione della terapia cognitiva con principi e tecniche della comunica-
zione interpersonale, in «Formazione Psichiatrica», 1, 179-194; Cfr. R. Bandler, J.
Grinder (1984) (ed. or. 1975), La struttura della magia, Astrolabio, Roma.
87 Cfr. J.L. Austin (1974) (ed. or. 1970), Quando dire è fare, Marietti, Torino.
88 Cfr. J.R. Searle (1976) (ed. or. 1969), Atti Linguistici, Boringhieri, Torino.
89 In the sense that creates reality. Cfr. J.L. Austin, Quando dire è fare, cit.; J.R.
Searle, Atti Linguistici, cit.
90 Cfr. M. Luzi (1999) (ed. or. 1998), Tutte le poesie, Garzanti, Milano.
76 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsIn a session, a son was asked to sit face-to-face opposite his fa- EN
ther and to speak to him. The therapist asks him: «What do you want
to say to your father?». He aswers: «That he neglects me». These
words do not create experience: there is no subject or receiver. The
therapist answers: «Try and tell your father, directly». The son turns
to the father and says: «You neglect me». At that point, one can
ask the son how he felt in saying that to his father and how it felt
to hear those words (the performative aspect). All of the words ad-
dressed to another have a significant effect on those who express
them and those who hear them. At this point, by latching on to the
answers, movement can be made along the line of contact inten-
tionality. The son can be asked to be more precise in formulating
his utterances and to take responsibility for what he says: «I feel
neglected». Or else, both can be asked to clarify the perlocutionary
aspect of the discourse: what they expect from each other.
It is also very helpful to keep experiences tied to concrete facts. If
one communicates by maintaining contact with reality and its details,
taking responsibility for the experiences and being ready to listen to
the other’s experiences, the foundations for full contact are being laid.
Goodman writes: «Speaking is good contact when it creates a
structure of the three grammatical persons I, you and it, that is, the
speaker, the one that being spoken to, the issue being discussed,
and gets energy from them»91. For there to be contact energy, the
speaker must express himself with words that emerge from his
bodily experience and that can reach the body of the listener; the
listener must take the words into his/her body; and finally, one
must discuss ‘it’; describe the facts whose contents and meanings
have given rise to conflict and misunderstanding.
In working with the Ego-function, the therapist should ask
him/herself some questions that help to clarify if the family allows
– and to what extent – the expression of individuality:
• Is it possible for a less influential family member to express
a point of view even if it diverges from the group’s?
• Is there room for dyad contacts between various family
members?
• Can one be unique, different within family ties?
Other questions facilitate and provoke answers that show the
presence or absence of the Ego-function in the words employed
to create contact:
• Can you say everything in the first person, expressing your
experiences, intentions, expectations?
• Is this really what you want?
91 Twenty-five years later, Stern wrote that the narrative Self has a triadic dimen-
sion: self, the object and the other. Cfr. D.N. Stern (1987) (ed. or. 1985), Il mondo
interpersonale del bambino, Bollati- Boringhieri, Torino, 131.
To divide the united, to unite the divided, is the life of nature;
this is the eternal systole and diastole, the eternal collapsion and
expansion, the inspiration and expiration of the world in which
we live and move.
Johann Wolfgang Goethe, The Theory of Colours
1.1 The family as a hermeneutic principle
epistemological revolution: the transition from an individual or
intrapsychic perspective to one based on relationships, and spe-
cifically, family relationships. It means looking at an individual by
taking that person’s family as the starting point, and understand-
ing the family as being a ’Gestalt’, that is, a whole that provides
structure, or, alternatively and more aptly, as a structure which
connects1. According to the time-honoure Gestalt principle, it is a
whole which gives meaning to the parts: the words form the sen-
tences, however, it is the sentence – as we know – which gives
meaning to the words, which, on many registers, turn out to be
polysemic2.
Thus, the individual emerges as a figure from a family back-
ground. Even when we emphasise a person’s unique characteris-
tics, this must be done in a binocular perspective3 or, better still, as
a gestalt, holistically: it is a perspective which sees and compares
the person with the whole in which he or she is included and
from which he or she emerges. Consequently, even the unique-
ness of the individual must be contextualised. The aggressiveness
of Carlo, an adult son4, which is deemed ‘too much’ at home, can
take on opposite values and meanings (distinguish oneself, ally
oneself, imitation, etc.) depending on the family field he emerges
from. Identity is built in the first instance as a ‘response’ to a wider
‘given’ in which one finds oneself. Every individuality is a music
that integrates two compositions, from the family of origin and
from the present one.
1 G. Bateson, Toward an ecology of mind, cit.
2 The affirmation «The bishop has ordered two capuchins» reminds us of D.
Parisi – the two polysemic words (‘order’ and ‘capuchins’) acquire their signifi-
cance adequately only in the context of the sentence. Cfr. D. Parisi (1972), La
Comunicazione come processo cognitivo, Boringhieri, Torino.
3 Cfr. G. Bateson, Towards an ecology of the mind, cit.
4 Cfr. V. Satir (1973) (ed. or. 1964), Psicodinamica e psicoterapia del nucleo fami-
liare, Armando, Roma.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 79EN ‘Who I am’ in GT means primarily ‘who I have become’ (Per-
sonality-function of the Self), a pregnant past participle which
connects present and past in identity. In fact, the family of origin
is assumed as the matrix of identity5. It is the place and the time
in which one learns the name of things, grammar, habits, what
is not permitted, cognitive structure and perceptual taboos, the
smells and tastes of existence. Lessons learned that might con-
sciously be forgotten but which are written in the body and live
on subliminally. As the poet says: «The stuff of memories burns
but not the memories / Memory reigns the same...»6. The family
of origin or, more precisely, the trigenerational family, is the in-
evitable and ineliminable ‘ground’ of any identity. The uniqueness
of the person does not emerge from a desert but from a continual
process of adjustment (sometimes creative, sometimes antago-
nistic or repetitive) to family relationships (that have determined
those outside the family). In personal style –sometimes inscribed
in the body as antalgic posture – the family of origin is enclosed
and narrated.
To assume the family as a hermeneutic principle means that to
understand someone, he needs to be placed in his family of origin,
configured by two coordinates – the synchronic one (events of
the life cycle) and the diachronic one (quality of relationships) –
and by two micro-contexts (primary triangle and siblings).
The present family is the context in which the family of origin
reappears and becomes up to date (for the couple and for parents)
in all its multiplicity of possible assimilations. Parents’ psychic
disturbances should be read in the context of both the family of
origin and the present family, whereas the children’s disturbances
should obviously be related to the latter. It would be an enormous
mistake to conduct therapy with a child thinking that his symp-
toms reveal only ‘his’ problems without taking into account the
quality of the family contacts which form the significant back-
ground of the symptoms and the relational reality which condi-
tions him every day. Another serious mistake would be to treat two
members of the family without taking the Personality-Function of
the whole family into account. For example, it would be a mistake
to work with the problems of a mother and son, without involving
the father or any siblings. In a holistic logic, faced with a problem
of hyper-attention towards one member of the family, it is essen-
tial to focus on and reactivate the blocked energy of the person
receiving the hypo-attention: being this the only possible way to
recover energy flow in all its interrupted spontaneity7. Without
5 Cfr. G. Salonia, Ordo amoris e famiglia d’origine, cit.
6 M. Luzi, Tutte le poesie,cit., 601
7 Cfr. G. Salonia, Il silenzio degli ultimi, cit., 601.
80 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsdoubt, the mother’s difficulty with the son is caused precisely by EN
the father’s absence and that of any siblings. To work only on the
malfunctioning pair amplifies the problem and precludes a solu-
tion, precisely because the resources in the field of the family rela-
tionships are not exploited. The same hermeneutical relationship
is applied to couples’ therapy: it would be naïve and misleading to
make judgments about a partner who is absent from the therapeu-
tic setting. It is no coincidence that the third axiom of pragmatic
communication asserts: «In any interaction, the punctuation of
the sequence is arbitrary»8, so there, we complain about what we
provoke or what we keep in conflict.
In case of a symptom regarding a spouse, there is no point in
involving the offspring in family therapy. It is better to direct the
person to individual or couple’s therapy. That does not mean that,
even if there is only one parent in therapy, it might valuable to
conduct a few sessions of family therapy, to share experiences and
discuss with each other, within the family, about the effects that
the parent’s symptoms are having on normal family life9.
Moreover, it is also essential to distinguish between ‘family ses-
sion’ and ‘family therapy’ in therapeutic work with families. From
a technical point of view, faced with a child’s disturbances, it is
always advisable to start with one, or two, family sessions which
may then take different pathways, including regular family ses-
sions to get feedback, couple’s therapy, sibling therapy, individual
therapy, etc. Holding a few family sessions (original or present
family) during individual therapy has proven to be fruitful too.
Experience with the family is always enriching because different
points of view are exchanged and there is the opportunity to ex-
perience new contacts.
1.2 The place of family therapy: here-and-now and now-for-
next of bodily experiences in-contact
The Gestalt theory of psychic disturbances is based on the key
concept of contact/interruption to contact as the distinction be-
tween health and illness. The subject grows if he lives valid and
nourishing contacts with the environment, becomes ill and gen-
erates symptoms if he interrupts or does not complete the con-
tacts that are essential for his growth. The type of pathology that
develops is determinated by the way and the moment when the
O. becomes stuck bringing his intentionality to completion. The
8 Cfr. P. Watzalawic, J.B. Beavin, D.D. Jackson (1971) (ed. or. 1967), La Pragmatica
della comunicazione umana, Astrolabio, Roma.
9 On this subject, cfr. G. Salonia, L’angoscia dell’agire tra eccitazione e trasgres-
sione. La Gestalt Therapy con gli stili relazionali fobico-ossessivocompulsivi,
in G. Salonia, V. Conte, P. Argentino, Devo sapere subito se sono vivo, cit., 193-
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 81EN blocks re-occur because, at a certain point, the past unsupported
and interrupted energy returns to the contact boundary and con-
tinues to seek the satisfaction of the past relational need.
In GT the treatment consists precisely in identifying the mul-
tiple (continual and meaningful) interruptions and, with the goal
of achieving complete contact, providing the specific support that
had previously been lacking. When the O. becomes competent
again and can conduct meaningful contacts with the E., growth
resumes in the way life proposes and guarantees.
In individual therapy, the patient and the therapist are the ones
involved in an experience of contact and thus encounter the dif-
ficulties of achieving contact and bringing contact to completion.
In family therapy the members of the family are led (and facili-
tated) by the therapist to experience full contact with each other.
Naturally, the therapist, by proposing specific experiences to two
members of the family, is attempting to offer the specific sup-
port that hitherto was lacking. For this reason – and in opposi-
tion to Bowen who forbade family members to interact among
themselves and who encouraged the use of only ‘I statements’
towards the therapist, to facilitate the movement from massifica-
tion to individualisation –, GT has the specific aim of making the
family members interact with each other. The therapist observes
the bodily and relational experiences to understand the direction
(where this family is going) and the ways (Personality-function
and Id-function).
The questions the therapist asks take this line and so he or she
asks: ‘What personality-function is distorted’, ‘What body is closed
in relation to what other body?’, ‘Which body has to change posi-
tion?’.
As far as technical intervention is concerned, the question
would be ‘Who needs to be opposite whom?’.
At this point, we illustrate how a specific intervention aims at
facilitating growth through working on the functions of the Self
in contact.
The plan for the session presented here will be clarified in the
simulations. It is a map and, like ‘Eudoxia’s carpet’, offers the thera-
pist a path which must be reinvented every time. Every time the
carpet is reworked it is enriched by the new elements that every
family brings to the setting, the result of their individual history
and specific suffering. Tolstoy docet.
2.1 From one person’s symptom to everyone’s quality of contact
A family comes to the therapist presenting with a symptom and
asking for its suppression, as quickly and painlessly as possible, as
82 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsif it were something threatening and alien to them. The therapist EN
knows he is unable to meet this request, because the potential of
vital energy and growth held within the symptom (albeit blocked),
not only with regards to the ‘designated patient’ but also to the
whole family, would be destroyed. Moreover, to expel the symp-
tom would be a useless operation: in the long term, the symptom
would return and manifest itself under other guises, either in the
patient or other members of the family.
A symptom can emerge when a child’s body experiences a dis-
turbance that the parents’ bodies cannot manage to contain, but
amplify instead. A short circuit exists between the bodily thrust
towards change and the bodily terror of changing. The symptom
narrates in a suffered and not always linear way, the story of a body
that is changing, of a family that should be changing with it but
cannot, of other bodies which, instead of offering support, under-
go experiences of fear, of old tensions which return and press to
become figures and be elaborated. The family, in fact, asks for help
because it has not been capable of silencing (nor of understand-
ing) the disturbance of a body which deconstructs the emotional
order and makes the disturbances of the family’s bodies emerge.
Understanding the family’s processes (‘What change has begun in
this family?’, ‘How is it blocked?’, ‘How are the other bodies suffer-
ing?’, ‘In what stage of the evolutionary line is the family blocked
in?’) offers the therapist a precise horizon from which to elaborate
a therapeutic project: facilitate the family’s passage to the ‘next
step’ of the growth cycle10.
It is not a question of solving a problem but rather to act in such
a way that the family grows and solves its problems by itself (that
is the problem!). The symptom reveals the need that all members
of the family have, not merely the designated patient, of being as-
sisted in a stage of the vital evolutionary cycle, either personally or
as a family.
For these reasons, it is necessary to look at the symptom as a
block of three familiar dimensions: corporeal, developmental and
relational.
Some types of intervention are imperative to affect the move-
ment of the figural symptom to the background of the family’s
quality of contacts.
- Asking each member of the family to introduce themselves
and give their opinion of the ‘symptom’.
This is a decisive step to move from a unilateral perspective (fix-
ity of diagnosis) to a shared family perspective. The members of the
10 It is necessary to take into account that, in every case, communicating to the
family the developmental sense of their malaise does not produce, then, par-
ticular therapeutic results: those will come only after having elaborated the
emotional-relational wounds and having given voice to the fears of the bodies.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 83EN family start to feel involved, to believe it is possible to have different
viewpoints about what is happening at home. From their opinions of
the symptom, it is already possible to get a first impression of the fam-
ily dynamics: ‘Are there alliances?’, ‘Are they positive or in conflict?’, ‘Is
the couple’s relationship differential, conflictual or confluent?’.
Thus, the first movement has occurred: from the child’s symp-
tom to the relationships within the family. Often the proxemics of
prologue is revelatory.
a similar suffering and, in particular, if either of the parents at the
same age as the child had this or other symptoms.
Faced with this question, it frequently happens that one of the
parents reveals that at the same age he or she had experienced
disturbances expressed as other symptoms or even as the same
symptoms. It is touching to see the patient’s ‘pleasant’ surprise on
hearing this, because it offers a new perspective: he/she is not the
only one in the home to have a problem (‘mad’ or ‘bad’). In this
way, the rigid figure starts to dissolve, and the background of the
still open relational gestalts can begin to emerge.
One family brought as a symptom their fourteen-year-old Gi-
ulio’s bed-wetting11. When the ‘circular’ question is put to them,
Giulio’s father replies that as an adolescent he had similar prob-
lems while the mother and twenty-year-old sister assert with great
confidence that they have had no such problems. At this point,
Giulio’s symptom has highlighted the conflict (old, certainly, but
unresolved) of the rigid juxtaposition between efficient women
and ‘hopeless’ men. To grow, Giulio must find a new answer to
this issue: how can a boy become a significant man in that family?
The symptom becomes a means that opens unexpected perspec-
tives. From the symptom to the family.
- Asking point blank: ‘ What and who would you change at
home?’. Asking to the children: ‘If you had a magic wand, what
would you change at home?’.
The replies given to this question also have a prognostic value
in that they reveal the level of rigidity of the family disturbances. It
is possible to conjecture, in fact, that the more the opinions coin-
cide, the more rigid the family will be. The situation where the pa-
tient agrees with the others, that only his symptom is the problem,
is a very serious one.
- Another range of questioning12 needs to reveal what abilities,
potentials and strengths each member of the family sees in self and
other family members.
