Abstract
This article explores the theme of presence of the psychotherapist, a concept that has been of particular interest in humanistic and existential approaches. Presence was first associated with the humanistic attitudes of the practitioner and the way he or she embodies these attitudes in the here and now of the encounter. Since the publication in 2002 of Geller and Greenberg’s model of therapeutic presence, several quantitative studies have explored the relationship between the therapist’s perception of presence and other dimensions of the therapeutic process. However, qualitative explorations still seem necessary to account for the complexity of the therapist’s presence and its role in the therapeutic process. Centered on the therapist’s perspective, we use an idiographic methodology and refer to lived clinical experience to highlight the dimension of sensory contact that, through the body, actualize a connection to a virtual space of the therapeutic relationship. We so describe how a therapist can achieve an embodied processing to clinical material from what we describe as “traces of presence” of the other. From this point of view, the patient’s presence incorporates itself into the therapist’s experience and the therapist can perceive aspects of this presence in a tangible, concrete, and useful way. The therapist’s presence thus takes on a meaning that is not reduced to what the patient will perceive and interpret of his or her attitude. It becomes the main material from which the therapist orients his or her clinical interventions.
Highlights
Presence may be considered as a posture of action of the therapist in the temporal horizon of the immediate
We consider a presence that extends to a global configuration of communication, which could be a communion between the patient and the therapist
The authors justified the need for such instruments by the fact that there is little research for recommendations that would guide practitioners’ training and practice on the topic of presence
Summary
Presence may be considered as a posture of action of the therapist in the temporal horizon of the immediate This posture requires leaving a theoretical description of the practitioner's action and amounts to describing (through literal or metaphorical statements) each singular event (e.g., sensations, perceptions, and mental images) in itself. It requires reintroducing a role for the ephemeral and the unpredictable, approaching each seemingly innocuous event for what it proposes in the patient’s and the therapist’s experience. The meaning and value of the therapist’s experiences should not be limited to what the patient will interpret in terms of empathy or therapeutic alliance Some of these experiences are not ordinary in nature and intensity. They could be understood in terms of a continuum that links the patient and the therapist in an extended context that is not limited to the time and space of the sessions
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