Anca C Tiurean | West University of Timisoara (original) (raw)

Papers by Anca C Tiurean

International Journal of Philosophical Practice, 2024

This article develops the ideas of infinite questioning and emergent dialogue as key characterist... more This article develops the ideas of infinite questioning and emergent dialogue as key characteristics of philosophical consultations. The authors have been members of a philosophical circle for several years, in which these and other aspects of the philosophical consultations have been shared, considered, and reflected upon, leading to the contouring of an integrated, embodied and dynamic approach, which is going to be described with reference to supporting theory and practice. Authors’ professional expertise ranges from
philosophy with children, with parents, with teachers, with students, with individual clients and small groups or organisations. Philosophical counsellors are described as experts in not-knowing and we attempt to provide an integrative and clear view of their professional role, seeing that philosophers live a human life like their clients and therefore have no ultimate answers in response to clients’ questions. They do however have a paradoxical expertise, which we call expertise in not-knowing. This involves the art of questioning, particular skills for navigating the unpredictable territories of emergent dialogue and an availability to
accompany deep reflective processes in a professional context in which the lines between expert and non-expert can be blurred. Both the professional and the client are self-reflecting, self-aware and exposed to shifts or transformation in their being and in their relating to the world, following a philosophical consultation. In this space of joint not-knowing,
the expert can provide a sense of balance and stability based on trust and empathy in the relationship with the client. After developing these themes with references, examples and experiences from the practical work of each circle member in various contexts will be presented as illustrations. A conceptualization of results is drawn from common feedback and
formal assessment following professional work with different types of clients as well as from the experienced impact by the facilitators of working in this way, as shared and processed in these circle meetings, where their work is periodically debriefed and reflected upon.

International Journal of Philosophical Practice, 2024

Interpretation is a multifaceted ability which serves to understand and convey meaning accurately... more Interpretation is a multifaceted ability which serves to understand and convey meaning accurately and effectively, in diverse contexts, while using the available data parsimoniously, plausibly and comprehensively. Its role in philosophical counselling is wide: it opens perspectives, it reveals one’s level of anchoring in common sense and evidence, sharpens one’s sensitivity to detail, promotes self-reflection, facilitates the exploration and examination of ideas and one’s particular understanding of them. It also promotes critical
reflection and learning to handle differences of opinion effectively and insightfully. Thus, developing this competence serves both clients and counsellors in becoming more aware of their strengths and weaknesses in terms of: linguistic proficiency, reading comprehension, cultural awareness, critical thinking capacities. Our lead question in this brief research into
the art of hermeneutics inquires into what it takes to assess, to challenge and to develop one’s interpretive capacity. We formulate a brief theoretical guide to interpretation work, with the aid of relevant reference literature, and then, as a practical example, we present a philosophical group experience in which we explore stoic ideas, making use of interpretation skills, through reading, group consultation and self-consultation. Our findings are meant to inspire and support practitioners in facilitating such interpretive exercises and, while doing so, in dealing with the obstacles and problems that may arise in the way people interpret ancient texts and ideas, all while acknowledging various expressive manifestations of their ancient and contemporary interlocutors.

International Journal of Philosophical Practice, 2023

The Community of Inquiry is a pragmatic philosophy concept by John Dewey (1916) representing a &q... more The Community of Inquiry is a pragmatic philosophy concept by John Dewey (1916) representing a "social, cognitive and teaching presence" in a process of collaborative research and learning experience. This article is meant to present a case study based on the experience of forming a community of inquiry with students of a Romanian university. The report will include aspects like: the process of group forming and group facilitation to foster collaborative critical thinking, a few philosophical methods that aimed the consolidation of the group as a community of learning and inquiry as well as the training of individual critical thinking, self-reflective posture and openness to otherness. Results reveal students' initial preoccupations with certainty and difficulties in self expression at the beginning of the semester and presented increasingly more attitudes characteristic to collaborative learning and inquiry by the end of the semester, which is probably an effect of de...

