Workshop by Astrid Dusendschön

• ABSTRACT

“The Artist is present” *

Most often clients enter therapy through symptoms. Beyond these, however, psychotherapy embeds a political – in the sense of polis – dimension, sustaining development of one’s own reflection and one’s engagement “in the world”. If as practitioners we focus on symptoms (burn-out, personality disorders etc.), what becomes this dimension?

Our working hypothesis is that alienation is also operating among psychotherapy as a (professional) field. Are we ready to be challenged at this breaking point?

This workshop explores the theme from an experiential aspect.

* « Nobody could imagine… that anybody would take time to sit and just engage in mutual gaze with me. In fact, the chair was always occupied, and there were continuous lines of people waiting to sit in it. It was [a] complete surprise… this enormous need of humans to actually have contact. » Marina Abramović