11 In this and other clinical cases, both the names of the patients and some de-
tails have been changed for privacy reasons.
12 This was taught by Sonia Nevis: cfr. J. Zinker, S. Nevis, Teoria della Gestalt sulle
interazioni di coppia e familiari, cit.
84 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsNormally, this line of enquiry reveals very interesting information EN
concerning the potential and developmental prospects of the family.
Overall, this first part of therapeutic activity aims at getting into
motion, as Erving Polster suggested, stagnant and blocked fam-
ily relationships. If the family’s vital energy, short-circuited in the
symptom, starts to flow again, one passes from a rigid and reduc-
tive vision of the family’s problems to the opening of a horizon
that they can move towards, whilst all the time aware of their hid-
den strengths and of stratified difficulties.
The purpose of the questions is to raise awareness through learn-
ing to listen to self and others. Perls realised that concentration (what
Goodman will call ‘the Self that concentrates’) could be a way towards
awareness, particularly for the subliminal areas of awareness. In the
first session, ultimately, the questions are a tool for creating concen-
tration. Only by making the open gestalt emerge it is possible to start
again and reawaken every family’s dream of a dance that involves all
of tthem, individually and collectively.
2.2 Dance of the chairs
In the second part of the session, attention shifts towards the
position of the family members. They have freely taken their seats,
with the extra chair that therapists always place adding more
choices. The places occupied allude to the relational experiences,
as do the spatial relationships (near to whom, far from whom). The
nearness of some bodies helps to breathe more easily while others
block breath and spontaneity. To be sitting next to a body gives
warmth but risks becoming confluent if not nourished with direct
looks. The arrangement of the seats also speaks of bodies loved si-
lently from afar, of bodies that command, of bodies that annihilate
themselves, etc.
Some dynamics, which cannot spontaneously emerge, are
particularly significant and remain hanging in the relational field
like anticipations or demands: ‘What body do I want to feel near or
distant?’13, ‘What glance would I like to have head-on or sideways
(visual perception)?’, ‘Which body am I leaning towards?’. A great
deal of the family history is told by the choice of who to sit next to
(including at a table). It is undoubtedly true that the obvious re-
veals itself in the depths of the surface14. The devil (or maybe God)
is in the details. Relational details (that almost furtive glance, that
leaning towards someone, speaks louder than words) are like an
arrow pointing in the direction that one cannot manage to go. In
this acute therapeutic attention to relational vicinity, it is impor-
13 Cfr. G. Salonia, Corpi e famiglia: l’intercorporeità, to be published soon.
14 In this sense we can talk about ‘deepness of the surface’, cfr. P. Cavaleri (2003),
La profondità della superficie, Franco Angeli, Milano.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 85EN tant not to interpret but to let the sensations speak to one’s own
body and wait for the kairòs to intervene. In this model of FGT, it
is more important not to comment on non-verbal behaviour or
vicinity. To say to a person who is stroking his arm ‘What is your
hand doing?’ or ‘See, you are stroking yourself’, generates only
clamming up and bodily contraction. It is essential to protect one-
self from undue invasions. These are feelings which become even
more unpleasant in the presence of other family members.
To initiate work on proxemics, it can be useful to ask questions
that favour activation such as ‘Who would you like to feel nearest?’,
‘If we played at changing places, where would you sit?’. Obviously,
after changing places (or having expressed the desire to do so) one
can ask what this initial game has evoked, or has shown them or
confirmed from a new perspective. Everyone must be asked the
questions because if one part changes, everything changes. It is
remarkable how the experience of changing places (where you
sit in the vicinity of a feared body and/or desired body or you are
face-to-face with a person instead of avoiding them) produces
such significant perceptual and relational changes! It is possible to
experience not only other chairs, but also other horizons, as new
ways of being and of relating to others.
There are two principal reasons for working on relational prox-
emics: the first is to progressively rebuild the family’s Personality-
function; while the second is to favour full contact between fam-
ily members, two at a time. Obviously, it is not merely a question
of changing places. In GT behaviour has little meaning if it is not
the expression of coherent body-relational experiences. Asking
people to change places is a delicate and pregnant therapeutic ac-
tion. Changing places modifies interpersonal perception (some-
times changing can be devastating – looking at a parent face-to-
face instead of with sidelong glances, for instance) and reactivates
blocked energy. Looking at each other in the eyes while heed-
ing the sensations in one’s body and feeling the presence of the
other’s body is a powerful experience, a way to place oneself at
the contact boundary. In a moment, old gestalts come to the fore,
unresolved questions, things left unsaid15, actions not taken… The
therapist should take care to verbalise everyone’s experiences:
‘Could you tell the opposite person what you are feeling?’.
In this way, polarities are recomposed and reintegrated. One
of the signs of rigidity in the family is certainly the exasperation
of the polarities, attributed as identities to single members of the
family to be introjected. Examples are the calm child and the iras-
cible one, the adventurous child and the home-loving one, the
strong parent and the weak one…. Polarity as a concept can be
15 Not-said in GT means: not-said-that-needed-to-be-said.
86 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsfound in the Chinese and Greek cultures, as well as in Jung’s theo- EN
ries, but GT has elaborated it in an original way. In Perls’ work, the
identification of polarities was a priority. He invented the dialogue
with the empty chair to explore polarities, because in that way the
patient explores the other polarity, what he or she does not expe-
rience. The dialogue between the top dog and the underdog (the
sadist and the masochist) is particularly well-known16.
What happens in the face-to-face dialogue between families is
also geared towards allowing each member of the family to re-
discover their spontaneity. They have the opportunity of freeing
themselves from polarities taken to extreme and unreal levels, and
thus rediscovering their other polarity which, perhaps, has been
rejected, but which is necessary for personal wholeness17. Thus,
the authoritarian parent discovers the fear of raising the children
to be too passive and the permissive parent the fear of not pro-
viding them with a solid foundation. The gentle sibling finds his
anger and the angry one finds his gentle side18.
The choice of the pair to start working with first is assigned to
phronesis, the instinctive sense for what the best couple would be.
The other family members usually listen and then share their sen-
sations, in a vibrant echo that involves them all. When the objec-
tive is to rebuild the Personality-function, separate pairs can be
created in context: the parents talk and, in the meantime the sib-
lings can talk among themselves without listening to their parents.
In other cases, it is possible to emphasise this division by sending
the children out and staying with the parents, or vice versa.
Antalgic proxemics is revealed by the confused position of the
chairs (too muddled: parents-offspring) or in the rigidity of the
positions (between parents and children). In the former situation,
pair dialogues are used to retrieve the Personality-function, in the
latter one to reposition energy.
As those who work on the body know, these changes (visual
perspective, bodily proximity) engender new relational reflec-
tions19, concretely destroying perceptual automatic responses.
Changing places renders the generational line more flexible (Per-
16 About this, cfr. F. Perls (1969), Gestalt Therapy Verbatim, Real People Press, Moab;
E. Polster, M. Polster (1983) (ed. or. 1973), Terapia della Gestalt Integrata, Giuffré,
Milano. Also intereresting the lesson of From on polarities, to be distinguished
from contrapositions. Cfr. I. From (1993), Seminari, Venice, pro manuscript.
17 A mystic, Francis of Assisi, who was defined by Freud in Disagio della civiltà as
«able to love and to work», wrote that every virtue, to be genuine, must be main-
tained by another: obedience by charity, poverty by humility, knowledge by sim-
plicity. Cfr. Francesco D’Assisi, Lodi delle virtù in Fonti Francescane, 256-258.
18 For a deeper analysis from the anthropological point of view, cfr. R. Guardini
(1997) (ed. or. 1925), L’opposizione polare. Saggio per una filosofia del concreto
vivente, Morcelliana, Brescia.
19 Cfr. G. Salonia, Il lavoro gestaltico con le coppie e le famiglie: il ciclo vitale e
l’integrazione della polarità, cit.; Id., Corpi e famiglia: l’intercorporeità, cit.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 87EN sonality-function), facilitates awareness of one’s own and other
bodies (Id-function) and offers the opportunity, at last, to express
what the Self requires of the other (Ego-function). Clearly, to reach
this change it is necessary to take things step-by-step.
Elena was a difficult daughter in a family where the mother re-
ceived attention from everyone (including her husband) and who
placed the younger brother on a pedestal. In this context, Elena’s is-
sues will only be resolved when the couple learn to treat their children
equally and the children learn sibling complicity. This goal required
a series of steps. The most significant step was when Elena encoun-
tered and spoke to her father whom she perceived as unreachable
because of his obsessive contemplation of his wife. When the father
started to reply to the therapist’ssuggestion (‘Tell Elena what you like
about her’), - Elena’s body was visibly expectant, she was simultane-
ously relaxed and involved. How many times must she have asked
herself: ‘Does my dad like me?’. If he doesn’t like me, how will I ever
find a boyfriend?” How can Elena become a woman if her parents do
not look at her in the eyes (one at a time!).
2.3 A dance to meet each other: Dance of the pronouns
At this point in our GT model, we encounter the ‘dance of the
pronouns’. While in the ‘Dance of the chairs’ the bases of action
are proxemics and posture, in the ‘dance of the pronouns’ the pos-
sibility of contact is facilitated by showing how, a priori, the use of
pronouns holds the key to those words that generate contact and
those that create distance: pronouns as an hypostasis of the con-
tact. Changing the pronoun does not mean changing the content
but it expresses it while creating contact. For instance, ‘You ne-
glect me, you never have time for a quiet chat after supper’, is an
accusation which generates a defensive response or an equally
accusing one. One can express the same emotion by saying: «I
would like to spend some time chatting with you after supper and
I’m sorry it doesn’t happen». This style, in which the speaker takes
responsibility for what happens, facilitates interpersonal commu-
nication and is the premise for good contact.
In the “Dance of the pronouns”, the change of the pronoun
is maintained to open the utterance content to contact, not to
change it, while maintaining intensity and specificity.
The ‘Dance of the pronouns’ therefore implies movement20:
• From the self-referential ‘I’ to the ‘I’ which reveals itself;
• From ‘That’s the way it is, this is the real problem’ to ‘I feel
this, this is my experience’;
20 C.O. Harris (1994), The Grammar of Relationship: Gestalt Couples Therapy,
in G. Wheeler, S. Backman (eds.), On Intimate Ground: A Gestalt approach to
working with couples, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 309-324.
88 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns• From an accusatory ‘you’ (‘It’s your fault!’) to an empathetic EN
‘you’ (‘From what you’re saying, I think you might be feel-
ing…’);
• From a generic ‘one’ or ‘you’ used impersonally to owning
what one is saying. From ‘people say that Germans are au-
thoritarians’ to ‘My experience is...’ or ‘I think that...’;
• From a symbiotic ‘we’ to an inclusive ‘we’. Often parents use
‘we’ as an arbitrary extension of ‘I’ (‘I think we want to go’
becomes ‘I want to go. I’d like to know whether the rest of
you agree or not’) or as an introjection (‘We must be and-
show ourselves to be a united front: we won’t listen to those
who see it differently’ becomes ‘Let’s listen to everyone’s
opinion on this’);
• The accusatory plural ‘you’ becomes an empathic one.
Here we are speaking of some people’s tendency to not
speak directly to others but to use generalised forms of ad-
dress: ‘You parents…’, ‘You children…’. This is an extremely
irritating and ineffective communicative style since the
responsibility of addressing the individual directly is not
assumed. From accusatory ‘they’ to welcoming ‘they.’ This
prevalently refers to relationships outside the home, where
others can be seen as the enemy, as friends, or strangers to
become acquainted with;
• From an indirect and allusive ‘he/she’ to a clear and direct
‘you’. Speaking ‘to’ not ‘about’ someone.
Obviously, to change or get the pronouns to dance is not a
technique. When a person is asked to make this change, it’s im-
portant to consider that it is part of a process of listening to one-
self, of ‘concentrating’ so as to say the words which come from the
body. For instance, when a person is asked to listen to the effect
produced by other’s words, we are always asking them to concen-
trate and listen to their own experience at the same time. It seems
almost by magic when sometimes, in the midst of a conflict, one
of the participants changes a pronoun and reveals him or herself,
recognising their experience. For example, they reveal their fragil-
ity, or when somebody perceives just a fragment of the experi-
ences or reasons of somebody else.
To paraphrase Novalis, words and gestures are the notes of a
melody. Contact is music. At a certain point one realises that, be-
yond the content it is the sound of the words which allows hu-
man beings to encounter each other. Body-words open up and
prepare the encounter (albeit stormy, suave, slow or powerful).
They are musical notes which come and go from the bodies, they
go through them and create the mystery and the fascination of
contact. The starting-point is the body and then words. If the body
becomes words and words remain corporeal, then human speech
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 89EN becomes an experience of full contact: speaking of myself, reach-
ing the other, recounting the world. In this way, every word be-
comes a note of the opus of the encounter.
On reflection, a family seeks therapy when faith has been lost in
verbal communication: ‘What’s the point of talking about it? Nobody
ever listens… nothing ever changes’. The words get multiplied but
are empty, flatus vocis, no longer bridges but open swing bridges.
A word which is ‘lived’ in GT is not in opposition to the body
but, together with silence, is one of the shapes of the organism-
in-relation, the Self, that takes when it brings figures out from the
background. The family is asking for new words, but to obtain
them it must begin with the body, or rather, bodies.
When Luca – in response to the therapist, sits opposite his fa-
ther, silence falls initially. A few embarrassed smiles. They look at
each other and do not know what to say. They feel new or for-
gotten sensations in their bodies and see each other’s faces as if
for the first time. They notice details, the details that emerge in a
new light. They are the details that save faces from being taken for
granted. In embarrassed silences, the crucial question: ‘What do I
say after saying Hi?’ hangs in the air21. The therapist can intervene
asking both: «What do you feel seeing each other face to face?».
This is a key question, an invitation to concentrate and to bring
the physical experience to the contact boundary.
‘Concentrate’ was the route that Perls22 invented as an alterna-
tive to ‘free associations’, knowing, as the followers of Lacan would
say today, that the unconscious is the body, and with concentra-
tion one enters in contact with one’s interior world, as protago-
nists. The Gestalt therapist does not give solutions, definitions of
reality or meanings: he defines routes and paths so that the pa-
tients by themselves, the family itself, can take back their innate
capacity to grow.
The dialogue between Luca and his father began with accusa-
tions. «I am furious with you. You are always the same. You are
never present. You are only interested in your own stuff». The
therapist, at this point, asked Luca to listen to himself, to express
his rage, but also where it came from and to state the things that
he would like to happen. After a little bit of silence and concentra-
tion, Luca started again: «I am incensed that you have time for
everybody but not for me. I miss you. I would like you to spend
more time with me. But what am I bothering to say this for? You
have a thousand more important things to take care of». He stops.
The therapist asks if he wants to add something and he answers
21 Cfr. E. Berne (1972), What do you say after you say Hello?, Times Book Review,
New York.
22 Cfr. F. Perls (1995) ( ed. or. 1942/69), L’io, fame e l’aggressività, Franco Angeli,
Milano.
90 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsno. The therapist asks the father: «What do you feel listening to EN
these words from your son?». The answer, predictably, was a de-
fense and an accusation. The therapist replied: «What do you feel
hearing that Luca would like to spend more time with you. That he
is upset that everyone but him can enjoy his father’s company?».
The tension in the father’s body loosens up. They are learning
to speak to each other about love and rage, disappointments and
expectations, hopes and failures.
The Gestalt therapist does not look for quick answers to con-
flicts23 but that the conflicts be fully worked through. As has al-
ready been said, a contact is considered as positive, not in virtue
of its content, but of its relational process. If one speaks ‘from’
and ’with’ one’s body, if one listens to the others’ corporeal words,
even when the content is unpleasant (differences, disagreements,
contrasts), the experience is lived as a positive one and generates
growth and wisdom, albeit painfully. Fear of conflict and of clari-
fication creates real relational problems and numerous misunder-
standings, and much confusion. In reality, even negative experi-
ences (‘I am angry with you’, ‘I am disappointed with you’) acquire
positive value if communicated authentically, with integrity and
with respect for the other. Helping family members to communi-
cate without their necessarily agreeing with each other or under-
standing each other24 means helping them to become aware of
the relational intentionality underlying the words, even in issues
that seem endless and/or that are incomprehensible.