Interdisciplinary Research in Counseling, Ethics and Philosophy - IRCEP

Current research into philosophical practice and consultancy tends to be mostly focused on the pr... more Current research into philosophical practice and consultancy tends to be mostly focused on the professionalization of this activity. A large body of reference literature describes methods of working philosophically with people of various ages and belonging to various contexts. The present article brings a contribution to a less addressed field of philosophical practice: askēsis – where individuals encounter and need to respond to their own resistances, difficulties and obstacles to performing philosophical practices as a way of life. Seeking ways to sustain challenging work with ourselves, this article proposes a method of applying askēsis and the gamification of philosophical practices within groups so as to maximize the chances of transforming potentially every human hardship situation into an opportunity for growth and self-transcendence. As an illustration of this view, the specific tasks, activities and results of a play-based philosophical workshop are presented in detail, as ...

Journal of Family Psychotherapy, 2014

The purposes of this article are to describe a program of training a pioneering group of family t... more The purposes of this article are to describe a program of training a pioneering group of family therapists in a developing country delivered by trainers from abroad, and discuss the benefits of such a project and the difficulties it encounters. The four-year Kosova Systemic Family Therapy Training Program is in the first half of its third year when these lines are being written. It is sponsored by the Kosova Health Foundation and carried out by an International Family Therapy Association-affiliated team of traveling trainers who come to Kosovo from various parts of the world. The trainers vary considerably in personality and theoretical orientations. The training includes five main components: An overview of the field, its history and its diverse theoretical orientations and approaches to practice, a wide scale systematic integration, skills development, personal development, and supervised practice. The training is conducted by short, in loco, direct-contact modules and by distance learning and supervision. Kosovo, formerly an semi-independent region in the south of Serbia and a part of Yugoslavia, populated mainly by Muslim Albanians, declared its independence in 2008, ten years after the culmination of a bitter war. Kosovo is now struggling with the after-effect of the war and with rapid social, demographic, and cultural changes running fast ahead of its political and economical development. The effects of all these changes on the functioning of families are dramatic. The goals of the training program are to train a first generation of family therapists who will hopefully serve the affected community and eventually prepare the next generation. So far, this has proved a rewarding, but by no means easy, task.

International Journal of Philosophical Practice, 2022

The article addresses a common difficulty of counselors in confronting clients with the problems ... more The article addresses a common difficulty of counselors in confronting clients with the problems in their thinking and behavior in a way that they could start benefiting from a constructive self-reflective state in the long run, a state that would replace the common tendency to hide oneself, to blame, to victimize or to repress aspects of their humanity connoted as negative in order to maintain a positive self image. The highlight is on the main characteristics of efficient confrontations with oneself and others, so as to engender reasoning competence training without an unnecessary loss in the quality of the consultative relationship. Working in psychotherapy and having progressively integrated more philosophical work into this professional practice, the author puts together a few concepts and ideas that are likely to facilitate the processes in the psychotherapeutic and the philosophical approaches to intrapsychic and interpersonal dialogue.

Interdisciplinary Research in Counseling, Ethics and Philosophy, 2022

The paper propose the idea that philosophical practice has a metaphoric dimension which reveals t... more The paper propose the idea that philosophical practice has a metaphoric dimension which reveals the human subject's cognitive biases and psychotherapeutic necessities. To support this claim, the focal point of author MA thesis in Philosophical Counseling and Consultancy was to consider metaphor from various perspectives: ontological, esthetic, epistemological, existential, social constructivist, ethical and practical. Throughout this theoretical task, was explored applications of metaphor in working towards people's health and wellbeing across the lifespan using an integrated metaphor-based approach in consultations, including philosophical practices and transactional analysis. This article shows various definitions of metaphor, descriptions of how we know through metaphor and what psychotherapy has implied along its history as a practice.

Interdisciplinary Research in Counseling, Ethics and Philosophy, 2023

Current research into philosophical practice and consultancy tends to be mostly focused on the pr... more Current research into philosophical practice and consultancy tends to be mostly focused on the professionalization of this activity. A large body of reference literature describes methods of working philosophically with people of various ages and belonging to various contexts. The present article brings a contribution to a less addressed field of philosophical practice: askēsis-where individuals encounter and need to respond to their own resistances, difficulties and obstacles to performing philosophical practices as a way of life. Seeking ways to sustain challenging work with ourselves, this article proposes a method of applying askēsis and the gamification of philosophical practices within groups so as to maximize the chances of transforming potentially every human hardship situation into an opportunity for growth and self-transcendence. As an illustration of this view, the specific tasks, activities and results of a play-based philosophical workshop are presented in detail, as well as the response of the participants to them, including: positive feedback, increase in motivation for participating and enjoyment of the practice despite the difficulties associated with askēsis.

