Published: October 2024
Keywords:
School, dialogical, school psychologists, individuality, collectivity, system.
Pappa Vicky
Pappa Vicky is a Psychologist, a graduate of the Department of Psychology at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She completed her postgraduate studies in Management (MBA) at the University of Macedonia. She then received further training in the distance learning program "Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology" from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Currently, she is training in Systemic – Family Psychotherapy at the Institute of Systemic Thinking and Psychotherapy of Thessaloniki.
She completed her practical training at the Adult Psychiatric Department of Hippocrates Hospital of Thessaloniki. She worked as a trainer in private educational institutions conducting scientific presentations and psychology workshops.
From 2019 to 2022, she worked in UNICEF's Child Protection programs with a refugee population, providing individualized psychological support to children, adolescents, and families, while also coordinating psychosocial content groups and parent support groups. In this role, she participated in designing interventions for the prevention and support of gender-based violence cases involving adults, children, and adolescents.
From March to June 2023, she participated, along with other mental health professionals, in a crisis intervention program to support Greek railway employees following the train accident in Tempi.
She has volunteered in programs supporting vulnerable social groups and educational support interventions with the Non-Governmental Organization "Praksis" (Mobile School, Thessaloniki Homeless Day Reception Center).
Currently, she works privately in Thessaloniki, providing psychotherapeutic services to adults, adolescents, couples, and families.
Stefanidou Anastasia
My name is Anastasia Stefanidou. I graduated from the Department of Psychology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and am currently in the final year of my four-year training in Systemic and Family Psychotherapy at the Institute of Systemic Thinking and Psychotherapy.
I completed my postgraduate studies in the "Social Psychology and Psychosocial Interventions program" of the Department of Psychology at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, where I focused on the study of sociopsychological theories and conducting research. Additionally, I participated in the inter-institutional postgraduate program «Criminal Law and Addictions» of the Department of Law at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the Department of Law at the University of Nicosia, choosing the «therapeutic direction.»
I had already been active in the field of addictions during my undergraduate internship at the Self-Help Promotion Program in Thessaloniki and through my volunteer work in the KETHEA Anadysis Program, where I supported adolescents and their families.
My professional experience began in the Psychiatric Department of the «Ippokrateio» General Hospital of Thessaloniki, where I participated in the holistic care of the health of incoming individuals, collaborating with professionals from other specialties and considering the psychosocial factors within which each difficulty arises or needs to be addressed. Subsequently, I worked in Non-Governmental Organizations (ARSIS – Association for the Social Support of Youth, SolidarityNow, IOM) at Thessaloniki and Lesvos , where I encountered individuals, families, and children who have suffered stressful and burdensome experiences. My responsibilities aimed at alleviating and strengthening their capacities.
In recent years, I have been working in secondary education as a substitute psychologist in programs aimed at psychosocial support for individuals attending vocational high schools (EPAL), both on an individual and group level. I design and implement interventions for directly involved students as well as significant others, such as family, educational staff, and the local community. I strive to contribute to the strengthening of relationships and the systems of school and family, understanding the socio-economic conditions and class-based difficulties that inevitably contribute to increased anxiety, depression, and frustration.
At the end of 2023, I formed the psychotherapists' group "Kitro-Psychotherapy" with fellow psychologists. I work privately there, providing psychotherapeutic services to adults, adolescents, couples, and families.
Abstract
Schools are often described as microcosms of society, as living organisms, as fields of expression of ideas, and as collectives. How is this system co-constructed today? In what ways does the "inside" of the school communicate with the "outside"? The voice of school communities seems to be silenced in discussions of social developments and in the struggle for rights. Students, teachers, and support staff are confined to their individualities, with collective interventions being "stripped" of relationships, actions, voices, and hope. Mental health professionals have now entered schools, but in a way that their participation is opportunistic, transient, without "space" in both a metaphorical and literal sense, increasingly distant from the possibility of building relationships of trust and cooperation. Like other fire extinguishers, they intervene in small or large crises, often aiming for the smooth operation of a system that may itself be ill, rather than the individual referred to the specialist. How, both institutionally and in practice, do administrations, educators, specialists, parents, and students co-construct communities that are isolated and unable to participate in social reality? Drawing on examples from secondary education school communities in the discussion, or lack thereof, of current issues.