I asked Carlo, who delivered a long and tortuous speech about
his wife, to express in a few words if what he had said was meant
to bring him nearer or move him farther away from her. He replied
to her: «I say these things to feel closer to you, because I don’t feel
reached by you. I say so many words because if I look at you, you
seem cold and I’m scared I can’t get through to you». Beyond the
content of the words, such a heartfelt expression of relational and
bodily experiences creates a new experience of healthy closeness
between members of the family. As we know, an explanation of
relational intentionality reaches the other directly and facilitates
the possibility of contact.
The work of closure of ‘unfinished business’ must be conduct-
ed by paying close attention to breathing patterns. When breath is
blocked so are the words and steps towards the other. However, if
people succeed in sharing their physical sensations, for instance,
‘When you say these things to me, my body is afraid to come near-
er, I am frozen and I don’t know why’, the movement towards the
other starts again. Full contact occurs and is revealed in the meet-
23 Cfr. F. Perls, R. Hefferline, P. Goodman, Gestalt Therapy, cit.
24 Cfr. G. Salonia, Elogio del non comprendersi, to be published soon.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 91EN ing of bodies and words, when the words emerge from the body
and when bodies are open to words.
It is important in the therapeutic setting for the therapist to sup-
port each person’s efforts to speak, speech being understood as a
necessary ability for their individuality. Iolanda, aged eleven, was
trying to speak, but her daddy, mommy and older siblings were
so absorbed in their discussion that they did not realise that she
was getting cross and starting to fidget. When the therapist asked
her, «What do you want to say, Iolanda?», she exclaimed: «That’s
enough! I want to speak now. Even if I’m little and don’t under-
stand what you’re talking about, I want to talk about my stuff».
A session turns out to be, when all is said and done, the search
for the words and gestures that soothe the family bodies. Missing
gestures (words not said or heard, bodily gestures not performed,
asked for or received) are written on the body as a blockage to the
movement of approaching others or a way for opening access to
others. This is the ‘text’ (as Ricoeur would say) that remains in-
complete and that paralyses the wholeness of the family’s dance,
which is sought in the session.
2.4 Towards the end of the session
At a certain moment in the work with a family, the importance
of working with the couple/parents will emerge since they are ex-
periencing a disturbance in their Personality-function of Self. It is
a road which opens many doors.
Francesco, aged seven, had been ‘brought into therapy’ be-
cause of behavioural issues at school. It soon became apparent
that the root of his problems was the unexpressed conflict within
the couple. When we say to the couple in front of their son: «In the
next meeting we only want to see you two», Francesco exclaimed
with heartfelt relief: «At last!», Perhaps he would have liked to add,
‘What does it take to show you that you need help?’ From the con-
tinuation of therapy, it became clear that what Francesco had said
possessed relational logic: start with the order of affection, and
those who are not allowing the spontaneous and creative flow of
energy and change within the family.
Before closing the session, to facilitate learning/assimilation, it
can be useful to ask each member of the family what word or ges-
ture (their own or someone else’s) they felt particularly strongly
in their body, positively or negatively. In their answers, we find
a fundamental learning experience that concerns both personal
and interpersonal life. Pay heed to your body after every experi-
ence, to grasp, through an intimate and organismic evaluation,
what is or is not concluded, what still needs to be done. In this
way, the Personality-function of the Self assimilates experiences
as they build up and become whole. To have rebuilt the Personali-
92 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsty-function of parents and their offspring is already a decisive mo- EN
ment of achievement in any family therapy. It seems unimportant
but, in reality, it is the reverse: it allows people to open themselves
in a clear and articulate manner and carry on their journey. To be
able to give a name to all the sensations, to be able to speak with
anyone in harmony with one’s Personality-function are experi-
ences which regenerate the family dynamics, like resuming an
interrupted dance.
The continuation may take several different directions depend-
ing on how severe the therapist considers the children’s distur-
bances to be. The latter may be followed as a subsystem at the same
time as the parents’ therapy. Otherwise, therapy with the parents
may be adequate if they learn to differentiate between conjugal
and parental issues. In the hermeneutics of work with families, it is
helpful to let oneself be guided by the suggestions made this pas-
sage by Munch: «When I look at one of my pictures, I appreciate all
its beauty. And I observe that when I put all my pictures together,
each picture not only emanates its own beauty in the context of all
the paintings, but it takes on a new beauty- almost a new mean-
ing- that it gets from being part of the whole whole»25.
We can take Munch’s intuition as the final objective in our work
with families: to rediscover (or realise) a dance of different beau-
ties… as the figure and background flow from the individuals and
the family in its entirety.
25 A. Eggum, E. Munch (1984), Edvard Munch: Paintings, Sketches and Studies,
C.N. Potter, New York.
the path that the session itself created for the family. The thera-
pist’s task consisted of restoring growth pathways and facilitating
the family’s journey through disorders and symptoms to reach the
next step in their life cycle.
In this model, the members of the family can freely choose
where they sit: all of the chairs are available. As above mentioned,
I always put out an extra chair (a sort of ‘empty chair’2) to facili-
tate possible changing of places. In this model, as we shall see, this
technique was employed to work with family members’ relative
proxemics.
I have called this model ‘Dance of the chairs’ to introduce the
concept of change that the family desires but cannot achieve.
Changing places, finding yourself face-to-face with a person that
has been sought in vain, moving away from rigid alliances, dis-
covering new, positive allies within the family… All these things
allow the family to start their journey afresh and rediscover the
pleasures of movement and meeting.
‘Dance of the pronouns’ indicates the therapeutic strategy
which aims at recovering the conditions that promote personal
encounters: being a ‘you’ face-to-face with another ‘you,’ that
which gives life to family relationships.
A session led by Valeria Conte and Giovanni Salonia
The family, the parents and two children, arrives. The mother
has requested therapy, but the problem was actually the daughter’s
nocturnal sleep-walking. The co-therapists asked all the family
members to be present, the mother, the father, the daughter and
the eldest son. The eldest son was in conflict with the family and
lived separately with his partner.
From left to right they took their seats in the following order:
mother, father, daughter (Laura), son (Giuseppe)3. (see Fig. 1)
1 I would like to thank Dr. Valeria Conte for her precious contribution.
2 In the history of Gestalt therapy, the ‘empty chair’ is one of the earliest effica-
cious techniques in which the patient was asked to speak to and not about the
significant other person. In this model – as we shall see – the ‘empty chair’
technique is introduced to facilitate the changes in position, that is, ‘Dance of
the chairs’.
3 In the transcription of the session, the parental couple will be indicated, one
time as Mother and Father, and one other time as Wife and Husband, depen-
ding on the context.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 95EN The couple was seated near to each other. The children, partic-
ularly the son, seemed distant from their parents, especially their
mother. We are about to see what this decidedly antalgic proxe-
mics brought forth.
Son (Giuseppe)
Empty chair
Daughter (Laura)
Therapist G
Father
Mother Therapist V
Fig.1
2.1 Part one: from symptom to the quality of family contact
The therapist asks who called to make the appointment.
Wife: …Yes, I made the call, then. It was more than a week ago. Al-
most ten days. Suddenly, one night, Laura got out of bed. She
was asleep, tucked up in bed, when I saw her wandering around
the house. It’s something weird; at almost twenty, to have her
wandering around, wandering, as if she were asleep. He said we
weren’t to wake her but she wanders about…
A preliminary intervention in Family Therapy is to individually
ask each member of the family if they agree with the definition of
the problem (of the designated patient and of the family) and what
they feel about being asked to participate in the family therapy
session. Converging and diverging opinions about the nature of
the symptom, or the disorder or willingness to be present open up
the background of the family relationships, revealing alliances and
conflicting positions, involvement or relative disinterest.
- Circular definition of the symptom and every member of the
family introducing themselves
Therapist G: So, let’s hear from...
Therapist V: …Dad…
Therapist G: Precisely.
Husband: Well, at the start I didn’t take it seriously enough. (He is
holding a notepad on his lap)
96 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsTherapist G: Have you been taking notes? EN
Husband: Yes, to avoid...
Therapist G: Forgetting...
Wife: He’s organised.
Husband: Yes, so that I won’t forget anything and since they told
my wife, they explained to my wife that this sort of thing oc-
curs when they’re younger (first he turns towards his wife and
then towards his children). With the fact that she’s twenty and
it’s happening (sighs) now instead and... but we (shrugs) we
can’t seem to get a lot of information about it, it appears to be
something that worsens when she’s particularly worried about
an exam and we don’t know how much it has to do with the
fact that her brother’s not at home (looks at son), although re-
cently there have been positive events, she’s become an aunt!
(the daughter wriggles in her seat)
Her brother: She had a nephew, but recently...
Therapist V: No, I haven’t understood...
Husband: He is... (looks at son) Can I tell them, Giuseppe?
Son: I don’t understand, Dad. We’re here for her, I don’t see why...
(angry and perplexed, he looks at his father).
Therapist G: What’s happened?
Wife: It’s a nice thing really, come on Giuseppe, it’s nothing bad!
Do you want to tell them? (urges her son in a kindly but rather
impatient tone)
Son: Because it isn’t a problem, they’re turning it into a problem.
Daughter: (At the same time as her brother in an irritated tone of
voice, nodding and moving her hand with a derisory gesture)
Okay, but that’s just typical of them!
Therapist V: Is she talking about something that concerns your life?
Son: My life, yes, and we’re here now. I thought that Laura was the
problem and instead it would seem... I live with my partner and
we’ve had a baby. It happened.
Therapist G: Did you know he was expecting a baby?
Mother: No, we didn’t know. We found out right at the end, recently.
(turning towards her husband) It was a huge shock to him. In
fact, he was so furious...
Father: Initially...
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 97EN Mother: That he even cut off everything, (leaning towards her hus-
band). You cut off everything, didn’t you?!
Therapist V: Money-wise?
Mother: Yes, it was very painful.
Father: It was necessary to make him more responsible, to not
make everything too easy for him. Not negative! (The father sits
composedly, when he speaks he moves his hands and when
he is silent he holds them crossed in his lap or keeps his arms
folded across his chest)
Therapist G: Interesting! So, let’s say that there’s a problem that
calls for therapy and another that benefits from it, we’ve asked
for therapy and while we’re at it let’s talk about this, too. Seems
okay to me!
Father: Even because she’d like them to get married but that’s an-
other question. Let’s not go there.
Another issue the family is going through immediately emerg-
es, even if it had not been included in the initial request for help. It
is a surprise that further facilitates the transition from symptom-
figure to background-relationships. The designated symptom is
understood and included in the background of the other tensions
with which it is intimately connected. In this family, it would ap-
pear that the children, albeit in different ways, are in difficulty.
The physical markers of the new phase of the family’s life cycle
immediately become apparent: birth of a grandchild, a daughter
ready to leave home, parents who find themselves alone again
(‘empty nest’).
Before we proceed, we decide to further explore the relational
background and the prospective forces by asking each member of
the family what they would change in their family to be happy, to
rediscover their family dance.
Therapist G: Well, we’ve got something to work on and talk about!
Laura, what would you change at home to improve life there?
Daughter: I’d change Mum because she’s over-anxious, she in-
vents problems that don’t exist. (She looks towards her whilst
repeatedly lifting up her hands). I don’t see the reason for all this
worry, recently I’ve been a bit on edge but, okay, it will pass, I
don’t see the reason for all this worrying. They make mountains
out of molehills. Even for Giuseppe (she indicates her brother
with her hand) they worry, actually he had told me about...
98 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsTherapist G: You knew? EN
Daughter: Yes, I knew (smiles) but I told him: ‘Let’s not say any-
thing, given what they’re like, especially if Mum finds out!’.
Therapist V: Were you happy to become an aunt?
Daughter: Yes. (smiles and turns to look towards her brother)
Son: The only one in the family...
Therapist V: Happy?
Son: Yes.
Therapist G: So we’ve got two needs, rather three: Mum’s request
for Laura, Laura’s request for Mum and then Mum and Dad’s
requests for Giuseppe.
Son: I was called and I came because I was told that Laura had a
problem but I’m under the impression that they are preparing a
trap for me here because you also deduced that I’m a problem,
too (turns to look at parents). Well, a son who leaves to go and
live with his partner, who hides his partner’s pregnancy, reveals
it only when the baby is two months old...
Therapist G: They expect you to get married.
Son: ‘They expect you to get married’ is one problem instead we’re
here because it would seem that at night Laura sleepwalks...
Therapist V: Did you know that at night she sleepwalks?
Son: No.
Therapist V: So you hadn’t talked about this?
Son: I study medicine and nobody asked for my opinion on this
subject. (indicates his parents with a wave of his hand) They
went to the family doctor for information.
Therapist V: Laura, didn’t you say anything about it to your brother?
Daughter: Since he’s not at home very often and that, truly, I didn’t
want to worry him, seeing how worried they are, I thought ‘then
maybe he’ll be worried as well...’. (Laura fidgets on her chair)
Therapist G: It seems to me that we need to ask the basic question
of which problem we need to discuss.
Son: That’s a good question!
Therapist V: Instead, let’s see what we can improve before we ad-
dress a problem.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 99EN Therapist V: What would you change at home, Giuseppe?
Son: I’d like my Dad to be more there for us. Just look at him! (Points
at him with both hands, alternately looking at his dad and the
therapists) ‘That’s him’. Spruced up in his shirt and tie, he goes
out every morning to the bank and comes home every evening.
Therapist G: Always with his notes? Son: Well...
Therapist V: Almost...
Son: Almost!
Therapist G: So, he’s very precise.
Therapist V: (To father) Do you need to write? Do you need a pen?
Father: No, I was thinking about Flavio…4.
Son: In fact, now that I’ve become a father, at this precise moment
I don’t know whether to say ’alas’ or ‘hurray’...
Therapist G: There’s an ‘ouch’?
Son: On a personal level, I’m really happy, the only problem is that
it strains our budget because I’m still a student, unfortunately
I’m behind in my studies and so I said, now that I’ve become a
father, I question myself, I ask myself, ‘Will I be a father who’s
present or will I be like my dad?’.
Therapist G: This question seems to touch you emotionally.
Son: Yes, it gets to my emotions, yes, yes. (nods)
The difficulties between the parents and children are confirmed.
Before further entering into this dynamic, we decide to encourage
more involvement on the part of the parents (their bodies still ap-
pear to be stiff and closed, as is the boundary between the parents
and children, particularly with the eldest son).
A question which frequently facilitates the process of the par-
ents’ opening up is to ask if, when they were their children’s age,
they had similar issues or other problems. Let’s see how these…
stiff parents experienced their own youth.
Therapist G: Just to talk about memories here, what in your past,
at their age, might remind you of what Laura is going through
and/or what Giuseppe is experiencing?
Therapist V: When you were their age madam..., more or less.
4 As we shall see later, Flavio is Giuseppe’s son.
100 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsTherapist G: You were twenty once. How did you experience that EN
time of your life?
Father: Laura has been great, she made a realist and practical choice.
Therapist G: Instead, you...?
Father: Giuseppe wanted to study medicine...
Therapist G: You were thinking about the notes, maybe. My ques-
tion was: ‘When you were in your twenties did you have any
problems like Laura’s or Giuseppe’s or did everything run
smoothly?’.
Father: Well… I finished my university studies in the right time
frame, I had great grades and then I immediately found a job.
Therapist G: You never had moments of going off the rails.
Father: No, I never went off the rails.
Therapist G: Okay!
Father: I hoped. (pointing to his children) Instead...
Therapist G: Variety is the spice of life! You, madam?
Mother: It was a long time ago...
Therapist G: Don’t say too long, it wouldn’t appear to be too long
ago. (husband looks at his wife and smiles)
Wife: I already had a job when I was twenty Mother:... then a year’s
engagement.
Therapist G: What was fascinating about your meeting? (The cou-
ple share a glance and smile of complicity) Who didn’t approve?
There was a little mishap. Will you tell us what it was? Come on,
there was a little mishap!
