Published: December 2020, Issue 38


Keywords:
Petros Polychronis, AKMA, Online Plenary Session, Panhellenic Network, Addiction Prevention Organizations, Prevention Center, Pandemic, Syndemic, Social Vaccine, Narrative therapy, Prevention Professionals, New Reality.

Petros Polychronis

Child-Psychiatrist, Group and Family Psychotherapist,Trainer and Supervisor.

Dr. Polychronis is presently the Director of the Athenian Institute of Anthropos in Greece, among the first centers to practice family therapy in Europe. He is involved as a consultant to the development of support programs for multi-problem families in a variety of contexts dealing with Child and Family welfare. He is a Founding Member of the European Family Therapy Association (E.F.T.A.), of the Hellenic Association for Systems Thinking and Family Psychotherapy, and of the Greek Society for De-Institutionalization and Mental Health. He has served on the Executive Council of the World Association for Social Psychiatry and of the Hellenic Child-Psychiatric Association and is an Honorary Member of the Executive Council of the Therapeutic Center for Addicted Individuals and their Families (KE.TH.E.A.).

Dr. Polychronis is a Visiting Professor at Postgraduate programs at the Universities of Athens, Crete and Ioannina. He is also the Trainer for the Personal and Professional Development program of the EAP certified “Systemic Institute of Cyprus.”

Main areas of interest/publication:

The Child as Co-Therapist in Family Therapy.

Family as a Field for Developing Skills/Metaskills in a Digital World.

Training in Systems Thinking and Family Therapy.

Intervention Programs for Multi-Problem Families.

Systems Consultation to Organizations, Personal Development of the Self of the Therapist.

Abstract

Petros Polychronis describes his concerns and presents his perspective on the new reality in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on uncertainty and destabilization in the family. He points onto the new challenges faced by mental health professionals and parents, proposing as a compass, human contact and systemic curiosity.

Online Plenary Session of the Panhellenic Network of Addiction Prevention Organizations, 14/11/2020.

Sources:

1st COVID-19 is not a pandemic but a “syndemic” – see www.thelancet.com, vol 396, September 26, 2020, Richard Horton, Offline: COVID-19 is not a pandemic.

2nd The idea of the Social Vaccine as “a metaphor designed to shift the dominant biomedical orientation of the health sector towards the underline distal factor that causes decrease and suffering”, Fran Baun and Sharon Friel, Medical Journal of Australia.

• 3rd "The virus is as if it travels across the cracks of a society that is extremely dedicated to the pleasure and the denial of death", Jameson Webster & Alison M., May ’05, https://www.artforum.com/slant/jamieson-webster-and-alison-m-gingeras-discuss-psychoanalysis-during-the-pandemic-82992 republished by Nikos Marketos at the 17th issue of HESTAFTA’s electronic journal, Systemic Thinking and Psychotherapy.