Lo sguardo e l’azione

by Oliviero Rossi
Edited by Martina Fino

Through this text, Oliviero Rossi offers the reader an insight into the many ways to apply imagery in helping relationships. Furthermore, he opens the door to different approaches to establishing a therapeutic relationship with others.

The book left me with the feeling that the author was offering me a map, made up of video and photographic materials, that I could use to delve into the other's territory. What I take away with pleasure from these pages is the possibility of restoring "movement" to something that is inherently fixed and immobile. Thus, we move from an image "of" time to one "in" time.

There are countless possibilities for movement. When the patient chooses, he or she brings images into the therapeutic work and ultimately inhabits them. Then, he or she brings them to life with sensory details tied to the here-and-now experience. It's in the present that one can decide to do something different with an image from the past. This is true, however recent or remote it may be.

For the author, discussing imagery in therapy means introducing a quasi-perceptual dimension into the therapeutic relationship, in addition to the "as if" dimension. This predisposes a confrontation with one's own existence and how to live it.

Images are incredibly powerful "existential evocators." Looking at a photograph inevitably leads the observer to the "existence thesis," that is, to reckon with the fact that what is seen and not seen in that photograph once existed or still exists.

Photos are nothing more than a trace of one's own or another's past in the world. Furthermore, each image evokes "transversal knowledge," a cognitive and emotional framework. This allows us to make sense of and explore the other's existential script. Thus, a better quality of life is promoted.

Images represent a way of narrating oneself and, within a therapeutic relationship, they allow us to modify the narrative with which the patient communicates his existence to himself and others.

Obviously, it's not the therapist's job to provide new stories, but he or she can provide stimuli by playing with elements of the patient's life through the figure-ground relationship. Focusing attention on the background can generate new insights. This is especially true when the image presented is autobiographical.

The goal of Oliviero Rossi's work is to promote new alternatives to patients' frozen behaviors. Furthermore, he promotes attentiveness, awareness, and responsibility.

Il suo lavoro con le immagini nasce all’interno della cornice terapeutica della Gestalt psychotherapy and his working method, as can be seen from the book, is nothing other than the translation into action of the principles and techniques of Gestalt.

The same image within the relationship can be both a "narrative stimulus" that appears in relation to the patient's life story. It can also be a backdrop against which the patient-therapist dialogic relationship is established.

The text alternates theory and experience, explaining the epistemological foundations of photo-video therapy and describing several interesting sessions. These sessions allow the reader to experience firsthand what can actually be achieved in therapy with photography and video.

I approached the text out of curiosity to understand how images could be used in the helping relationship. I feel I've satisfied a need of mine, increasing my desire to experience it personally, both as a client and as a professional.

I myself have a wealth of photographic and video material from my life, even before I was born, given to me by my father, who immortalized me and my family through its various stages. I still remember the first film camera, which was always with us. I also remember the shame I felt at being filmed, even as a child. However, today I look back at those images and can grasp their richness in all its nuances.

Concludendo, riporto una parte del testo “Parla, ricordo” di Nabokov che ben sottolinea, a mio avviso, il potenziale delle immagini come “traccia esistenziale” all’interno del ciclo di vita, includendo il prima della nascita e il dopo la morte.

"The cradle rocks over an abyss; common sense tells us that our existence is but a fleeting glimmer of light between two eternities of darkness. Although the two eternities are identical twins, man, as a rule, contemplates the prenatal abyss with more serenity than he contemplates the one toward which he is headed (at about four hundred and fifty heartbeats per hour).

I do know, however, of a sensitive young man who felt something akin to panic when he first saw some old family films shot a few weeks before his birth. He contemplated a world virtually unchanged—the same house, the same people—and realized then that he hadn't existed there at all, and that no one had mourned his absence.

What particularly terrified him was the sight of a brand-new baby carriage standing there on the veranda with the complacent, intrusive look of a coffin; it too was empty, as if, in the reverse course of events, its very bones had disintegrated.

Only those who decide to look at themselves within a therapeutic relationship choose to activate a dialogical relationship between the self who looks and the self-image, in order to open up, here and now, new and more pleasant possibilities for existence.

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Lo sguardo del terapeuta è uno strumento di lavoro: qui trovi come si svolge la psicoterapia della Gestalt a Firenze.