Mother: (Smiling winningly, a bit embarrassed, put her hands re-
versed between her legs) Yes...
Therapist G: Tell us because there was something a little... It was a
secret or...
Wife: (Talking to her husband, they look at each other smiling and
with complicity) Go on, tell!
Husband: About your mother’s opinion? You tell, you tell.
Wife: (Laughingly to husband) Do you remember?
Therapist G: Yes?
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 101EN Wife: He had brought me a present. It was a lovely evening, it was a
rather intimate present for our life as a couple. It was New Year’s
Eve. A sweet little red object and my little brother opened it in
front of everybody, all of my family, my parents. He was so red!
Therapist V: Like the...
Therapist G: Exactly, he was dropped right in it! And you?
Therapist V: You must have been embarrassed?!
Wife: Very, very, I didn’t know where to look.
Husband: But it was useful! (General laughter)
Therapist V: Everything went fine, you’re here. (laughter again)
Therapist G: Did you know that your parents had a private life like
this?
Son: No, but it makes me think about how I was conceived practi-
cally. (laughs) I didn’t know. I didn’t know.
Therapist V: You seem pleasantly surprised?
Son: Yes, yes. He’s not the saint he seems, this dad of mine, even he...
Therapist V: What effect does it have on you, Laura?
Daughter: Very nice. I like it.
Therapist V: Seeing your mum....
Daughter: Seeing my mum a bit more relaxed, laughing.
An interesting little story, intriguing at moments, which had
never been shared before. The retelling of the parents’ symptoms
to the children generally creates a more relaxed atmosphere: the
family members’ bodies start to relax, parents and children –
even if for different reasons – feel closer to each other. The fact
that one of the parents has suffered the same symptom as the
child and talks about it has a positive supporting value for the
whole family.
2.2 Part two: Dance of the chairs and Dance of the pronouns
The second part now begins, that is, the exploration of the re-
lational difficulties of each member of the family. Specifically, for
this family, the parent/child Personality-function seems well-de-
fined (the parents behave as parents and the children as children).
However, their parenthood is made up of ‘rules,’ of ‘duties’ of ‘in-
trojections’. Being a parent, according to GT, does not consist in
theoretically learning a role but in an experience which is written
and memorised in the body. The parental Personality-function
102 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsmust be corporeal to function healthily. If the corporeal element is EN
missing – the feeling in one’s body the parental Personality-func-
tion – then full, genuine and direct contacts between parent and
children are also lacking. A typical aspect of this situation is not
talking directly to each other (‘speaking of’ rather than ‘speaking
to’) and avoid eye and bodily contact.
We therefore decided to propose contact experience in pairs.
We began with pairs because it seemed the most available, at that
moment. If two family members meet, their experience becomes
a support and facilitates full contact for the other pairs. We first
turn to the daughter, since the initial request for help was attrib-
uted to her (her somnambulism).
Therapist G: Laura, if you had to speak face to face with someone,
who would you feel oriented to talk to because my feeling is,
I don’t know if we understand each other, that there’s loads of
goodwill in your family, earnestness, but perhaps you don’t talk
much… certainly it’s not usual for a son to have another son, be-
come a father full of anger, or for things to happen under cover
of darkness and it’s difficult to understand why. Because it seems
as if, in your house, you need to feel better by talking more.
Therapist V: Also, a little light-heartedness.
Therapist G: A little light-heartedness…
Therapist V: I’m thinking about your expression, I liked it a lot,
your expression looking at mum and dad who were smiling
with their understanding of something light-hearted. Maybe
just talking without necessarily talking about problems. A little
light-heartedness.
Therapist G: It’s as if you waited for night to come in order to
dance, isn’t it? And he moves far away and even hides his part-
ner’s pregnancy. They seem like things of the night, of shadows,
of distances. Who would you like to talk to improve verbal com-
munication, mum or dad?
Daughter: (Sighs deeply)
Therapist G: Who do you want to tell something to or who would
you like to hear from?
Daughter: Perhaps it’s easier for me with mum!
Therapist G: With your mum. Good.
Therapist V: Sit here. (gets up and gives her seat to Laura, bringing
it closer to the mother’s seat and putting it opposite it)
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 103EN Therapist G: Face each other and try to tell each other something.
(see Fig. 2)
Son (Giuseppe)
Therapist G
Empty chair
Therapist V
Father
Mother Daughter (Laura)
Fig. 2
Mother and daughter: face to face. This is a meaningful ex-
perience and it started on a physical level (changes in breathing,
opening up or closing of the body), with looking into each other’s
eyes. In some families, people avoid looking at each other directly
for years. Sometimes to avoid the disturbance of feeling too close
(undeclared love at a distance) or out of fear (of not being seen, of
being judged or silenced).
The therapist’s task is to support the two people interacting by
helping them to remain grounded in their bodies (Id-function), in
their individual Personality – function, and to activate the Ego-
function (saying corporeal words to the other and listening to the
other with the body). Ways of intervening have already been given
in previous chapters. Let’s recall that any emotion, even a negative
one, opens up when it is shared, it evolves and allows one to reach
the other. The body becomes calmer and contact intentionality
emerges. Even rage, anger and fury, if shared, will be warm emo-
tions and will permit – even in cases of historical and incurable
conflict – a more mature parting, perhaps a sad but wise one. As
is common knowledge, unshared negative emotions become cold
and destructive.
Laura has moved, taking her place next to her mother, as the
therapists suggested.
Therapist V: What would you like to say to your mum?
Therapist G: Or what would you like to hear her say, it’s all the same.
Daughter: (Sighs, dangling her arms and rubbing her hands on her
legs)
Therapist G: What’s going on?
104 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsDaughter: It’s a bit hard. EN
Therapist G: Oh, what changes when you look at each other in this
position?
Daughter: (Laura looks at her mum) I can feel her worry and it
blocks me.
Therapist V: You feel... and then carry on.
Daughter: (Sighs again. The mother leans towards her with her up-
per body as if to come nearer) Well, I’d like to tell her to be se-
rene, to trust me a bit. No! (Turns towards Therapist V question-
ingly, they smile)
Therapist V: You can feel her anxiety and you protect her. Let’s
change, an oddity of information for mum.
One advantage of co-therapy is that it offers various types of
support for the patients. In this instance, the therapist supports
the attempt towards and experience of meeting of the two wom-
en, mother and daughter, using feminine nuances. And so, to
speak to the corporeal interaction of the two women (mother and
daughter), she suggests a new direction: reciprocal interest. Con-
tact requires interest for the other. The other’s interest generates a
sensation of being interesting5. Let us see how this develops.
Daughter: Oh, an oddity... about what?
Therapist V: To her, as a woman, as your mum. I don’t know! Do
you know where she buys her clothes?
Daughter: Yes, I know some of the shops.
Therapist V: Well, something else then, to tell you that you don’t
have to talk about important things with your mum because it
appears that there’s no intimacy. Just say any odd thing!
Mother: (Smiles invitingly to her daughter whispering a word of
encouragement, holding her hands out to her)
Therapist G: For example, you could ask if your father has given
her other gifts of underwear or if you want to find out where to
buy it, whether you have to ask her or your dad. Loads of things.
Daughter: What underwear do you like? What colour do you prefer?
Mother: (Smiles and nods) And then what else do you want to ask
me?
5 Masterly, on this theme, cfr. E. Polster (1988) (ed. or. 1987), Ogni vita merita un
romanzo, Astrolabio, Roma.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 105EN Daughter: What do you want for your birthday: it’s coming up
soon.
Therapist V: Please, go ahead.
Mother: Which shall I answer first? (Leaning towards daughter and
smiling)
Therapist V: Whatever comes naturally to you.
Mother: As a present I’d like a lovely ruby, perhaps two and then, as
you know, I am a customer of that shop on the corner...
Therapist G: She asked you what colour.
Mother: Green, the colour green.
Daughter: You’ve got a green set, did Dad give it to you?
Mother: I bought it myself. I asked you to come out with me that
time I got it but you didn’t want to come.
Daughter: I don’t remember.
Mother: You don’t go out much. We stay at home a lot.
Therapist G: And what would you like to know about your daugh-
ter?
Mother: As I said, she stays at home a lot.
Therapist G: What would you like to know about your daughter?
(The mother turns to look at Therapist G)
Therapist V: Do you know what colour underwear your daughter
wears?
Mother: That’s her business.
Therapist V: Aren’t you interested?
Mother: No. I’d like to understand... when you go out and then tell
me ‘I had a great time’. What do you do? Where do you go?
Daughter: I do loads of things. With my friends! I love going to the
cinema, remember? Generally on Saturdays I go to the cinema.
Mother: What have you seen?
Daughter: Lately, what have I seen, well..? The one, you know... “Bi-
anca come il latte, rossa come il sangue”. Do you remember I
tried to tell you about it but you…
Mother: (silence…)
Daughter: It’s fantastic, though. Do you like watching movies, cinema?
106 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsMother: Yes, it’s that nowadays. We used to hire videocassettes, we EN
used to watch them, but now!
Daughter: Yes, I remember. (Nodding and smiling) It was great!
Mother: We had all the Disney films.
Therapist V: (To the two women) Could you hold each other’s fin-
ger for a second?
Therapist G: Giuseppe...
Therapist V: (To colleague) Just a second, they’re not touching...
Therapist G: Oh yes. Sorry.
The therapist feels that the bodies of the mother and daughter
are opening up. She proposes a simple and effective gesture, al-
lowing the corporeal intentionalities to arise: where two subjects
place themselves at a relational level, and where they want to meet
in their interaction/relationship.
Therapist V: Hold a finger.
Mother: A finger?
Therapist V: A finger, yes, together with the other finger. That
means touching each other!
(The two entwine their fingers)
Therapist V: No, slowly, slowly, don’t hang on to each other! (They
laugh) Just touch each other!
Daughter: Wait, wait, like this! (She gestures to stop with her hand and
she explains the action to her by showing her the position to take)
Therapist V: Close your eyes...
(Mother and daughter touch with their fingertips)
Therapist V: You feel...
(The mother grasps her daughter’s finger with two fingers. The
daughter moves the finger with her hand)
Daughter: No, you mustn’t hold on to me.
(The mother laughs about her difficulty in carrying out the order)
Therapist V: Only one finger. Can you feel the fingers touching?
Each their own and the other’s finger?
Therapist G: Try and feel something. (touches his breast as he says it)
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 107EN Therapist V: (To the two women) Tell each other what you are feel-
ing in your finger, each in her own finger and in the contact
with the other’s finger.
Progressively, mother’s and daughter’s words become ‘corpo-
real’ generating a transformation from thoughts to the ‘embodied
awareness’ of one’s own and of the other’s.
The therapist’s suggestion has caused a first significant contact
bodily experience. Touching each other with a finger is a simple
gesture, but it becomes an icon, and paradoxically almost a radi-
ography of the quality of the contact between the two. Paraphras-
ing (with Goodman)6 Aristotele, we can say that the Self is in the
finger that meet the other finger, contact is where the two fingers
meet each other. In that precise point – the contact boundary –
the two souls encounter each other. (see Fig. 3)
Son (Giuseppe)
Therapist G
Empty chair
Father Therapist V
Mother Daughter (Laura)
Fig. 3
From here onwards, for a while the setting appears to double
itself in a play of figure/background: the figure is the therapist V
working with the mother/daughter and in the background thera-
pist G is asking the father and son questions, as if to connect ev-
erything.
Therapist G: (To Giuseppe) What effect does seeing mum and Lau-
ra have on you?
Son: Certainly, it’s a nice sight.
Therapist G: You like it.
Son: Yes, in our house we’re not used to contact...
Therapist G: (Nodding) Mmm.
Son:...as well as talking to each other.
6 Cfr. F. Perls, R. Hefferline, P. Goodman, Teoria e pratica della terapia della Ge-
stalt, cit.
108 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns(Mother and daughter moved their linked fingers) EN
Therapist V: You only have to feel, doing comes later.
Therapist G: (To the husband) And what effect does seeing this
have on you?
Therapist V: Breathe.
Father: (Silence... he even forgets his notes...)
Father: Yes, yes, because I’ve been concentrating on them.
Therapist G: Good!
Therapist V: What are you feeling, Laura?
Daughter: Very little. Perhaps I feel her finger more than mine.
Therapist V: You feel her finger more than yours. And you, madam?
Mother: A pleasant sensation.
Therapist V.: And which finger do you feel most?
Mother: Perhaps Laura’s more?
Therapist V: (Addressing Laura) You didn’t know that. She feels
yours and you feel hers. Try and feel yours and hers. And you
hers, madam. You both have to do the other part. When you
manage it give a sign without speaking, you can open your eyes.
(Mother and daughter continue the experience of touching each
other)
Therapist V: A sign to conclude the experience? Concluding means
that it’s complete. How to end this experience? Apart from the signs
you are making? How do you usually say goodbye to each other?
Daughter: How do we say goodbye to each other?
(Both of them play with their figures as if they were happily fencing
with each other and then they give each other a ‘high five’ and
for a moment they hold hands)
Therapist V: Oh! Just look at you now. Is something changing?
Daughter: I feel she’s closer to me.
Therapist V: You feel her closer, lighter...
Daughter: I feel like getting nearer.
(Laura moves nearer to her mum who is stroking her leg. Laura
strokes her mum’s hand)
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 109EN Therapist V: Wow! Madam, does seeing Laura like this change
something for you, now?
(She also gets nearer whilst continuing to caress her daughter and
giving her affectionate pats on her leg. Laura places her hand
over her mother’s).
Mother: I perceive her as older, stronger.
Therapist V: But it also feels more natural for you to get nearer to
her, doesn’t it?
The bodies of the mother and of the daughter seem placated
and reconnected with each other. It’s time to focus on the son. The
therapist G. has already created an alliance with him, whispering
something in his ear: the therapist asks him if he’s ready to talk
with his father. Now he turns to his colleague.
Therapist G approaches his colleague and interrupts her.
Therapist G: Let’s let them do what they want because I’ve already
spoken to him (the son) who wants to speak to his dad.
Therapist V: OK! Well, shall we take a look at them now?
(Laura tries to take her mother’s hand but her mother doesn’t see
the gesture and Laura gives up and moves her chair away)
Therapist G: (To mother and daughter) Stay. (To father and son)
Please.
Therapist G: I’ve asked some questions he has some things he’d
like to tell his dad. Are you ready to listen to him?
Father: Yes.
Therapist G: (To mother and daughter) You can enjoy this scene, if
you like. (see Fig. 4)
Empty chair
Father
Son (Giuseppe)
Therapist G
Mother
Therapist V
Daughter (Laura)
Fig. 4
110 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsIt’s a crucial moment: the father and the son are sitting opposite EN
each other. There is a strong tension between their bodies, arising
from their unspoken words and opened gestalts. Their bodies are
stiff, under tension. Already since the opening words, the tones
are quiet. Will these two rigid and oppositional men manage to
meet each other?
Son: You work in a bank, a pregnancy lasts nine months, as you
know, and I hid it but you never came to visit me during those
nine months.
Father: (Nods, raising his eyebrows) Yes.
Son: You never came to see me, I don’t know why, maybe you sensed...
Therapist G: (To son) How did you feel? Tell us. I felt...
Son: Bad, he makes me angry.
Father: I thought I was respecting your... I had guessed that some-
thing was going on... but I didn’t want to intrude, I didn’t want
to... (Observes his son in silence)
Son: You’ve always behaved like this, even on other occasions.
Therapist G: (To son) When you don’t ask me because you don’t
want to be nosy, I feel… tell us.
Son: I feel invisible. Your lack of nosiness is indifference, in my
opinion.
Father: This surprises me given that he hadn’t spoken...
Therapist G: (To father) Seeing that you…
Father: Seeing that you hadn’t said anything. (Sighs) I thought that
you were waiting to tell us and that it still wasn’t a decision you’d
made. Seeing that in the past, and just as your mum said, you had
several experiences and I didn’t know if this was the true one, so...
Son: And now that you know are you glad or am I still the black
sheep?
Father: No, no! Now that I know I’m fine about it, the baby makes
me happy, of course...
