Uploaded : June 2020

Keywords:
Jacob Mosgaard, Antonis Kalaitzakis, Andreana Ptridou, Anastasia Geitsidou, intimate, stranger, closeness, anthropologist, therapeutic relationship, pandemic, witnessing, loitering, refugees, Phone Helpline, psychological support, ecological, systemic view.

Anastasia Geitsidou

Graduated from the Department of Psychology in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She attended a postgraduate program on Counselling psychology in the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Furthermore, she attended a four-year educational program on Systemic family therapy in the Institute of Systemic Thinking and Psychotherapy in Thessaloniki. She has worked in a psychiatric clinic and then in a therapeutic community for drug addicts who were prisoners in Thessaloniki. Today she is working in an organization that offers psychiatric treatment at home and belongs to a non-profit company, called "Synthesis". Also, she is working in private practice in Thessaloniki.

Kalaitzakis Antonis

Psychologist, graduate from the Institute of Systemic Thinking and Psychotherapy in Thessaloniki. He worked as a psychologist at NGO PRAKSIS, during the refugee crisis in Greece. Currently he is a psychologist at the “Saint Catherine” private psychiatric clinic.

Andreana Petridou

Graduated from the Department of Psychology in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and holds a Master of Science in Mental Health Counselling from Pace University in New York. She also completed a four-year training on Systemic Family Therapy at the Institute of Systemic Thinking and Psychotherapy in Thessaloniki. She has been working at NGO ARSIS with refugees unaccompanied minors in accommodation facilities in Thessaloniki since 2016.

Abstract

This text, although it began as a chronicle of three systemic therapists’ thoughts based on Jacob Mosgaard’s text “Therapy as Anthropology”, comments the reality during and after COVID-19 outbreak. Antonis Kalaitzakis, Andreana Petridou, and Anastasia Geitsidou attempt to wander into a rich spectrum of reflection by interacting their personal experiences and thoughts with the Danish therapist’s ideas.

More specifically, Antonis comments on therapists’ positioning through the therapeutic relationship today: the aspects that a therapist can acknowledge himself as an “intimate stranger” and how those could be related to the closeness as a part of this process and relationship.

Andreana, based on her professional experience in refugees’ accommodation facilities for unaccompanied children, reflects more on an “anthropological togetherness”; being a participant observer as a therapist or a witness close to people with difficult life experiences could be very meaningful to our profession. In addition, she expresses an up to date concern of how important and necessary an ecological and systemic view is, especially now that pandemic seems to redefine so much in our lives.

Finally, Anastasia having a first-hand experience with COVID-19 situation refers to the closeness and the distance throughout the psychological support. Working for the first time via online sessions as well as the helpline via phone that was set up especially for the pandemic crisis, reflects on the uncertainty that we all have to deal with today including therapists. She concludes that even during adverse conditions with unpredictable circumstances, an anthropological view with respect and “loitering” into new meanings and cultures could contribute significantly to a more therapeutic “closeness”.