How to be a therapist in times of crisis and war? with Guus Klaren

How to be a therapist in times of crisis and war?

The urgent need to work on democratic resilience

Today we are facing wars in and on the boundaries of Europe, the attack on democratic rule of law and the rise of autocracies, hunderds of  thousands of people who have to flee of war or violence and repression because of ‘who they are’. Human dignity is increasingy under pressure. It calls us as (Gestalt)therapists to social responsibilty.

For decades, the democratic constitutional state has been taken for granted in the Western world. Generations grew up in freedom and gradually lost the awareness how fragile our democracy is. That it is a daily task to maintain and to creatively adjust to changing circumstances.

It is not without reason that human dignity –expressed in our ‘subject’ principle and basic attitude- is a core value within the Gestalt approach. Our founders were very…