Therapist G: (To father) Look at him, look at him.
Father: Just as it all came out unexpectedly, we didn’t want to em-
phasise this aspect, we want you to decide, to come to a deci-
sion leading to marriage. A choice which is solid, let’s say this
straight, you know my opinion, a ‘forever’ that gives you a guar-
antee which protects you from yourselves.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 111EN Therapist G: I don’t understand whether you’re more worried
about justifying yourself to someone or worried about your son,
I don’t get it. What are you worried about regarding your son?
Father: No, I’m not worried about what other people might think,
it’s what I said...
Therapist G: Look at him, look at him.
Father:... I want...
Therapist G: What happens when you look at him?
Father: I feel that he (tenses his shoulders to express his son’s feel-
ings) is a bit touchy, not...
Therapist G: Fantastic! It’s nice when you sense that he’s touchy,
you’re looking up as if there were another picture. (Smiling at
the father and addressing the son) Is there a photo of you there?
Son: No, I don’t think so.
Therapist G: Well look at him and say, ‘What’s the matter?’.
Father: What can I do so that you’ll feel me closer to you? And so
that we can get over this difficulty we have?
Therapist G: A brilliant question! Giuseppe, please.
Son: First of all, now that you know your attitude hasn’t changed,
you continue to do your job, you go to the bank every morning
in a suit, you come home late... that all things considered I’ve
got my own life now with my partner, let’s call her this way, I’ve
got a son, but you’ve not been there for mum as well as for us.
Therapist G: What does this present moment make you feel about him?
Son: Now that I’m here even if you say ‘You have to marry’but it
isn’t marriage that unites people! It’s something inside us...
Father: Yes, yes, yes.
Son: ... and so what’s the point of being married if you’re never with
your wife or kids at home?
Father: So you rightly say ‘Let’s not make the same mistakes as
them’. I’m okay with that. What I want to communicate to you,
if I can manage to, is that it’s not a mere formality, a need, how
can I say this, I’d like you to reach the idea of marriage because
your relationship can grow with regards to the baby too.
Therapist G: Can you remember his name?
Father: Flavio.
112 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsTherapist G: Oh yes! EN
Son: (Moves from one side to the other on his chair, rubbing his chin
with his hand. He seems perplexed) But, you’ve just said, you know
what I think but actually I don’t know because we’ve never had the
opportunity (father and son laugh together in amusement)
Therapist G: There are many things that you don’t know. One thing
I don’t know, I’m curious as an external observer, is what your
gut reaction to your son having become a father is?
Therapist G: (To son) I don’t know this and I’m curious about it.
This is my curiosity, if you’re not interested, don’t worry.
Son: He’s become a grandfather, above all!
Therapist G: (Laughs) Oh yes, above all and for sure!
Father: The experience of becoming a grandfather is a fantastic
one, as far as I’m concerned, stupendous. It gives an extraordi-
nary sense of fullness.
Son: In one fell swoop.
Father: It fills me with joy, I repeat, and I also realise that the accu-
sations, and rightly so, of my absence weigh me down. I realise
that I was often not there, too busy outside the home (hearing
this utterance the son knits his eyebrows together), I wish I had
been less absent, closer to you and I’d like to close this gap, this
distance.
Therapist G: How has your way of talking to your son changed
knowing that your son is not only a son but also a father?
Therapist V: Do you feel closer to him now as a father now that he’s
a father?
Father: Yes, certainly.
Therapist V: He’s older.
Father: Yes, certainly, I feel him closer and...
Therapist G: You, you, you.
Father: I feel you closer to me and I understand the lack that you felt
in the past and I hope you won’t commit the same mistakes I’ve
made and as a grandfather I hope that I’ll succeed in completing
your work as parents through us grandparents’ role which is that
of providing a history, when it comes down to it, of being useful.
The son sighs doubtfully while the father speaks.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 113EN Son: You told me that what you wish for me, and I wish that you
would change because, as far as I’m concerned, I think I dedi-
cate enough time to my family, here now I’ve got a family and
also because, let’s be honest here, you don’t even dedicate time
to yourself. (The father bows his head sighing, his shoulders
bow almost to the point of closing, he lowers his torso towards
the floor), you haven’t got a hobby, you don’t do sport. You
never think about; just your work, the bank, your career. I’ve
never seen you in a track suit, a sweatshirt, a pair of shorts...
whatever.
A methodological choice is needed at this point, referring to
the theoretical-clinical premises.
We do not believe that closing all their opened gestalt may be
useful in this phase. The risk is to remain stuck in a fruitless con-
flict, as a result of several years of misunderstandings. The thera-
pist attempts the way of the ‘next step’, keeping in mind that both
are sharing the significant experience of being a father. Let’s found
out where they’re going.
Therapist G: stop Giuseppe (touching his arm with his index finger).
Now he’s too old to change. Can I make a suggestion,Giuseppe?
Can I?
Son: Sure.
Therapist G: Put Flavio in his arms. It’s the only argument he can
understand.
Put Flavio in his arms.
Son: Yes, I can see him being a good grandfather.
Therapist G: Tell him. I think you’ll be a good grandfather.
Son: I can see you better as a grandfather.
Father: Huh! And I hope...
Therapist G: What happens in your body if you are holding Flavio?
Father: If he’s holding Flavio? (Points to his son)
Therapist G: You, you. If you have Flavio in your arms.
Father: What me?
Therapist G: Come on, come on!
Father: If I’m holding Flavio in my arms I (he lifts his torso up, arches
his back and moves the fingers of his hands cheerfully in front of
him) I feel that I’m jumping out of my skin with happiness.
114 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsTherapist G: Eh. (To Giuseppe) It looks like the only way to make EN
him jump out of his skin with joy, do you see (gives him an af-
fectionate pat on the knee) And you were destined to create all
this joy to make him change, you’ve even given him a grandson
to make him change. You’re great! (they laugh)
Son: Well. You just look at that!
Therapist V: (To mother and daughter) What effect does it have on
you to see the men of the family like this?
Daughter: It’s lovely!
Therapist V: (Nodding and smiling at Laura) And you madam?
How do you see your husband now?
Mother: (Amazed and enthusiastic) Different now, happy!! (Her
husband looks at her, smiling contentedly)
Therapist V: Ah!
Therapist G: Okay, now would seem to be the time that you get
nearer and you go back to your seat with your brother who’s
waiting for you, Auntie!
Therapist G gets up, gives his seat next to Giuseppe to Laura and
resumes his seat next to Therapist V. (see Fig. 5)
Son (Giuseppe)
Empty chair
Daughter (Laura)
Father
Therapist V
Mother
Therapist G
Fig. 5
It’s touching. The ‘regained’ grandson allows the grandad
and the father to get together, that is father and son. He allows
the whole family to experience new emotions: parental, filial and
fraternal functions are restored. A new figure, full of vitality and
warmth, arises from and inside the family. In this case, embracing
a child, feeling his little body, will heal ancient wounds: thoughts
are modified, bodies and experiences are opened up. It’s known,
the bodies of children can regenerate the closed bodies of the
adults. How can we forget the suggestive page of the great Piran-
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 115EN dello, when Mattia Pascal, full of hatred and of plans for revenge,
holds the baby girl in his arms:
I remained in the dark, there, in the entrance hall, with that frail
little girl in my arms, crying with her sour milk smelling little voice.
Dismayed, upset, I still heard in my ears the scream of the woman who
had been mine, and who now was the mother of this child not mine,
not mine! While mine, ah, she hadn’t loved her, then! And therefore,
no, I now, no, for god’s sake! I should have no pity for her, nor for them.
Did she get remarried? And I now… - but that little girl still kept crying;
so… what to do? To calm her down, I laid her down on my chest and I
began to slowly tap my hand on her small shoulders and lull her while
walking. The hatred cooled off, the impetus gave in. And, little by little,
the child was quiet7.
Therapist V: Would you like to say how you perceive your husband
now?
Mother: Now he’s beaming, he’s happy, great! (Smiles in gratifica-
tion)
Therapist G: And you?
Mother: I see them serene! (Extends her hand pointing to her chil-
dren smiling happily) Aren’t my kids gorgeous?
Therapist V: They’re grown up!
Mother: I’m glad for them. I see them as gorgeous, relaxed.
Therapist G: Just one more question needs to be asked, madam.
May I ask it? What happens when you hold Flavio in your arms?
Is it okay to ask this question, Giuseppe?
Son: Who to? To Mum? Sure!
Mother: (Opens her arms and then smilingly she joins her hands)
I’m going to be a grandmother!
Therapist G: And what’s happening, we know on the official re-
cords it says grandmother!
Mother: Grandmother! And what’s happening? You and I are go-
ing to go out walking with the pram, so the boy can study! (She
gets closer to her husband and energetically grabs his arm with
one hand whilst with the other she pats his hand) He can study
more! (Turning to her son in an inviting tone) You’ll bring him
to us, won’t you? Bring him! Bring him!
7 Cfr. L. Pirandello, Il fu Mattia Pascal, in Tutti i romanzi, vol. 1, Mondadori, Mila-
no (1973) (ed. or. 1904).
116 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsIn the meantime, Therapist V approaches Therapist G and EN
speaks in a low voice.
Therapist V: OK!
Therapist G: Chat amongst yourselves while we go out...
Therapist V: We’re going out a minute to consult then we’ll be back...
Therapist G: With a verdict, okay? (Everyone smiles at the joke)
2.3 The therapists consult each other
Both the therapists tell the family that, according to their meth-
od, at that point they would retire to share impressions and clinical
evaluations between them. So, they leave the room and go to their
office to exchange thoughts and experiences about the session,
before to dismiss the family. Let’s read some flashes.
Therapist G: Laura said that things happen at night, Laura made us re-
alise that at night things can happen that don’t get talked about dur-
ing the day. I think the fact that she’s become an aunt is important,
isn’t it?!? I think Flavio’s business is very important. If you want, at
the next session... I was thinking (turning to look at colleague) to get
the lady and the father to come. They seem a very close couple.
Therapist V: Yes, too close. And so for as long as the kids were small
there was nurturing. Now that they’re grown they don’t know
how to relate to them. It’s not that they don’t want to relate to
them, they don’t know how to. At this juncture the kids also have
to let go of the idea of how they want their dad to change... it’s
obvious! He’ll have to give it up or it’ll become excessive.
Therapist G: Yes, indeed, I said that the only way was to put Flavio
in his grandad’s arms.
Therapist G: And for Laura?
Therapist V: Closeness with her mum but without words, though...
because they get lost with words.
Therapist G: All of them do a bit...
Therapist V: Talking gets them confused!
Therapist V: But Laura, I think, doesn’t sleepwalk when she’s not at
home! At university, away from home, I don’t know! Deciding to
do things together, doing without talking.
Therapist G: This is what I’d suggest, and I think a month would be
enough, give them some ‘homework’.
Therapist V: Female, male?
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 117EN Therapist G: Yes, separately.
Therapist G: Yes, that’s why we need things to do together: Laura
and her mum. Go and buy underwear together, let’s start from
there, shall we? And I think it might be helpful, for Giuseppe and
his father to go out with Flavio. I’d like to see all three together.
Therapist V: Yes, yes.
Therapist G: The men with Flavio, this other male who’s arrived.
Together.
Because words get this family confused.
Therapist V: Because they create burdens, responsibilities.
Therapist G: It is as if they weren’t used to speaking about their
feelings. Okay, more or less!
Therapist V: That’s okay, then!
Therapist G: Who’s going to start?
Therapist V: You?
Therapist G: I don’t know, we’ll see!
2.4 Both therapists come back, sharing feedbacks and tasks
(see Fig. 6).
Empty chair
Son (Giuseppe)
Daughter (Laura)
Father
Mother
Therapist V
Therapist G
Fig. 6
Therapist G: here we go (smiling)… we’re not going to sentencing.
Overall, your family is a healthy one, but you’ve got a past in which
little was said; you’ve always not spoken much, have you? (mother
and father nod) That’s why, in line with this reality and with this
desire to change in the family, we want to make some suggestions.
We’ll see you again next month to see how you’re getting on and
in the meantime here’s some suggestions. I’ll give the men theirs
and Therapist V will give the ladies theirs. For the men, something
original that’s not normally done. Giuseppe, take a walk with your
118 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsdad and your son. Great, something new! Leave your partner at EN
home, get your dad and Flavio and take an all-male walk. Do you
remember Aeneas, (to father) father and son, just great, just great!
Father: In any case we’ve got a new stroller because we’ve just giv-
en it to them as a gift.
Therapist G: Yes, but it’s great, father and son together like that, in-
triguing!
Therapist V: Every so often pick him up, spoil little Flavio!
Therapist G: Who’s holding whom in his arms? Who knows! Any-
thing that happens is fine!
Therapist V: Instead for Laura and her mother, I’m thinking of get-
ting them to do something together, going out together geared to-
wards (to Laura) showing your mum where you go. In the sense, let
her into what twenty-year-olds do these days. Could be that your
mum doesn’t know. And your mum can show you other things.
Therapist G: Because mum has done some things but only with
dad! At twenty, a life time isn’t enough...
Therapist V: Instead, you can get her interested in what twenty-
year-olds do now and your mum can tell you what she did
when she was twenty. Get her interested in a twenty-year-old’s
life. Go out together from time to time.
Daughter: OK!
2.5 End of the session. Exploratory supplement at the clinical level
Sometimes, during the session, it’s possible to add another ex-
ploratory moment that is very important to understand which pro-
cesses have been activated: asking participants how did they expe-
rience the different phases of the session and, in particular, which
moment proved to be crucial in opening up their bodily-relational
experience. Now the empty chair is standing on the sidelines, and
the family place itself in front of the therapists. (see Fig. 7)
Son (Giuseppe) Father
Mother
Daughter (Laura)
Empty chair
Therapist V
Therapist G
Fig. 7
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 119EN Dr. Conte: When did you feel something moving inside during the
encounter? What moment did you feel as decisive? What utter-
ance and when, for example, near someone, did you feel there
that something was changing?
Dr. Salonia: Remember the session on the level of bodily and rela-
tional experience. When I was feeling something in my body,
who was talking...?
Dr. Conte: Let’s everybody think about ‘what did I say?’.
Dr. Salonia: Something that happened in your bodies.
Laura: Yes, at the beginning I felt great disquiet, when I was sitting
here. I couldn’t sit still. Then when I changed seat, there was a
turning-point, certainly with the exercise with the fingers. Yes,
because afterwards I felt much calmer. My body was more re-
laxed after we touched each other. Yes, I certainly felt calmer.
Dr. Salonia: Good, let’s hear from other bodies.
Father: I felt, with regards to my grandson Flavio, put on the spot. Per-
haps I got involved because I’ve recently become a grandfather.
Dr. Conte: And so, energy about this.
Father: Yes.
Giuseppe: I noticed something. Despite being a heavy-going ar-
gument about a son who leaves home, lives with his partner,
hides a pregnancy, becomes a dad, and even if it was all fiction,
my heart was beating fast and, despite everything, it was a po-
lite dialogue; people spoke one at a time, they listened to each
other, they looked into each other’s eyes in a way that doesn’t
happen in real life, only in films, and perhaps in therapy when
maybe they come to blows.
Dr. Salonia: When was it that your heart rate slowed down, Giu-
seppe?
Giuseppe: When you said that he’s old now, elderly, he’s beyond
certain stages...
Dr. Salonia: That’s not what I said, but it’s what I meant...
Giuseppe: ... put Flavio in his arms, he can only be a grandfather...
Dr. Salonia: Precisely that, well done.
Giuseppe: ... the stage of being a father is over and done with...
Dr. Salonia: Yes, but it is interesting the reason why that calmed
you down.
120 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsGiuseppe: It was the solution. EN
Dr. Salonia: Yes, yes!
Mother: The moment of closeness with Laura was undeniable. It
was great because it made us calmer even if I felt the need to
distinguish the role of the mother from that of the daughter and
that disturbed me a little, but the acceptance was important.
Another moment when I felt my heart beating fast was when
Giovanni was so shamelessly on Giuseppe’s side. I thought
‘What‘s going to become of this poor man?’.