International Journal of Philosophical Practice, 2023

The Community of Inquiry is a pragmatic philosophy concept by John Dewey (1916) representing a "s... more The Community of Inquiry is a pragmatic philosophy concept by John Dewey (1916) representing a "social, cognitive and teaching presence" in a process of collaborative research and learning experience. This article is meant to present a case study based on the experience of forming a community of inquiry with students of a Romanian university. The report will include aspects like: the process of group forming and group facilitation to foster collaborative critical thinking, a few philosophical methods that aimed the consolidation of the group as a community of learning and inquiry as well as the training of individual critical thinking, self-reflective posture and openness to otherness. Results reveal students' initial preoccupations with certainty and difficulties in self expression at the beginning of the semester and presented increasingly more attitudes characteristic to collaborative learning and inquiry by the end of the semester, which is probably an effect of deliberately setting up a specific group culture to facilitate this goal.

This paper represents an attempt to integrate several approaches to family therapy and parenting... more This paper represents an attempt to integrate several approaches to family therapy and parenting practices into a unified perspective and its multiple implications for both types of contexts, based on the assumption that good parents and therapists have a lot in common. We are going to explore these two roles and their complementarities in recent scientific reference literature as well as in our own and our supervisors’ counseling and therapeutic practice. We are going to reflect critically about de old moral consensus in the definition of and expectative from therapists and parents, considering the impact and implication of changing paradigms and values, from authority of a view or another towards the active co-creation of meaning. We expect that integrating values such as integrity, personal responsibility, authenticity and equal dignity in the therapeutic process and family life is likely to lead to therapeutic, life-changing effects, yet these concepts although widely accepted and relatively easy to define, do not seem equally easy to implement, given some factors that we will also analyze here. New approaches to the integration of these concepts in day to day therapist client and family relationships, as well as perspectives on the role of parents and therapists are envisioned in this paper.
KEYWORDS: family dynamics, family therapy, change, values, paradigmatic shifts, relations of equal dignity

Începând cu anul 2008, Centrul Regional de Integrală Socială şi Dezvoltară Umană Areopagus a ofer... more Începând cu anul 2008, Centrul Regional de Integrală Socială şi Dezvoltară Umană Areopagus a oferit persoanelor private de libertate din cadrul Penitenciarului din Timişoara o serie de servicii cu caracter educativ, de autocunoaştere şi dezvoltare personală, cu valenţe terapeutice. Proiectul s-a desfăşurat cu aportul câtorva psihologi înscrişi la cursul intermediar de terapie familială şi practică sistemică organizat de Institutul de Terapie Familială şi Practică Sistemică Areopagus. Clădind pe experienţa practică oferită de acest proiect, lucrarea de faţă caută să pună în evidenţă câteva fundamente teoretice, misiunea, viziunea şi valorile care stau la baza elaborării şi desfăşurării unui astfel de program, dar şi câteva dintre activităţile şi exerciţiile folosite cu succes. Rezultatele obţinute, cât şi cele neobţinute, dezvăluie numeroase aspecte ecologice de care orice intervenţie cu caracter inderdisciplinar trebuie să ţină cont pentru a-şi asigura eficienţa: variabile biologice, psihologice, sociale, culturale, economice, instituţionale şi contextuale – co-determină natura relaţiei profesioniştilor cu grupul ţintă, precum şi efectul real al intervenţiilor planificate.

Cuvinte cheie: Interdisciplinaritate, practică sistemică, perspectivă ecologică, reabilitare, persoane private de libertate

Prezenta lucrare conceputa in cadrul disciplinei "Biopsihosociologia comportamentului deviant" di... more Prezenta lucrare conceputa in cadrul disciplinei "Biopsihosociologia comportamentului deviant" din anul 4 de psihologie la Universitatea din Porto, se doreste a fi un exercitiu de explorare, reflectie si integrare a abordarilor teoretice si a modalitatilor de aplicare a acestora in studiul fenomenului adictiv. Tema complexa a dependentei de droguri este pentru noi ca studenti cercetatori o oportunitate de-a reflecta asupra paradoxului integrativ conform caruia suntem in acelasi timp fiinte libere si fiinte determinate - si cautam sa aprofundam studiul capacitatii de alegere si decizie a fiintei umane ca sistem care este nu numai heterodeterminata (de circumstante, experienta de viata, trasaturi si abilitati personale, influente genetice, sociale si culturale, etc) ci si autodeterminata, dupa cum pune in evidenta modelul autopoietic, cautand sa concluzionam asupra posibilitatilor unui individ in termeni de libertate de dezvoltare si alegere in ciuda complexitatii si strictetii heterodeterminarii lui precum si asupra posibilitatilor profesionistilor din domeniul reabilitarii de-a cauta sa potenteze liberul arbitru si de a folosi conceptul de auto-determinare si in elaborarea strategiilor de reabilitare a persoanei care sufera de adictie.

