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Moonias! Moonias! (White Man White Man) the children screeched as I stood outside their home on the Maskwacis First Nations Reservation.  As a Community Social Worker, I had been summoned to investigate a child abuse allegation.  I was twenty-two years old and it had...

History is not just fact and events. History is also a pain in the heart and we repeat history until we are able to make another’s pain in the heart our own. Julius Lester

It’s easier being in each other’s presence, or in each other’s absence than in the constant presence of each other’s absence. – Gianpiero Petriglieri

Though the author scripted his insight in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, he confers upon us a depth of wisdom for all times. It is not unusual in our practices where two people can gather together in a room and no one is present. Too much therapy is conducted “in the constant presence of each other’s absence.” The challenge in working relationally and dynamically is, that at its core, one must “show up.” We are not detached experts. Rather, elemental to our work is tendering our essential “I” for the potential space of “we” – a truly present, genuine encounter of the other. This does not mean that all meetings are “meetings” but it does mean that we are doing our best to not be absent in our presence.

People come to therapy because they have lost their imaginations, their playfulness, their vitality. Their lives are hidden behind shame and desperation. Their ability to find hope in the midst of suffering is compromised and they have ceased to find creative ways to manage their psychic pain and their despair of disconnectedness from others…