Dr. Conte: You were worried about your husband?
Mother: Yes, I was thinking, well just listen to what they’re saying
to and about him!
Husband: Well done, well done!
Mother: The turning point came when the two pairs came closer,
in a sort of ‘let’s get these two clans sorted’.
Dr. Salonia: By the way – this is an important piece of information,
whatever answer I get, it has a meaning for me – I have a ques-
tion: Did you think I was on Giuseppe’s side or was that your
wife’s perception? Listen to yourself!
Father: No, I didn’t feel that you had taken sides, I felt you ap-
proaching both of us through Giuseppe and you hadn’t taken
sides.
2.6 To conclude… restart dancing: by day and with a child!
That the daughter dances during the day… that Flavio gives his
little hand to his grandfather and to his dad: these seem to be the
gestures that will make the family dance again in the new phase of
its life cycle. When bodies change in the family, the dance chang-
es too. This is the essence of the FGT: offering the family the op-
portunity to experiment and discover the steps and the rhythm of
a new dance within the changes of the bodies.
Session led by Giovanni Salonia
The family arrives, greetings, the therapist welcomes them and
offers them to take a seat, then he sits down as well. The setting
includes an additional chair compared to the number of partici-
pants. The family is composed by Wife, Husband, Melania (about
nineteen), and Valeria (aged thirteen). The wife is expecting her
third child. They take their seat freely.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 121EN
Melania Husband
Therapist
Valeria
Empty chair
Wife
Fig. 1
Therapist: Was it difficult to get here?
Husband: You mean to find this place?
Therapist: Yes, yes, yes, let’s start with that; my understanding is
that there are a lot of complications.
Husband: Uh… Well, let’s say it was quite easy to find.
Therapist: This place.
Husband: Yes.
Therapist: Good.
Husband: Your office is well…
Therapist: Parking is sometimes not… you managed pretty well.
Husband: Yes.
Melania: But we also struggled a bit though.
Therapist: (Addressing the father) Your daughter is very meticulous.
Husband: Let’s say she sees things in her own way.
Therapist: Yes. Well, usually you come because something doesn’t
work the way it should be, right?
Husband: Yes.
Therapist: Who wants to tell me what you wish to change? What
causes problems in the family? Who would like to start?
Wife: I believe it’s my turn because… he (looking at her husband)
never feels like talking… as always… right? We are here because
Valeria started her third year in middle school this year, and she
doesn’t want to go to school anymore. She doesn’t want to… she
sleeps with me at night, she wants to be accompanied to school
in the morning and I have to wait for her outside her classroom,
and we would like to understand why, how come?
122 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsTherapist: So according to you, this is the difficulty you are experi- EN
encing at the moment.
Wife: Yes.
Therapist: Let us also listen to your husband. In your opinion, what
difficulty is facing your family? Is this the main one, are you fac-
ing others? Let’s see.
Husband: Uh… my daughter has changed her behaviour for some
time now. I’m the only one working in the family; I have to go to
work in the morning, my younger daughter, she wants to go for
a ride but wants me to take the car, I wear my pyjamas because
I have to go to work in the morning, I have to undress, I have to
get changed, I have to get dressed in order to go out, I have to
get the car, go for a drive, always the same road, go into a bar,
take something and drive back home.
Therapist: Do you take something together?
Husband: Yes, yes, we sometimes take something together, some-
times I don’t want to get off the car and she goes to the bar by
herself, but I waste an hour of my time. I get back home at two, so I
get up at six thirty – seven in the morning, it all gets really difficult.
Wife: Yes, and then you go to work and I have to take on this re-
sponsibility for the rest of the day.
Husband: I get it. Someone in the family has to work, otherwise we
would eat bread and air.
Therapist: There are some unclear issues that need to be clarified.
Let’s see now what they think. Let’s start from the older one… go!
What should change in the family in your opinion?
Melania: What a question! I think dad could be a little more polite.
Therapist: Polite?
Melania: Yes.
Therapist: In general, or more specifically.
Melania: Well, I don’t know… even when Valeria would like to go for
a ride during the night, he should be more polite and, without
complaining and snorting, get dressed and accompany her.
Therapist: And this is one thing. And then? Anything else you
would change at home, tell me what you would change!
Melania: Well, I try to be at home as little as possible, now that I’m
at University I am somehow out of it… don’t know, maybe the
mess, but…
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 123EN Therapist: You left home with the fact that your dad could be more
polite with Valeria, this is it.
Melania: Yes, even with mum.
Therapist: Even with mum.
Melania: And maybe even with me.
Therapist: And maybe even with you. If we discuss for another two
minutes, what else comes out? (They laugh)
Melania: No, I would say politeness, without his brusque ways, so…
yes, so rude!
Therapist: A clear request!
Therapist: (to the second daughter) Valeria, what’s up? What would
you change at home if you had a magic wand and were able
to change things, set people right, better them, come on, what
would you do?
Valeria: I am very fine with mum, the more time I spend with her,
the better I feel. With dad, except when he snorts, well I do un-
derstand he’s not really keen on going along with my wish to go
for that ride…
Therapist: You like going for that ride?
Valeria: Yes, I like it. I even feel the need for it.
Therapist: Nice, nice! Is it during the night?
Valeria: Yes, since I can’t get sleep up to a certain time.
Therapist: But do you get to sleep after the ride, or not?
Valeria: Uh… I have a strange feeling on my chest that… anxiety, and
when I go for the ride with dad it goes away; and then, when I
go home, I manage to relax and sleep, but in bed with mum.
Wife: (Nodding at the therapist with worried look)
Therapist: (Therapist addressing the mother) Yes, yes, it’s obvious that
the situation is a little bit… And where would this magic wand stop?
Valeria: Well, I wish my sister would look less perfect in their eyes.
Therapist: Oh! And how does she look like in your eyes? (Pointing
at her sister)
Valeria: Perfect! (After looking at her)
Therapist: Perfect even in your eyes?
124 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns(Looks upon her older sister) You are perfect! EN
Melania: Yes, I’m perfect! I have all my papers in order!
Valeria: I feel like I’m the black sheep of the family.
Therapist: And you can’t be a little perfect? Uh, if she’s perfect at her
age, you will be perfect at your age, can’t it be like this?
Valeria: (Nods not too convinced)
Therapist: But whom do we have to convince that you are perfect?
Valeria: I have to convince myself.
Therapist: Oh! You have to convince yourself? However, if for ex-
ample… just assume that your sister would tell you the secret to
become perfect.
Valeria: I wouldn’t believe her.
Therapist: Why?
Valeria: (Shrugs her shoulders)
Therapist: Hm, hm… something doesn’t work, right? (Valeria nods)
From Valeria’s symptom we came to the relationship between the
sisters. It will be precisely from the relationship between the sisters
that Valeria will be able to receive the necessary support to detach
herself from a dysfunctional confluence with her mother and father.
Bringing the sisters closer is also useful for Melania, so that her dif-
ferentiation from the family is not a contact interruption. Perhaps
– we’ll see – it will also be useful for the parental couple, who can get
together in such a delicate moment as waiting for a new child.
Therapist: (to the two sisters) Would you mind sitting in front of
each other and talk to each other?
Good. Valeria, try to say…
(Addressing the husband) You feel a bit alone here?
Husband: I feel, I usually feel alone in the family.
Therapist: Then let’s experience something different, go and have
a seat next to your wife. Move over there and let’s listen to what
your daughters tell each other.
The chairs are moved in an almost natural way and the genera-
tional boundaries are redesigned (Personality-function of the Self).
Moving chairs: the two sisters sit in front of each other to the right
side of the therapist; parents sit next to each other to the left side.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 125EN Melania
Empty chair
Valeria
Therapist
Wife
Husband
Fig. 2
Therapist: Valeria, ask your sister questions that come to your mind
spontaneously. There is some objection!
Valeria: You have many friends, you switch boyfriends as you like,
you’ve been having very good grades at school since ever, you
have a great relationship to mum and dad, you are a thousand
things. Maybe I envy you, but, yes, this annoys me!
Therapist: What do you reply, how do you feel with such a clear-
headed sister, that it’s envy... that it’s annoyance … you see how
clearheaded your sister is? What do you reply?
Melania: That’s not true, I’ve been feeling bad until three years ago,
and then I went to therapy and kept a bit away from what hap-
pens at home, so I spent more time with more people, I’m al-
ways at University…
Therapist: Yes, what kind of feeling does it give you hearing your sister
talking like this? Do you feel her close, faraway, does it annoy you?
Melania: No, I feel her close.
Therapist: Good, tell her!
The way in which the therapist brings out the Ego-function
is here evident. The older sister’s response seemed to evade the
question. Being brought back to define herself using the adjectives
‘near/far’ rekindles the vitality of the dialogue.
Melania: Well, yes, I feel you close, and sometimes I am close to
you only when you don’t feel good; but sometimes, when you
don’t feel good, I feel like it’s too much and so I have to leave the
house more often.
Valeria: And that’s when I feel your absence a bit.
Therapist: Tell her.
Valeria: I feel your absence, I miss you.
126 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsTherapist: (to Melania) Do you know that Valeria misses you? EN
Melania: But it’s like feeling that if I stay to close to you, I switch
back to what it was before and I don’t really want this to happen.
Therapist: What is it; tell her what it is about her that makes you
feel bad.
Melania: It makes me feel upset that you don’t smile anymore, it
makes me feel upset that we don’t talk anymore in the evenings
before falling asleep… it makes me feel upset that… I have to be
far away from all of you to feel good.
This passage from the ‘you’ to the ‘all of you’, by which Melania
ends her sentence, creates an interruption in the contact process:
in fact, she is speaking to her sister and not to the whole family.
Requesting to return to the you’, the therapist allows Melania to re-
gain – despite (as we will see) the negativity of the emotions – her
intentionality for contact and to resume the interrupted paths of
the encounter with fluidity and freshness.
Therapist: From all of you? She is not all of you… from her what?
Valeria, look at her, Valeria. What is it that causes you problems
concerning Valeria?
Melania: Maybe you got mad at me because I distanced myself.
Therapist: (Addressing Valeria) tell her your reasons!
Valeria: Yes, I understand, I believe I am only 13 and therefore I de-
serve more availability from your side, more time.
Therapist: You deserve or you wish, it’s not clear to me? You wish
and you get mad.
Valeria: Yes, I wish. And I get mad.
Therapist: Good, good, Okay.
Melania: Well, I got it, but when I’m so close, or you come with me,
then I’ll show you what it looks like out there, because if I stay
here… well, I get sick. I was sick three years ago.
Therapist: Valeria, she is saying she would like to take you out. She
has some idea of what it looks like out there, right? (Speaking
to Melania and adding a funny smile) Out there, yes, a little
bit… And according to her, if I well understood – correct me if
I’m wrong – being outside feels good as well, not only being at
home, not bad outside as well, right?
Melania: No, sometimes it feels even better; sometimes it feels bet-
ter at home and sometimes it feels actually better being outside.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 127EN Therapist: But why are you staying out?
Melania: Because I haven’t been feeling that well at home recently.
Therapist: Valeria where would you like her to take you?
Valeria: I don’t know, because if I go out with her, I’ll stay out and
therefore we need to make a choice.
Therapist: That’s the point!
Melania: I take you out dancing!
Valeria: Dancing is not really one of my highest ambitions.
Therapist: But you may have some kind of ambition?
Valeria: I don’t know, we could start… you could take me to an ex-
hibition!
Therapist: An exhibition?!
Melania: Yes… dancing is better!
Therapist: You have different tastes, you may learn from different
tastes? Aside from…if you could leave now, you’ve seen where we
are located, it’s an area with many places (addressing the older
daughter) where would you take her? (and addressing Valeria)
Don’t you feel like asking for some suggestion, I don’t know, you
know she hangs out… guys…, I don’t know what she may suggest?
Valeria: Well, it would be nice if you would take me with you one
time, when you go for a happy hour evening with your friends;
I am not allowed to drink alcohol, but some non-alcoholic, and
I would like to see how a happy hour evening works.
Therapist: We can take… a cocktail now, is it early or late? Let’s do
it this way: you go out for about 10-15 minutes to take some-
thing at the bar and then come back. Meanwhile, I’ll see how
they are doing, all right? (Pointing at the parents) I’ll deal with
them, okay? Come back in 15 minutes.
Daughters leave.
We do not know which outstanding issues the parents may
have. For this reason, it is useful to invite the daughters to get out
of the therapy room. For the therapist, it would have been more
polite if he had submitted his invitation to the parents, asking for
their permission. A lack of delicacy which does not seem serious
from the parents’ reactions, but which perhaps the presence of a
co-therapist would have easily avoided.
128 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsEN
Empty chair
Therapist
Wife
Husband
Fig. 3
Therapist: How do you feel about seeing your daughters talking to
each other?
Wife: I feel burdened by responsibility...
Therapist: I see, also because there is coming…
Wife: I wish he was more present.
Therapist: Good, let’s say it! Go and sit face to face and everyone
tells his/her own needs. First of all, look at each other. How does
it feel to look at each other?
The couple moves the chairs in order to sit in front of each other.
Empty chair
Therapist
Wife
Husband
Fig. 4
Husband: I don’t see the same woman I married.
Therapist: Because she is pregnant, you mean? (General laughter)
it’s better to specify!
Husband: Actually, she was not pregnant when I married her.
Therapist: Anyway, so the question is fine, what do you think?
Husband: Yes.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 129EN Therapist: Very good. Please tell us in which way you see her dif-
ferent and how you would like her to be.
Husband: Besides being my wife, she is the mother of my children,
but I would like her to be not only the mother of my children
(looking at the therapist while saying it), but…
Therapist: And you are telling me? Tell your wife.
Husband: I would like you to be not only the mother of my chil-
dren, but still my wife, that you take care of yourself, that you
continue taking care of yourself as you’ve always done, but you
stopped some time ago.
Therapist: (Suggesting to the husband) This way I would feel…
Husband: I would be…
Therapist: Yes, you can say it, don’t worry, nobody can hear us.
Husband: Well, I would be more available. We would be closer.
Therapist: Exactly! Madam, how do you feel by listening what your
husband is saying?
Wife: I keep feeling burdened by responsibility.
Therapist: You feel it like an additional charge?
Wife: Yes. If you would do, if you would be, if you would get
dressed, if you would take care of yourself…
Therapist: Yes, tell us your needs.
Wife: My need, even with regards to the issue of…
Therapist: Yes, look at him, whatever comes to your mind, but look
at him… has he changed or is he the same person you married?
Because you seem to have changed… he says you’re pregnant!
Your husband? Is he the same, has he changed?
Wife: I feel, right now I am furious at you because I constantly feel
burdened by responsibility, as if Valeria’s problem was due to
me… I am the one that is not taking care of myself, I am the one
that has not been looking after her and I haven’t taken enough
care of her, so now she doesn’t want to attend school anymore.
Therapist: I would like you… tell your husband what you wish.
Wife: I would like you to take your responsibilities as well, I would
like communication between the two of us, not: you are… you
are… you are…, since there’s me and there’s you.
Therapist: What effect does this have on you? Are you discouraged?
130 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsHusband: I’m floored, because you are asking for something that I EN
am not able to do, I don’t know if I’m able to do it.
Therapist: Interesting!
Husband: As I found out things that I was not aware of, while Me-
lania and Valeria were talking. Our daughters are very different
from each other. Melania lives her own live and it seems she’s
turned her back on us, while it’s some weeks now that Valeria
has been behaving in such unclear and incomprehensible way
to me. I don’t know what to do, I’m powerless.
Therapist: Yes, what you’re saying seems important! You found out
aspects you were not aware of, which surprised you. Ask your
wife what to do with these aspects; there’s two of you that need
to cope with your daughters, ask her.
Husband: What can we do for them? Absurdly, I’d say teach me,
because I don’t know where to set my hands, where and how to
set my hands to it!
Therapist: How do you feel about your husband asking a question
of being a parent?
Wife: I feel burdened by responsibility. (general laughter)
Therapist: And here’s where we need to find a way to relieve the
lady, you understand?
Wife: (Touches her baby bump)
Therapist: Yes, that will be… when will it be born?
