NA FRONTEIRA ENTRE O PSICODRAMA E A GESTALT-TERAPIA: AS DINÂMICAS ENTRE A SUBJETIVIDADE DO TERAPEUTA, AS COMUNIDADES CIENTÍFICAS E A ARTICULAÇÃO TEORIA E PRÁTICA.

Abstract

The field of psychotherapies offers a diverse wealth of knowledge and practices that includes a variety of epistemological and ontological assumptions about the human condition and the nature of change. The possibility of integration among approaches is controversial. Even dialogue among them is difficult. The psychotherapy integration movement strives to change this picture. Overcoming the intellectual isolation of a single approach can help the therapist to broaden his activities and help each approach hone and polish its teachings. Detractors depict a potential intellectual disorganization as a result of such attempts. The aim of this research was to investigate how Gestalt therapists and psychodramatists see and experience, in practice, the possibilities of integration between their approaches. Narratives were collected through individual interviews, with 22 professionals, 11 of each approach. Grounded theory analysis was adopted as a method to build a theoretical model that explains how therapists see and experience the possibilities of integration. The intention, in choosing this method, was to contribute new perspectives, not based on theories already formulated, but on the therapists lived reality. The categories that emerged from the analysis of the interviews give voice to those who find themselves in the reality of the professional practice. The model constructed from these categories depicts the frontier between psychodrama and Gestalt therapy as it is experienced by the participants. From the professional s narratives, the forces were mapped that approach and distance the two approaches. Three axes dominate the dynamics of these forces: the articulation between theory and practice, the scientific communities and the psychotherapist s subjectivity. Thus, the central thesis sustained by this work is that the dynamics of integration and the psychologists attitudes, with respect to the dialogue between the approaches, cannot be understood from rational examination of scientific argument. Instead, the relevant dynamics and attitudes are the result of the interaction among subjective, social and institutional processes. Thus, the professional who is interested in a dialogue with the other approach needs to navigate the interface between theoretical articulations that have subjective meaning arising from his or her professional history and social implications imposed by institutional relations. This interface is governed by the dynamics between the professional communities and institutions involved. In this navigation, the psychotherapist s subjectivity is revealed in his or her need to belong to a group, the effects of his or her past trajectory as a member of a school or community and his or her previous experiences with respect to other theories and communities. On the other hand, in the dynamics between the communities and the institutions, competition for symbolic and material resources is an important force that hinders dialogue and integration. The articulation of theory and practice is related to continuous attempts of each approach to meet the challenges of conceptualizing practice in psychotherapy. Construction and development of approaches are enabled by the flow and absorption of concepts. Thus, intradisciplinarity in psychotherapy contributes to the field s vitality, helps unclog disciplinary thinking and expands the therapist s possibilities for understanding and action. Accordingly, the practice of exchange does exist among the approaches. However, this practice is overshadowed by the customary disqualification of the "other" approach in academic and institutional discourse. Professional identity tends to merge with concepts and ideas of the community the professional belongs to, entailing strong loyalty to the approach. Studies on dialogue among approaches can hardly make sense of the processes involved when they fail to include these different axes of interaction. It is necessary to consider, not only the clinical and epistemological issues involved, but also the subjective, social and institutional dynamics that rule the process.