Thesis Chapters by Anca C Tiurean

West University of Timisoara, 2021

The choice of pursuing a Master Program in Philosophical Counseling and Consultancy was motivated... more The choice of pursuing a Master Program in Philosophical Counseling and Consultancy was motivated by my intention to reflect philosophically about my profession of systemic family psychotherapist and by my wish to acquire a set of practical skills that I could include in my professional activity-working with clients to stimulate their thinking, as well as gaining the capacity to examine my own work through critical and philosophical self-consultation. Philosophical practice shares a lot in common with psychotherapy and is in many ways the opposite of psychotherapy. Philosophical practice can have a psychotherapeutic effect as well as a destabilizing one, which raises an important question about what made the difference in how this type of counseling impacted clients' lives. Because of my prior trainings in symbolic-experiential and play psychotherapy, I took upon myself to examine the hypothesis that, although the process of philosophical consultation tends to follow specific patterns of systematic work, it actually determines a unique experience that bears symbolic meanings to the participants and therefore it is sometimes, for some, therapeutic and sometimes, for others or for the same ones, traumatizing. Thus the objective of my thesis became to undertake a philosophical examination of the very notion of psychotherapy, with special emphasis on metaphor, since the construction and deconstruction of client world-views take place within a relational dialogue that is meaningful to both clients and counselors in ways we should be able to understand. The consultation room is a metaphoric space in which the clients enact their conceptions of themselves and others, where the conversation can support philosophical discussions about anything while performatively it reflects and triggers meaningful symbolic experiences of the client's life. By learning to work with both metaphor and common sense, increasingly more of what we call therapeutic effect becomes accessible to our understanding, whether we are therapists, counselors or clients.

International Journal of Philosophical Practice, 2024

This article develops the ideas of infinite questioning and emergent dialogue as key characterist... more This article develops the ideas of infinite questioning and emergent dialogue as key characteristics of philosophical consultations. The authors have been members of a philosophical circle for several years, in which these and other aspects of the philosophical consultations have been shared, considered, and reflected upon, leading to the contouring of an integrated, embodied and dynamic approach, which is going to be described with reference to supporting theory and practice. Authors’ professional expertise ranges from
philosophy with children, with parents, with teachers, with students, with individual clients and small groups or organisations. Philosophical counsellors are described as experts in not-knowing and we attempt to provide an integrative and clear view of their professional role, seeing that philosophers live a human life like their clients and therefore have no ultimate answers in response to clients’ questions. They do however have a paradoxical expertise, which we call expertise in not-knowing. This involves the art of questioning, particular skills for navigating the unpredictable territories of emergent dialogue and an availability to
accompany deep reflective processes in a professional context in which the lines between expert and non-expert can be blurred. Both the professional and the client are self-reflecting, self-aware and exposed to shifts or transformation in their being and in their relating to the world, following a philosophical consultation. In this space of joint not-knowing,
the expert can provide a sense of balance and stability based on trust and empathy in the relationship with the client. After developing these themes with references, examples and experiences from the practical work of each circle member in various contexts will be presented as illustrations. A conceptualization of results is drawn from common feedback and
formal assessment following professional work with different types of clients as well as from the experienced impact by the facilitators of working in this way, as shared and processed in these circle meetings, where their work is periodically debriefed and reflected upon.

