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FOLLOWING THESE INTERESTING AND RICH TALKS, I WOULD LIKE TO share with you some of my recently emerging thoughts regarding clinical practice. I live and work as a therapist in Sassari, a small, rather provincial city in Northern Sardinia. Socio-culturally, it is not a very stimulating environment and, in fact, it seems to become grayer and more barren over time, in part due to its growing economic difficulties.
In this context, as a result of isolation and our ancestral reserve, asking for help can be experienced as weakness and be laden with shame, guilt, and fear of marginalization. Even we, as therapists, tend to work in a vacuum here, and adhere too rigidly to our roles.
Becoming better acquainted with contemporary psychoanalytic theory in a warm, empathic, and liberal environment has enabled me to work through increasingly complex and challenging clinical situations with greater fluidity and flexibility. I began working with children and adolescents in public agencies during the 1980s. Currently, I only work in my private practice, mostly with a client base aged 16–45. Of course, I often see children, adolescents, and their parents for consultation, but I am rarely able to get well-structured therapeutic processes underway unless I limit them to very short-term interventions.
I am struck by parents' increasing difficulty with trusting others and entrusting their children to a therapist whenever there is the potential for longer term therapy.
At times I do not even get a chance to finish the consultation phase: I find myself unable to express my insights to the clients—thoughts I would
like to communicate to them hoping that, if nothing else, they would take something with them and use it even if outside of therapy.
Even with adult clients, I notice that, whereas I used to be able to suggest intensive and well-structured therapy, today there is a powerful tendency to interrupt the therapeutic process prematurely.
Your work has given me sparks of insight