ARTICLE
From March 2020 to March 2021 - psychotherapists about working in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Collective autoethnography
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Uniwersytet Jagielloński, Wydział Zarządzania i Komunikacji Społecznej, Instytut Psychologii Stosowanej
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Szpital Uniwersytecki w Krakowie, Odział Kliniczny Psychiatrii Dorosłych Dzieci i Młodzieży, Zespół Leczenia Środowiskowego Dzieci i Młodzieży, Ambulatorium Terapii Rodzin
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Uniwersytet Jagielloński Collegium Medicum, Klinika Psychiatrii Dzieci i Młodzieży, Pracownia Psychologii i Psychoterapii Systemowej
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Krakowska Akademia im. Frycza Modrzewskiego, Wydział Lekarski i Nauk o Zdrowiu
Submission date: 2021-03-31
Final revision date: 2021-06-02
Acceptance date: 2021-07-01
Publication date: 2021-10-03
Psychoter 2021;197(2):9-27
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ABSTRACT
The incentive to write the article was to record the work experiences of a psychotherapists’ team in an exceptional time from March 2020 to March 2021. Psychotherapists who, without planning it beforehand, left their offices and sat in front of the screens, took a quick IT course and participated, together with their patients, in a great experiment: Psychotherapy in the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors used the Collective Autoethnography method to collect and develop the research material. It is a qualitative research method, appropriate for the exploration of new social phenomena that evoke strong emotions and affect both individuals and groups. The research has shown that both, adaptation to work in the pandemic and return to offices are processual in nature, varying in pace and rhythm individually (for patients and psychotherapists). The emergence of transgression, i.e., a creative transformation of thinking, acting and environment, requires a favorable context, in which the key is the team support. In online psychotherapy, we collect different types of information about families and individual patients, requiring adjustment of developing and understanding of setting and contract. Introducing online psychotherapy to a greater extent than it was before the pandemic will allow us to use this way of treatment for those people, who found it unavailable or difficult to access. Opening up to consultations in a team, a wider environment and interdisciplinary work of psychotherapists is a supporting factor in the processes of adaptation and transgression. Remote work involves physical and mental overload of psychotherapists, hence additional attention needs to be paid to supervision and personal comfort.