We meet in the therapeutic space with the challenges that suffering and psychopathology bring: a crisis of the individual’s vitality, a difficulty in filling life experiences with verve, with joy. The experience of the emotion of joy is one of the most desirable experiences, because nothing makes us vibrate more with life than this. Joy represents the manifestation of our vitality force, Physis (Berne).
We define joy as a pleasant emotion that we feel when we gain or hope to gain something that pleases us (dexonline.ro). Therefore, joy and pleasure are tightly related with one another: pleasure represents the cause of joy with the source in the body and in the senses. In TA theory, pleasure is not developed as an emotion. From a traditional view, emotions are in the Child state, which does not represent a very precise image.
Ioana will explore together with the participants how pleasure and joy are felt, in other ego states by the client and especially by the therapist. Here are some of the proposed questions for further exploration in this workshop:
Is there a place for joy in therapy? As therapists, can we experience joy together with our clients, and what makes us feel joy, contentment, enchantment? What stimulates this experience and what inhibits it?
Activities will include a part of theory on the emotional system of the game in experiencing joy (Panksepp, 2009), discussion and experimental exercises in small or large groups.
Participants will have the occasion to reflect on an essential component in the efficient practice of psychotherapy, the importance of the therapist’s vitality and the experience of reciprocal pleasure alongside the client (Erskine, 2011). Joy cannot be decreed, but can we provoke, tame and cultivate it? How can we develop the wisdom of joy that assumes all of the joys of existence? (F. Lenoir, 2015).
The workshop is open for anyone who is interested in the exploration of this theme from a personal, or professional perspective, in the workplace. Professional therapeutical experience as a central base for discussions will be used.