International Journal of Philosophical Practice, 2024

Interpretation is a multifaceted ability which serves to understand and convey meaning accurately... more Interpretation is a multifaceted ability which serves to understand and convey meaning accurately and effectively, in diverse contexts, while using the available data parsimoniously, plausibly and comprehensively. Its role in philosophical counselling is wide: it opens perspectives, it reveals one’s level of anchoring in common sense and evidence, sharpens one’s sensitivity to detail, promotes self-reflection, facilitates the exploration and examination of ideas and one’s particular understanding of them. It also promotes critical
reflection and learning to handle differences of opinion effectively and insightfully. Thus, developing this competence serves both clients and counsellors in becoming more aware of their strengths and weaknesses in terms of: linguistic proficiency, reading comprehension, cultural awareness, critical thinking capacities. Our lead question in this brief research into
the art of hermeneutics inquires into what it takes to assess, to challenge and to develop one’s interpretive capacity. We formulate a brief theoretical guide to interpretation work, with the aid of relevant reference literature, and then, as a practical example, we present a philosophical group experience in which we explore stoic ideas, making use of interpretation skills, through reading, group consultation and self-consultation. Our findings are meant to inspire and support practitioners in facilitating such interpretive exercises and, while doing so, in dealing with the obstacles and problems that may arise in the way people interpret ancient texts and ideas, all while acknowledging various expressive manifestations of their ancient and contemporary interlocutors.

International Journal of Philosophical Practice, 2023

The Community of Inquiry is a pragmatic philosophy concept by John Dewey (1916) representing a &q... more The Community of Inquiry is a pragmatic philosophy concept by John Dewey (1916) representing a "social, cognitive and teaching presence" in a process of collaborative research and learning experience. This article is meant to present a case study based on the experience of forming a community of inquiry with students of a Romanian university. The report will include aspects like: the process of group forming and group facilitation to foster collaborative critical thinking, a few philosophical methods that aimed the consolidation of the group as a community of learning and inquiry as well as the training of individual critical thinking, self-reflective posture and openness to otherness. Results reveal students' initial preoccupations with certainty and difficulties in self expression at the beginning of the semester and presented increasingly more attitudes characteristic to collaborative learning and inquiry by the end of the semester, which is probably an effect of de...

Interdisciplinary Research in Counseling, Ethics and Philosophy - IRCEP

Current research into philosophical practice and consultancy tends to be mostly focused on the pr... more Current research into philosophical practice and consultancy tends to be mostly focused on the professionalization of this activity. A large body of reference literature describes methods of working philosophically with people of various ages and belonging to various contexts. The present article brings a contribution to a less addressed field of philosophical practice: askēsis – where individuals encounter and need to respond to their own resistances, difficulties and obstacles to performing philosophical practices as a way of life. Seeking ways to sustain challenging work with ourselves, this article proposes a method of applying askēsis and the gamification of philosophical practices within groups so as to maximize the chances of transforming potentially every human hardship situation into an opportunity for growth and self-transcendence. As an illustration of this view, the specific tasks, activities and results of a play-based philosophical workshop are presented in detail, as ...

Journal of Family Psychotherapy, 2014

The purposes of this article are to describe a program of training a pioneering group of family t... more The purposes of this article are to describe a program of training a pioneering group of family therapists in a developing country delivered by trainers from abroad, and discuss the benefits of such a project and the difficulties it encounters. The four-year Kosova Systemic Family Therapy Training Program is in the first half of its third year when these lines are being written. It is sponsored by the Kosova Health Foundation and carried out by an International Family Therapy Association-affiliated team of traveling trainers who come to Kosovo from various parts of the world. The trainers vary considerably in personality and theoretical orientations. The training includes five main components: An overview of the field, its history and its diverse theoretical orientations and approaches to practice, a wide scale systematic integration, skills development, personal development, and supervised practice. The training is conducted by short, in loco, direct-contact modules and by distance learning and supervision. Kosovo, formerly an semi-independent region in the south of Serbia and a part of Yugoslavia, populated mainly by Muslim Albanians, declared its independence in 2008, ten years after the culmination of a bitter war. Kosovo is now struggling with the after-effect of the war and with rapid social, demographic, and cultural changes running fast ahead of its political and economical development. The effects of all these changes on the functioning of families are dramatic. The goals of the training program are to train a first generation of family therapists who will hopefully serve the affected community and eventually prepare the next generation. So far, this has proved a rewarding, but by no means easy, task.

