Atmospheric Landscapes Felt Spaces and Clinical Configurations

Introduction

Gianni Francesetti, Michela Gecele and Tonino Griffero

1. The Density of the Present Moment: Clinical Implications of Atmospheric Perception

Pietro Sarasso and Gianni Francesetti

2. Intimately Alien: Understanding Psychopathologies Emergent of Uncanny Atmospheres

Miek van Dongen

3. Atmospheres and Body-to-body Communications

Julianne Appel-Opper

4. The Human Condition: Presence, Pathos, and Resonance

Veronica Iubei

5. Illness, Disease, and Death as Embodied Atmospheres

Michael Craig Clemmens

6. “The Vibe Is Off”: The Role of Crossmodal Perception in Atmospheric Qualities and Online Psychotherapy

Daniel Vespermann and Thomas Fuchs

7. Rural Atmospheres and Embodied Sensitivity in Therapy: Transforming Cultural Legacies

Piergiulio Poli

8. “Endoscopic Listening”: A Technical Monitoring Tool of the Psychotherapeutic Field Atmosphere

Giorgio Nespoli and Fabio Rivara

9. The Pathic Atmosphere in Psychiatric Emergencies

Raffaele Vanacore, Gilberto Di Petta and Danilo Tittarelli

10. Theater Atmospheres: Hysteria and Visibility

Cecilia Maria Esposito, Helene Cæcilie Mørck, Veronica Boniotti and Giovanni Stanghellini

11. The Thin Red Line: Aberrant Salience as an Atmospherological Challenge to Introjectivist Psychopathology and Psychotherapy

Andrea Patti

12. Atmospheres and Autism

Sofie Boldsen

Biography

Gianni Francesetti is a psychiatrist, Gestalt psychotherapist, and Adjunct Professor at the Department of Psychology, University of Turin (Italy). He is an international trainer and supervisor and co-director of the International Institute for Phenomenological Psychopathology and Gestalt Therapy as well as of the Turin School of Psychopathology. He is also a co-founder of the International Gestalt Federation.

Michela Gecele is a psychiatrist and Gestalt psychotherapist. She previously coordinated a psychological and psychiatric service for immigrants in Turin. She is an international trainer and supervisor and co-director of the International Institute for Phenomenological Psychopathology and Gestalt Therapy as well as of the Turin School of Psychopathology. She is also a co-founder of the International Gestalt Federation.

Tonino Griffero is full Professor of Aesthetics (Tor Vergata, Rome), editor of book series (Sensibilia, Atmospheric Spaces) and the e-journal Lebenswelt. Recent books: Atmospheres: Aesthetics of Emotional Spaces (2014), Quasi-Things: The Paradigm of Atmospheres (2017), Places, Affordances, Atmospheres: A Pathic Aesthetics (2019), The Atmospheric “We”: Moods and Collective Feelings (2021), Being a Lived Body. From a Neo-Phenomenological Point of View (2024). Recent co-editions: & G. Moretti, Atmosphere/Atmospheres: Testing a New Paradigm (2018), & G. Francesetti, Psychopathology and Atmospheres: Neither Inside nor Outside (2019), & M. Tedeschini Atmospheres and Aesthetics: A Plural Perspective (2019).

“This volume represents a main achievement in contemporary European thought, successfully bridging the traditionally disparate fields of neo-phenomenological philosophy and clinical psychotherapy […] This volume is a quintessential example of the vitality of European thought. It draws upon a rich lineage—including Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Schmitz, and Bion—to address modern crises […] “Atmospheric Landscapes” is more than a textbook; it is a manifesto for a more “pathic”, embodied, and relational understanding of the human condition. It reinstates the importance of “the vague” and the “indeterminate” in a world increasingly obsessed with clinical objectivity” […] I have no doubt that this work will become a seminal reference point for philosophers, clinicians, and scholars of “ambiance” across the continent and beyond. It is a work of immense intellectual courage that reminds us that “there is nothing so practical as a good theory”.”

-Bruce Bégout, directeur de SPH, Professeur des universités Philosophie-phénoménologie, Université Bordeaux-Montaigne.

“As Gestalt therapy continues to evolve, an exciting center of theoretical and methodological development has emerged in Italy, influenced by the work of Gianni Francesetti, MD, and Michela Gecele, MD, who co-edited this volume with Professor Tonino Griffero. With its focus on atmospheres, this book brings together leading Gestalt therapy voices offering reflections across many areas of interest, including psychotherapy, theater, psychiatric emergency, fiction, child development, and beyond. This consideration of atmospheres broadens the Gestalt therapist’s way of being and attending, providing new modes of understanding and new avenues of connection. I highly recommend this important volume.”

-Peter Cole, LCSW, Sierra Institute for Contemporary Gestalt Therapy; Berkeley, California, USA.

“The introduction alone is worth the price of this book! A rich, clear, humane discourse on therapy that will lift your sights and hearts, and cannot help but enrich your capacities as a therapist and a fellow human.”

-Lynne Jacobs, PhD, Dir. Pacific Gestalt Institute, Los Angeles, USA.