Vitality: Psychotherapy, Anthropology and Spirituality in Dialogue

This article intends to bring attention to the spiritual dimension as an essential aspect of vitality and, simultaneously, to bring out this dimension as a fundamental element of care. The text thus becomes a scenario in which several voices and views of the world in-tertwine. It will be surprising to note how a subtle thread can be picked up between the various interlocutors. The main goal of this dialogue is to describe vitality having in mind the complexity of this human dimension and how different epistemologies can contrib-ute to a common background within different disciplines. The voices will be those of a Gestalt psychotherapist, two anthropologists, and a spir-itual guide who will explore the complexity, meaning, and care of vitality. Cultural an-thropologists, Stefania Consigliere and Stefano Boni, help us to understand and place the concepts of vitality and spirituality in the contemporary context. Cultural anthropology studies the different ways in which human beings have created practices of care and meaning. The exploration of further worlds gives us an idea of spirituality as something pre-individual that we could call the action of the immaterial. The talk by Salvatore Greco, Gestalt psychotherapist, brings back the anthropological vision of Gestalt therapy and the idea of vitality as the founders understood it and as it has developed into the clinical practice of our approach. Important is the bridge that connects vitality to spiritu-ality, and attention to the spiritual life can be considered a form of healing. Finally, the Maya Ixil spiritual guide, Henry Herrera, helps us to understand from another cultural perspective the interconnections between healing practices and spirituality. Another aspect that is made clear in the interventions is that rather than talking about spirituality, it would be important to use the term sacred by considering it as an aspect of the human that seems to have liquefied in contemporary society. Connected to the con-cept of the sacred is also that of enchantment, that is, the wonder we can feel when we feel connected to each other, and this experience helps us enter a transcendental dimen-sion. These are also important dimensions for psychotherapy. What is presented can be considered a good starting point to stimulate theoretical and clinical research within our community, but also to open us up to dialogue with other disciplines and knowledge.

Keywords: Vitality, psychotherapy, anthropology, spirituality, phenomenology.

Stefano Boni, Stefania Consigliere, Salvatore Greco, Henry Herrera, Giulia Nora Pappalardo, Luca Pino, Vitalità: psicoterapia, antropologia e spiritualità a confronto in "QUADERNI DI GESTALT" 2/2023, pp 11-28, DOI: 10.3280/GEST2023-002002