International Journal of Philosophical Practice, 2022

The article addresses a common difficulty of counselors in confronting clients with the problems ... more The article addresses a common difficulty of counselors in confronting clients with the problems in their thinking and behavior in a way that they could start benefiting from a constructive self-reflective state in the long run, a state that would replace the common tendency to hide oneself, to blame, to victimize or to repress aspects of their humanity connoted as negative in order to maintain a positive self image. The highlight is on the main characteristics of efficient confrontations with oneself and others, so as to engender reasoning competence training without an unnecessary loss in the quality of the consultative relationship. Working in psychotherapy and having progressively integrated more philosophical work into this professional practice, the author puts together a few concepts and ideas that are likely to facilitate the processes in the psychotherapeutic and the philosophical approaches to intrapsychic and interpersonal dialogue.

Interdisciplinary Research in Counseling, Ethics and Philosophy, 2022

The paper propose the idea that philosophical practice has a metaphoric dimension which reveals t... more The paper propose the idea that philosophical practice has a metaphoric dimension which reveals the human subject's cognitive biases and psychotherapeutic necessities. To support this claim, the focal point of author MA thesis in Philosophical Counseling and Consultancy was to consider metaphor from various perspectives: ontological, esthetic, epistemological, existential, social constructivist, ethical and practical. Throughout this theoretical task, was explored applications of metaphor in working towards people's health and wellbeing across the lifespan using an integrated metaphor-based approach in consultations, including philosophical practices and transactional analysis. This article shows various definitions of metaphor, descriptions of how we know through metaphor and what psychotherapy has implied along its history as a practice.

Interdisciplinary Research in Counseling, Ethics and Philosophy, 2023

Current research into philosophical practice and consultancy tends to be mostly focused on the pr... more Current research into philosophical practice and consultancy tends to be mostly focused on the professionalization of this activity. A large body of reference literature describes methods of working philosophically with people of various ages and belonging to various contexts. The present article brings a contribution to a less addressed field of philosophical practice: askēsis-where individuals encounter and need to respond to their own resistances, difficulties and obstacles to performing philosophical practices as a way of life. Seeking ways to sustain challenging work with ourselves, this article proposes a method of applying askēsis and the gamification of philosophical practices within groups so as to maximize the chances of transforming potentially every human hardship situation into an opportunity for growth and self-transcendence. As an illustration of this view, the specific tasks, activities and results of a play-based philosophical workshop are presented in detail, as well as the response of the participants to them, including: positive feedback, increase in motivation for participating and enjoyment of the practice despite the difficulties associated with askēsis.

International Journal of Philosophical Practice, 2023

The Community of Inquiry is a pragmatic philosophy concept by John Dewey (1916) representing a "s... more The Community of Inquiry is a pragmatic philosophy concept by John Dewey (1916) representing a "social, cognitive and teaching presence" in a process of collaborative research and learning experience. This article is meant to present a case study based on the experience of forming a community of inquiry with students of a Romanian university. The report will include aspects like: the process of group forming and group facilitation to foster collaborative critical thinking, a few philosophical methods that aimed the consolidation of the group as a community of learning and inquiry as well as the training of individual critical thinking, self-reflective posture and openness to otherness. Results reveal students' initial preoccupations with certainty and difficulties in self expression at the beginning of the semester and presented increasingly more attitudes characteristic to collaborative learning and inquiry by the end of the semester, which is probably an effect of deliberately setting up a specific group culture to facilitate this goal.

This paper represents an attempt to integrate several approaches to family therapy and parenting... more This paper represents an attempt to integrate several approaches to family therapy and parenting practices into a unified perspective and its multiple implications for both types of contexts, based on the assumption that good parents and therapists have a lot in common. We are going to explore these two roles and their complementarities in recent scientific reference literature as well as in our own and our supervisors’ counseling and therapeutic practice. We are going to reflect critically about de old moral consensus in the definition of and expectative from therapists and parents, considering the impact and implication of changing paradigms and values, from authority of a view or another towards the active co-creation of meaning. We expect that integrating values such as integrity, personal responsibility, authenticity and equal dignity in the therapeutic process and family life is likely to lead to therapeutic, life-changing effects, yet these concepts although widely accepted and relatively easy to define, do not seem equally easy to implement, given some factors that we will also analyze here. New approaches to the integration of these concepts in day to day therapist client and family relationships, as well as perspectives on the role of parents and therapists are envisioned in this paper.
KEYWORDS: family dynamics, family therapy, change, values, paradigmatic shifts, relations of equal dignity