Wife: In May.
Therapist: In May, so you are a bit burdened in all senses! Is there
any specific behaviour your husband could do, or if he said
something to make you feel lighter? Because it rightfully seems
that you have a lot of things to think about and each request is a
further load. Something your husband can do? (Addressing the
husband) Is it fine for you that your wife gives some suggestions?
Husband: Sure!
Therapist: A gesture, something your husband … how do the two of
you feel right now? Look at each other for a moment. Maybe this
way it’s easier. You haven’t looked at each other like this for a long
time! Look at each other, just stay like this, looking at each other
for a while. How do your bodies feel when you look at each other?
Husband: I feel light, my body feels light.
Therapist: And towards your wife?
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 131EN Husband: I’ll keep saying that she seems overburdened even with
regard to her body.
Therapist: Fine. And how do you feel your husband?
Wife: I feel… as if a conversation started. As if I was seeing my hus-
band after long time.
Therapist: Having looked at him made you open some space.
Wife: Yes, yes, a dialogue.
Therapist: You liked being looked by your wife and looking at your wife?
Husband: Maybe being looked, yes, looking at her I don’t know.
Therapist: The heaviness issue. Good.
Daughters knock.
Now the family is recomposed of the clarity of the boundar-
ies: the parents, who are starting to get together again, and the
daughters who have embarked on the path of differentiation in a
peaceful way. (see Fig. 5)
Melania
Empty chair
Valeria
Therapist
Wife
Husband
Fig. 5
Therapist: Just a moment, we are coming!
(to the couple) We’re going to have a conversation with your daugh-
ters now before dealing with you, and then we’ll see how it’s go-
ing with Valeria.
Come in! (Therapist welcomes the girls)
You may not even reveal where you’ve been, but tell us how it
went, if you want to say it, Valeria, how did it go?
Valeria: Good, but I need to reveal!
Therapist: Wow! (Addressing Melania) can it be revealed?
132 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsMelania: Rather not! EN
Valeria: I would actually like to reveal her business!
Melania: Nothing illegal!
Therapist: Nothing illegal, but you have kind of a… well, intriguing
complicity! It’s intriguing. Ok, we’ll leave you with your com-
plicity. Okay? I’d say it this way, I talked to mum and dad and
it was a very important moment for your family. Do you know
(addressing Melania and pointing at her mother’s belly) they al-
ready chose a name?
(Addressing the mother) Decided?
Wife: Yes. Federico.
Therapist: (to Melania) Do you like the name they chose?
Melania: More or less.
Therapist: (to Valeria) Do you like it?
Wife: I didn’t share it with them.
Therapist: Good, it’s an important moment for the family, because
there is: Melania pacing up and down to get out, and is already
out; Valeria saying: is it better to stay home or out? On one
hand, her sister calls her out, on the other hand what would she
do without mum? And also without dad, since it’s dad that takes
her for a ride! I’d do it this way: next time, if everyone agrees,
I’ll meet only mum and dad, and after having seen them 2 or 3
times, the four of you will join in again. Fine for you? However,
meanwhile, establish some intrigue between the two of you.
What a gaze, Valeria, congratulations! It seems that there’s in-
trigue! So, let’s do it like this: (looking at the girls) you’ll have fun
in the meantime, and we (looking at the couple) will see each
other some more time. Deal?
All: Yes.
Therapist: Well, then have a lovely evening. Bye, it has been a plea-
sure… (Greeting one by one)
Session led by Giovanni Salonia
A family – made up of mother, father, the eldest daughter Giusy
and the younger Alessandra – requested an intervention by the
Therapist. They enter the room, where six chairs are arranged in a
circle. They present themselves one by one to the Therapist, who
welcomes them and who introduces himself to each one.
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 133EN M.: Mother;
F.: Father;
G.: Giusy, elder daughter;
A.: Alessandra, younger daughter;
T.: Therapist.
The family entered the room, where there are six chairs; the
members of the family introduced themselves to the therapist,
who shook their hands and introduces himself. (see Fig. 1)
Giusy (elder daughter) Empty chair
Therapist
Father
Mother Alessandra (younger daughter)
Fig. 1
T.: Giovanni!
G.: Giusy!
A.: Alessandra!
T.: How old are you? (Addressing the elder daughter)
M.: Twenty-one. (The mother responds on behalf of the daughter)
T.: You? (Looking at the younger daughter)
A.: I’m nineteen!
T.: Madam?
M.: I’m Ada.
F.: Stefano.
T.: Good, make yourselves at home! Was it easy getting here?
M. & F.: Yes, yes fairly!
T.: Because, sometimes, it is hard to find parking here!
M.: No!
134 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsT.: Who drove? EN
M.: My husband drove!
F.: She is my navigator!
M.: I make him take shortcuts so that we arrive on time!
T.: Why have you come here? Generally, people come because
there is something that they would like to improve! Who is go-
ing to introduce themselves first? Alessandra, the younger one?
Or, Dad? Who is going to start?
F.: Look... It’s better that I don’t say anything!
T.: Ok, let’s start with the youngest then... Alessandra, why have
your parents decided to do this? Whose decision was it?
M.: Mum decided! Because...
T.: I imagine you are happy to be here, right? (Smiling)
A.: Because I also don’t understand what I have to do with it all...?
T.: Exactly!... What do you usually do at this time? Gym, do you do
gymnastics...
Do you study?
A.: Yes, I go to the gym and then I study!
T.: Be patient! In your opinion, why do you think your parents have
decided to do this?
A.: Mmm... because... maybe they didn’t understand the situation
very well? There was a small problem with my sister and they
decided to come here. However, exactly why, I don’t know...
T.: What does this have to do with you? (smiling)... Well you know,
since at home... You talk and you don’t talk, let’s say it is better
to say everything in public...! Alessandra (with an affectionate
tone), if it were to depend on you, what would you change at
home?
A.: Mmm... maybe... the conversation!
T.: Between whom?
A.: Between us (pointing to the sister) and our parents, in particular
my Dad!
T.: Mmm, ok! We already have a plan: to improve the conversa-
tion between yourselves! Now let’s pass to another young lady...
Hello Giusy, is it also good that you are here?
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 135EN G.: Mmm... I feel bad, because I know that the cause of all that has
happened to the family is mine...
T.: What has happened, Giusy?
G.: Mmm... I let my parents down, especially my Dad. He doesn’t
want to speak to me... mmm...
T.: But what happened, Giusy?
G.: I let them down!
T.: You let them down...? Ah! I understand: you didn’t meet their
expectations...
G.: In short, I feel alone... like everything is against me, as if I were
a bad person, and... when Mum asked me to come, rightly... I
thought we should give it a go! Also, because... I would like to
rebuild relationships, however... I feel bad!
T.: Is it hard?
G.: Fairly!
T.: Certainly, I can imagine... So, you would like to improve the re-
lationship with your parents, in particular with your Dad... I un-
derstand that...
G.: Yes! Yes, even though I find that Mum is warmer, more involved,
I find that with Dad, this fractiousness has been created, this wall
that I am unable to... that we are unable to overcome!
T.: There is a lot of clarity in your family! Everyone has clear ideas!
Good...! Madam? (Addressing the mother) Why did you come
here? What would you like to improve between yourselves?
F.: Go on, tell him! (The father intervenes with an arrogant tone and
a little angry, expressing himself in dialect)
G.: If you behave like that, I am not going to want to try this!
(There is some confusion between members of the family who in
turn raise their voices and talk over each other)
T.: Does it always happen like this in your family?
M.: I think it is important... my suggestion to come here... In the
beginning there was some hesitancy, however then they all ac-
cepted and... certainly, I also felt like a failure as a mother in the
situation that we are about to recount... because I didn’t know,
maybe, how to create good conversation with my daughters,
with my husband, to have had little trust perhaps towards my
daughters, however... I would like to regain this, here, and do it
in a way that will also establish a mutual respect, a good...
136 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsT.: What would you improve, in practice, in your family? EN
M.: But... certainly, the conversation... the...
T.: Between whom?
M.: Certainly... between me and my daughters... but...
T.: Both of them? (Pointing to the daughters)
M.: Yes, yes... both of them... that they don’t need to be scared of...
of us, as parents!
T.: How do you know that they are scared?
M.: Because, we are here, hiding from things... maybe, they are
scared of an overreaction...
T.: In the sense that you have discovered something that they have
hidden from you?
M.: Yes... therefore...
T.: Do we leave this thing covered up? Or do we find out what it is?
M.: But... now we find out, we find out because...
T.: Is this regarding one of your daughters?
M.: Yes... It regards...
T.: Ask for permission, ask for permission; who does it regard?
M.: Giusy.
T.: Do we find out or do we leave it covered up? (Addressing the
daughter)
G.: Mmm... Ok, if it is important, we can find out!
T.: Whatever you say, Giusy! Tell me... How can I say it...? Do you
trust me?
G.: Yes! We can find out!
T.: Would you like to tell us or shall they tell us?
G.: Mmm... Perhaps, they should start and...
T.: ... and you can correct them! If you do not agree with their story,
say... stop!
They can stop, and you can correct them...
G.: Ok!
T.: Ok?
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 137EN G.: Ok!
T.: Madam...!
M.: So..., (sighing) Giusy is our first daughter and I think that, as
parents, we are happy to have these children: to have expecta-
tions, we give them our trust, freedom... She (looking at Giusy)
after school, decided to study away from home... and she is... in
Rome, and... certainly, I am a bit of an…anxious mother, I call her
continually and... however... here, she has undertaken a course
of study that she is enthusiastic about and... we are happy about
this, because she also got on really well from the outset! The
bachelor’s degree that she has chosen in oriental languages is
coming to an end... so... we are also waiting to take part in her
graduation... and for some months, here, I have been helping
her with her final dissertation, the introductions...
T.: Do you work?
M.: Yes, I’m a teacher!
T.: Mmm!
M.: Whilst my husband is an agronomist!
T.: Mmm!
M.: In short, we are awaiting the date... because the thesis has al-
ready taken place...
T.: Even I am waiting! (With an affectionate smile)
M.: Yes! At some point, we are expecting the announcement of the
lists of graduates and... we often log onto the site, but... I became
aware that she wasn’t on the list of graduates! I called her and she
told me that there had been some problems with the secretary,
because she hadn’t paid her fees! I asked her to immediately find
out and find a solution and to understand what had happened!
I called her the day after, she told me there was a bill she needed
to pay, but in reality, it just didn’t seem right to me... a reason,
here... honestly, I got a bit annoyed, and with a rather angry tone,
I wanted, I asked her what... that she needed to tell me the truth,
because here she was, she was hiding too many things and...
she broke down in tears on the phone, telling me that in reality
she would not be graduating, because she still had five exams to
complete, the dissertation was still not finished and... and this...
a little, it... was a particularly hard situation, I felt, when I put the
phone down, like a failure as a mother, because perhaps there
is something, some problem that she has had and not told me
about!
138 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsT.: Ok! Do you follow, Giusy? EN
G.: Yes. More or less, yes...
T.: Does more or less mean something...
G.: Yes, but this is it... mmm, she didn’t mention, however, that I
have gotten so behind with my studies, with the subjects, be-
cause I went through a horrible period, because a relationship
ended that I really believed in, an important relationship...
T.: When did it finish? Two years ago? Last year?
G.: A year ago, more or less and... I haven’t been able to get on
with things. I’ve been stuck all over the place... I have felt alone:
I haven’t been able to tell them about these difficulties... apart
from Alessandra, to whom I told a few things but to mum and
dad, I haven’t been able to...
T.: So it wasn’t something that happened just like that... There was
a reason!
G.: Yes!
T.: Good! Let’s listen now to the pater familias... What would you
change in this family?
F.: Look, I don’t know what to do anymore! I have given everything
to my daughters... Neither of them have ever missed out on any-
thing... I was so happy, we were preparing everything, the party!
The degree! You can imagine, a daughter graduates... and in-
stead... I come to discover that in the end... Not only she did not
sit for her exams, but moreover... she completely took us for a ride!
From my point of view, I did everything that I could and perhaps I
did too much... but if these are the results... well, you tell me!
T.: I understand. So... it is very clear... It’s a family in which there is
a lot of clarity!
G.: Yes, however, Dad doesn’t understand that I didn’t do it to dis-
appoint him or because anyhow... I feel bad knowing that I have
disappointed him... but I was in a bad place, I needed someone
at that moment to help me: it wasn’t bad will, because I didn’t
want to study or not give him the satisfaction... He sees this as-
pect, but he doesn’t understand my illness...
T.: Now let’s see, Giusy, certainly... little by little,... otherwise you
wouldn’t be here...! One question... (addressing the parents)
When you were Alessandra’s or Giusy’s age, how was it? What
was the situation? At twenty-year-old, at eighteen... What was
your situation at their age, did you ever have any problems?
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 139EN M.: Well... I...
T.: Let’s start with your husband, madam.
F.: Doctor... I went to university, and for the most part I worked, I
paid to do the exams, like everyone else! I didn’t ask this of my
daughters...!
T.: Did you ever have any doubts?
P: Such as?
T.: You didn’t ever have any tough times?
F.: But everyone has tough times!
T.: And when you had tough times, when were these? At what age?
(the father remains pensive)
T.: A lot of time has passed, hey! At what age do you remember
having a tough time?
F.: Maybe the first few years... After we got married! You know how
many costs there are...! How difficult it is...
T.: How did you feel in those years in which you had a few difficul-
ties... alone?
Together? How did you feel?
F.: Hey...! Luckily my wife was there...
T.: So... you didn’t feel alone...? And when someone feels that he/
she has problems... How is he/she? Does one have a desire to do
other things?
F.: Mmm... no, not really, I think!
T.: Good...! Madam, you... at what point in your life did you get into
any difficulties?
M.: Well... in adolescence... I also had some difficulties...!
T.: What kind? Tell us, go on...
M.: Mmm, I left home at fifteen.
T.: Whilst saying goodbye or slamming the door?
M.: Eh...? No, I left home slamming the door... together with a boy...
I let down...
T.: (Addressing the daughters) Did you know that? Did you know
that?
140 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsG. & A.: No, no! EN
T.: What effect does that have on you both?
G.: I feel closer to her, more human! Because... we always feel like
she is so upright, so rigid!
M.: Well... I am quite helpful, open, in short... I teach and, with kids
I try to also be...
T.: Did you also know that about your Dad... during the first few
years that he was married...?
M.: Mmm... but it wasn’t him...
T.: What effect does it have on you to know that Dad, in the first few
years that he was married, had some tough times?
A.: Strange, because he always seems like a person who is very sure
of himself,, and that he always knows what needs to be done...
T.: ... and instead, even he...
G.: It honestly doesn’t interest me... They had no interest in my ill-
ness!
T.: So the war has begun! What do you say, shall we make war?
Whilst we are there... we shall do it all the way! What do you say,
Giusy? You come here and tell your Dad all the things you like...
Do you like (addressing the Dad) your daughter talking to you?
(The Dad nods)
(Giusy gets up and goes and sits facing her father)
T.: What effect does it have on you facing each other? (Long si-
lence)
G.: I am sorry that I have disappointed you, because I knew that it
was important to you... rightly, as a Dad, you want to be proud
of me. I am really sorry about this, but I wasn’t well and at the
time I didn’t have anyone close by, especially my parents. (she
gazes at her mother) I didn’t feel close to you both...
T.: Giusy... one at a time: speak with your father, then, if need be,
the other can talk... one at a time, however!
The mother, at the invitation of the therapist, goes and sits near
to Alessandra, perhaps to ease the direction Giusy’s glance as she
is talking to the father. (see Fig. 2)
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 141EN
Giusy (elder daughter) Mother
Father
Therapist
Empty chair
Alessandra (younger daughter)
Fig. 2
G.: The thing that I am sorry about is the fact... the fact that, even
now that this situation has come out, I have felt bad, you, you got
annoyed, you criticised me, you took the words right out of my
mouth, but... you never asked me how I was feeling, what had
happened to me, what I had experienced, in other words you
focused your attention on the failure that, for heaven’s sake, you
have all the reasons in the world to because... I am sorry, it’s true,
but I don’t feel close to you, you have lost sight of the thing that,
in my opinion and all things considered, was more important!
