THE VIRTUAL ROOM OF THERAPY IN DEVELOPMENTAL AGE. EXPERIENCES AND REFLECTIONS ON CHILD PSYCHOTHERAPY AT THE TIME OF COVID-19: CONTEXT, SETTING, TOOLS, IMAGERY AND CREATIVITY

Abstract

The age we are living in, with its own particular challenges, may seem like a time of bewilderment: SARS-Cov-2 Pandemic is changing our lives and also our way of working. Lockdown experience got us to face new challenges not only in our personal and family life, but also in our psychotherapy work. During this period, PC use and virtual meeting with our young patients have increased. It is a new method to stay with them that arouses a lot of questions. In this work we present some reflections about what children have experienced during the lockdown and what the impact it may have.
Individual Psychology cannot but start from the analysis of the situation in which we are. So, in the first part of the article, we analyze some scientific studies about psychological impact of lockdown on children and the effectiveness of online therapy with them. There are a lot of questions about this. How can I work with children imaginary through a screen? Is it possible? What kind of tools can I use to do this? In the second part of the article, we report the experience we share as a Child Therapy team in the Institute of Individual
Psychology “A. Adler”. We think that, as Individual Psychotherapists, we have to use our creative-Self to find innovative ways. We have tried to explain our work through some examples of individual therapy and also of group therapy