Începând cu anul 2008, Centrul Regional de Integrală Socială şi Dezvoltară Umană Areopagus a ofer... more Începând cu anul 2008, Centrul Regional de Integrală Socială şi Dezvoltară Umană Areopagus a oferit persoanelor private de libertate din cadrul Penitenciarului din Timişoara o serie de servicii cu caracter educativ, de autocunoaştere şi dezvoltare personală, cu valenţe terapeutice. Proiectul s-a desfăşurat cu aportul câtorva psihologi înscrişi la cursul intermediar de terapie familială şi practică sistemică organizat de Institutul de Terapie Familială şi Practică Sistemică Areopagus. Clădind pe experienţa practică oferită de acest proiect, lucrarea de faţă caută să pună în evidenţă câteva fundamente teoretice, misiunea, viziunea şi valorile care stau la baza elaborării şi desfăşurării unui astfel de program, dar şi câteva dintre activităţile şi exerciţiile folosite cu succes. Rezultatele obţinute, cât şi cele neobţinute, dezvăluie numeroase aspecte ecologice de care orice intervenţie cu caracter inderdisciplinar trebuie să ţină cont pentru a-şi asigura eficienţa: variabile biologice, psihologice, sociale, culturale, economice, instituţionale şi contextuale – co-determină natura relaţiei profesioniştilor cu grupul ţintă, precum şi efectul real al intervenţiilor planificate.

Cuvinte cheie: Interdisciplinaritate, practică sistemică, perspectivă ecologică, reabilitare, persoane private de libertate

Prezenta lucrare conceputa in cadrul disciplinei "Biopsihosociologia comportamentului deviant" di... more Prezenta lucrare conceputa in cadrul disciplinei "Biopsihosociologia comportamentului deviant" din anul 4 de psihologie la Universitatea din Porto, se doreste a fi un exercitiu de explorare, reflectie si integrare a abordarilor teoretice si a modalitatilor de aplicare a acestora in studiul fenomenului adictiv. Tema complexa a dependentei de droguri este pentru noi ca studenti cercetatori o oportunitate de-a reflecta asupra paradoxului integrativ conform caruia suntem in acelasi timp fiinte libere si fiinte determinate - si cautam sa aprofundam studiul capacitatii de alegere si decizie a fiintei umane ca sistem care este nu numai heterodeterminata (de circumstante, experienta de viata, trasaturi si abilitati personale, influente genetice, sociale si culturale, etc) ci si autodeterminata, dupa cum pune in evidenta modelul autopoietic, cautand sa concluzionam asupra posibilitatilor unui individ in termeni de libertate de dezvoltare si alegere in ciuda complexitatii si strictetii heterodeterminarii lui precum si asupra posibilitatilor profesionistilor din domeniul reabilitarii de-a cauta sa potenteze liberul arbitru si de a folosi conceptul de auto-determinare si in elaborarea strategiilor de reabilitare a persoanei care sufera de adictie.

West University of Timisoara, 2021

The choice of pursuing a Master Program in Philosophical Counseling and Consultancy was motivated... more The choice of pursuing a Master Program in Philosophical Counseling and Consultancy was motivated by my intention to reflect philosophically about my profession of systemic family psychotherapist and by my wish to acquire a set of practical skills that I could include in my professional activity-working with clients to stimulate their thinking, as well as gaining the capacity to examine my own work through critical and philosophical self-consultation. Philosophical practice shares a lot in common with psychotherapy and is in many ways the opposite of psychotherapy. Philosophical practice can have a psychotherapeutic effect as well as a destabilizing one, which raises an important question about what made the difference in how this type of counseling impacted clients' lives. Because of my prior trainings in symbolic-experiential and play psychotherapy, I took upon myself to examine the hypothesis that, although the process of philosophical consultation tends to follow specific patterns of systematic work, it actually determines a unique experience that bears symbolic meanings to the participants and therefore it is sometimes, for some, therapeutic and sometimes, for others or for the same ones, traumatizing. Thus the objective of my thesis became to undertake a philosophical examination of the very notion of psychotherapy, with special emphasis on metaphor, since the construction and deconstruction of client world-views take place within a relational dialogue that is meaningful to both clients and counselors in ways we should be able to understand. The consultation room is a metaphoric space in which the clients enact their conceptions of themselves and others, where the conversation can support philosophical discussions about anything while performatively it reflects and triggers meaningful symbolic experiences of the client's life. By learning to work with both metaphor and common sense, increasingly more of what we call therapeutic effect becomes accessible to our understanding, whether we are therapists, counselors or clients.