T.: What effect does it have on you to hear your daughter saying
these things?
F.: Well... I...
T.: What effect does it have on you?
F.: It makes me reflect, for sure... you are also right, but...
T.: Speak to her!
F.: But what you need to fundamentally understand is that I tried
to grow beyond our possibilities and then you hint at such a
thing, that... in the end it was enough... in any case the thing that
annoyed me more was the lack of... how do I say it, the joking:
months of saying, so we then prepare, we do this, we do that...
instead, I then come to discover that the situation is totally dif-
ferent and then you tell me that I should continue to ask you
how you are and how you are not when, in the end, you only tell
me things that aren’t true! Luckily your sister, in a way, put a flea
in our ears so we were able to find out, if not who knows how
much time would have passed before we discovered the truth...
T.: What effect does it have on you hearing this, Giusy?
G.: He is right, I am sorry, my sense of guilt is increasing, my regret
is increasing, my suffering...
T.: What do you want to say to your Dad about this?
142 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsG.: That... you are right, for this I am saddened, for this I have mis- EN
taken... to not have the strength to inform you of what was hap-
pening, but, unfortunately, it was a series of things that... I re-
acted badly, I didn’t have the strength to tell you, because also
when we spoke on the phone, you could hear that I was talking
a bit strangely, you would ask me... what’s up? However, you
took it for granted that it was tiredness due to the degree... It’s
normal, you are at the end now, how lovely, now we can party,
so this intimidated me a bit, into closure... I had difficulty telling
you ‘no’. effectively the strange voice wasn’t down to tiredness,
but it was down to this and that... because it is as if, in any case,
if I let you down, even if then, I... I gave you both more... in short,
I understand it!
T.: What effect does it have on you to listen to this from your
daughter?
F.: It seems to me that finally we are starting to understand each
other.
T.: And what are you going to say to her, by the way?
F.: I can tell you that, from my point of view, I will try to listen to you
more, maybe at the start we will try to avoid these situations.
G.: I, what I now want to know, in other words... We can break
down this wall, in other words... either you will always continue
to have this disappointment and look at me with the eyes of a
disappointed father, or you give me another chance... and we
can break down this wall?
F.: We will see, if you give me the satisfaction of this degree... and
then we can try to...
T.: It seems a little bit that you are understanding each other more!
(Addressing Giusy’s sister, Alessandra)
T.: What effect does it have on you to see your father and your sis-
ter talking together?
A.: Well, I am happy, yes... because I have seen them at home...
They no longer ate at the same table: when one was there, the
other wasn’t... and so...
T.: Do you also have something to say to your father?
A.: (With an endearing and playful tone) Dad, will you send me to
University in Rome?
The therapist invites Alessandra to stand up and sit opposite her
father, Giusy goes and sits in Alessandra’s place. (see Fig. 3)
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 143EN
Alessandra (younger daughter)
Giusy (elder daughter)
Father
Therapist
Empty chair
Mother
Fig. 3
A.: (With a serious tone) I’m also sorry for hiding all this from you in
the beginning, but I did it... however for Giusy, because it didn’t
seem right to me to be a spy and then... I wanted her to tell you
both... it was something important! Now, I also hope that we can
have this kind of conversation going forward...
T.: Whilst you are both there... Do you both want to say anything
else to your Dad? Are there any other conversations to be had?
Try to speak, all three of you... then we can bring in your Mum...
(addressing the Lady) You, madam, for now... you are enjoying
this...
M.: Yes, I am...
T.: You are enjoying this, right?
M.: Yes, yes... I am...
T.: Enjoy it, Madam!
M.: Yes... it is a real pleasure for me to see... because it is in reality
something that doesn’t happen... ever! Because... it is true that
each of us has our own way... but, he is much more reserved...
he prefers to distance himself rather than confront things...
T.: I imagine that you, happy that at school all the students are hap-
py with you... then you arrive home... and he doesn’t talk... damn
it! (Addressing everyone) Tell yourself three things that you like,
reciprocally... Then will we bring in Mum at this point? Madam,
come on, sit here... (The therapist makes some space near to the
husband)... close to your husband, don’t worry! All of you try
and tell each other three things that you like about one another!
(see Fig. 4)
144 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsEN
Alessandra (younger daughter)
Giusy (elder daughter)
Father
Therapist
Mother
Empty chair
Fig. 4
F.: Who is going to begin?
T.: (Looking at Alessandra) Would you like to?
A.: No! Not this time!
T.: No, if you don’t want to, no! Not this time! Will the parents be-
gin?!? They are parents, they must be parents: I think it’s right?!?
Please go ahead!
M.: Well... I will start...
T.: The teacher!
M.: I will start with my husband, the things that I like about him.
T.: Tell them to him! (indicating the husband)
M.: Yes! The three things that I like about you are: the availabil-
ity when one asks something of you and... the other is that...
however, sometimes I like that... you try to defuse a situation,
however... (looking at the therapist) Can I also say something
negative?
T.: (With a playful tone) Madam... it was to be expected...!
M.: I like the fact that you defuse some things, whilst others you
prefer to switch off to, in other words, I like this...
T.: We have two things!
M.: The last is that you adapt easily... to everything! About Giusy, I
like her...
T.: (Addressing the daughter) Your!
M.: Your desire to make friends and... then, because you are a bright
person, and the other because... I understand that you are some-
one who likes to say what you think and, maybe, you should... there
you go... you should have less fear, however, especially of us...
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 145EN T.: Madam, always three to one!
M.: About Alessandra, I like... this... her...
T.: Your. (addressing the daughter)
M.: Your availability, really, to listen, to stand by... others and... I also
like your radiance, because you are also a bright girl, and then...
I like your... the fact that you think before doing something!
T.: Good! How are you doing? (Addressing the daughters) Did you
know these things, that Mum had this...
A.: No, we didn’t know this!
T.: Has it been a surprise? Shall we let Dad continue? You can also
say something negative, three to one... (With a playful tone, ad-
dressing the daughters) Perhaps you will both say something
more! Don’t worry! Dad, after you!
F.: Yes! (Looking at the wife) About you, I like, just, the capacity that
you have to listen, especially to... understand various situations,
surely more than I can! Then, very related, in my opinion, to
this is... part of your character, but that... in my opinion, you are
a very good person, and this is the second important quality!
And then, I see you as a very calm person, in life in general...
so, a stable person! One thing that you could improve... is, for
example... I don’t know, at this moment in time, nothing comes
to me!
M.: However... I like him! He has told me that I am calm, whilst he
always tells me ‘You are always agitated!’.
T.: Did you also both know that Mum and Dad, between them-
selves, say nice things to each other?
A.: No, in front of us, no!
T.: In front of you both, no, but, deep down... Well, to your daugh-
ters... say something nice!
F.: About Giusy, ok, the fact that I didn’t like... Ok, we understand!
It was the lack of sincerity in this case, but I know that she has
many other positive qualities, like, for example, the ability to not
give up, the ability to fight, in a way, to not beat herself up and...
also like you, as her mother, the ability to listen to people! And
we already have three things...
T.: There are already three, Giusy?
G.: Yes!
T.: And what are they? Go on!
146 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsG.: He said... the ability to not give up, to fight and to listen! EN
T.: It is true, give up and fight, they seem like synonyms to me...
now it is there, come on! But where you find her, at the com-
puter? if you are looking for her (addressing daughter Giusy),
you find a quality!
F.: Doctor, my daughter really is beautiful...
T.: Tell her, then!
F.: But... also such a quality...??
T.: Why is to be beautiful not a quality?
F.: (Silence)
T.: What are you doing? Are you thinking about it?
G.: Dad is very shy!
F.: For Alessandra, a quality that she has... is loyalty, that you have
demonstrated towards your sister at this time. You are a very
loyal person... she is also a strong person!
T.: No, ‘she’ doesn’t exist!
F.: You are also a very strong person, and another quality that I ap-
preciate a lot is your ability to be emphatic... to try and think
about all of us, how to find a way to cause the least damage in
the family!
T.: Did he say two or three?
F.: Three!
T.: What do you say? Do we send him to the oculist?
F.: Doctor, I told you that both of my daughters are beautiful!
T.: I would like you to tell me the diversity of beauty: Giusy’s beauty
and Alessandra’s beauty! How are they different, from a man,
the beauty of Giusy and the beauty of Alessandra? Madam, are
you worried, no? No jealousy, right!
M.: He is a Dad!
T.: He is a Dad, indeed!
F.: You are asking me to have a preference between my daughters!
T.: No!
M.: No!
F.: ... (Silence) mmm...
GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns 147EN T.: It needs to ripen...
F.: I have found myself with two daughters at University... all of a
sudden! (Smiling)
A.: Enjoy it! (Smiling)
T.: Good, it appears, all things considered, that these are new con-
versations and so, at times, it is difficult! Would you both (ad-
dressing the two daughters) say something nice to your Dad
and your Mum, not just nice things, but also things that you
would like more from Dad and Mum?
G.: Yes, I wanted to start, however, with my sister... speak to my sister!
T.: Yes, certainly! Turn your chairs around and speak to each other!
They sit one in front of the other. (see Fig. 5)
Alessandra (younger daughter)
Giusy (elder daughter)
Father
Therapist
Mother
Empty chair
Fig. 5
G.: The positive things, you know them...
T.: And say them again!
G.: I have told you often: that you are, other than my sister, you
know, one of my friends, actually, my best friend, you come to
meet me, you are the only person that has listened to me, ad-
vised me, you have given me support at this difficult time...
T.: Giusy, nice things, said in passing... seem...
G.: Things lose their value if said quickly!
T.: One at a time!
G.: You are someone capable of listening, capable of advising, ca-
pable of... making yourself feel nearby also when you are far
away... even so, you were in Ragusa, I was in Rome, so there
was distance between us...
T.: Then?
148 GTK BOOKS / Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronounsG.: You kept the secret, even though I knew that keeping the secret EN
was causing you grief because you were having to go against
Mum and Dad’s faith, like I was doing, but... you didn’t want to
get Mum and Dad into any difficulty and I know that it cost you
and I am asking for your forgiveness for ever getting you into
this situation in the first place.
T.: It seems to me that your sister is very reliable: a person who
keeps secrets is reliable!
G.: The only thing that I would like to tell you is to not make my
mistake with Mum and Dad: to not say anything to them, like
I’ve done! Seen that we have had this situation, try to now... to
have a more open relationship with them, more confidence, be-
cause then... you feel terrible!
T.: Whilst we are here, (addressing Alessandra) would you like to
say three things to your sister?
A.: Yes, ok, in the meantime, thanks for what you have said to me...
it’s also been a difficult situation for me. It is not always easy to
say things to Mum and Dad, so I also understand what you were
trying to do, but I would like to say that I think you are such a
smart sister. You are a bit like a role model to me, also for ever
having undertaken your university studies, your desire to go
away from Ragusa, to emancipate yourself. In my opinion, you
are a very intelligent person, and then I like this relationship that
there is between us, that we really tell each other everything,
that you are a friend as well as a sister and, in other words, I am
happy about how things have gone with them just now...
T.: What effect does it have on you hearing your daughters speak
like this?
M.: It moves me!
T.: And you? You have grown some beautiful and very bright
daughters, capable of talking. I have to ask, what you want to
say to Mum and Dad. Do it at home! As an exercise! Within 15
days, one month, we will meet again to see how it has gone,
however choose a day in which you will continue the exercise.
It seems to me that, by now, you have found the right formula!
Ok? We are done!
M. & F.: Ok! Thanks!
G. & A.: Ok! Thanks!
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IT
Index Index Index Index
Editorial Editorial Editorial Editorial
In this issue In this issue In this issue In this issue
Research Research Research Research
The anxiety of acting between Gestalt Therapy and its The personality-function in The moon is made of cheese.
excitement and transgression. serious patients Gestalt Therapy Exercises of gestaltic
Gestalt Therapy with the Valeria Conte Antonio Sichera translation of borderline
phobic-obsessive-compulsive language
relational styles The Perls’ Mistake. Perceptions Self Theory and the liquid Giovanni Salonia
Giovanni Salonia and misunderstandings of the society.
gestalt post-Freudianism Rewriting the Personality-fun- The relational narcissistic
The borderline patient: Interview to Giovanni Salonia ction in Gestalt Therapy model in the post-modern
an insistent, anguished by Piero A. Cavaleri Giovanni Salonia world and therapeutic work in
demand for clarity Gestalt Therapy
Interview to Valeria Conte Art and psychotherapy Art and psychotherapy Valeria Conte
by Rosa Grazia Romano The recovered body. Borderline
Writings and images of a Border-line Beyond Oedipus, a brother for
Art and psychotherapy therapy Annalisa Iaculo Narcissus
To Alda Merini I can’t write it… Paola Aparo
Paola Argentino Eva Aster Re-reading ‘the re-discovered
body’
Catch my soul New clinical pathways interview to Maurizio
Giuliana Gambuzza Narcissus: the reflex without Stupiggia
water ed. by Elisa Amenta
New clinical pathways The myth according to bill
Onotherapy and Gestalt Viola, reflections on the Society and psychotherapy
Therapy: New Applications of narcissistic experience The flight of Bauman in
Pet Therapy Giovanna Silvestri Siracusa.
Silvia Zuddas and Francesco Interview to Zygmunt
Padoan Readings Bauman
Aluette Merenda ed. by Orazio Mezzio
Readings
Aluette Merenda, Readings
Fabio Presti Aluette Merenda
IT
Index Index Index
Editorial Editorial Editoriale
In questo numero
In this issue In this issue Ricerca
Research Research L’educazione al ‘gusto’ come
Gestalt animal assisted The fragmenting of the etica della felicità
Dall’emergenza antropologica
psychotherapy: ‘on-betweens’ in alzheimer’s a itinerari di cambiamento:
heterospecific encounters in disease. lo sguardo della Gestalt
psychotherapy And i will look after you: Therapy sulle relazioni sociali
Aluette Merenda mending lost wefts. e intime nel contesto della
Grace Maiorana and società post-liquida
Intersections. Gestalt Therapy Barbara Buoso Dialogo con Giovanni Salonia
meets Ethnopsychiatry e Valeria Conte a cura di
Michela Gecele The heart of co-parenting in Antonio Sichera
Gestalt Therapy
New clinical pathways Interview with Valeria Conte C’est oui ou c’est non?
With you, I’m not afraid. and Giovanni Salonia C’est oui ET non: la
fonction-moi du self
For a re-reading of the script Aluette Merenda Jean-Marie Robine
Panic attacks and To be Taken to Heart:
postmodernity New clinical pathways the ethical paradigm of gestalt
Annalisa Castrechini The violinist’s cramp therapy
Gestalt Therapy in the how to gain a self-determi-
Society and psychotherapy treatment of Focal Hand ned ethical profile
Now moment or final Dystonia of a musician’s hand Bertram Müller
contact? Giovanni Turra and
Meetings and comparisons Elena Ponzio Nuove applicazioni cliniche
with D. Stern, friend and Il triangolo primario
teacher Society and psychotherapy intercorporeo:
il ruolo del padre nello
Giovanni Salonia From roots to leaves sviluppo infantile
Vitality and development of Eleonora Savino
Readings Gestalt Psychotherapy
Aluette Merenda Serena Bimbati Experiment:
Lead the client by following
Honesty as therapeutic him half a step behind
competence Jan Roubal
Giovanni Salonia Società e psicoterapia
La violenza assistita nel
Readings triangolo primario:
Adam Kincel quando papà picchia mamma
Sara Pretalli e Giusi Adamo
GTK dissemination
La Gestalt Therapy (e GTK) in
Nepal
Giovanni Turra
Arte e psicoterapia
They left their home and
hearth - Where East and West
meet each other; about
language, images, cultural
dierences and friendship
Greet Cassiers
Letture
Pietro Andrea Cavaleri
EN
02/2020 Istituto di Gestalt Therapy Kairos Dance of the Chairs and Dance of the pronouns GTK BOOKS/04
02/2020 Istituto di Gestalt Therapy Kairos ISSN 2039-5337
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