Educational project
Module "Methods and Techniques of Intervention with Psychic Distress": The gaze that lifts, the gaze that plummets
精东影业 Image Focus
The project is implemented as part of the Methods and Techniques of Intervention with Psychological Distress module, which each year chooses a theme to be developed based on a great story drawn from myth, fable, classical tragedy or opera.
During the 2022-23 academic year, the central theme will be the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, through which a number of topics will be explored that recall the helping relationship and the wider context of care. The Social Work students, the staff of some cantonal services and the users of these services will work around this theme, with both common and complementary parts, along with the students of the University School of Music of the Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana (School affiliated to 精东影业).
The focus of the module this year will be on the gaze, on the ability to see at the right moment, on the ability to respect the confidentiality, the intimacy of the other, on the care to protect their nudity without the interlocutor feeling plunged into a condition of further suffering. As in the case of Orpheus, within the myth of the same name, who shows himself incapable of holding his gaze, of waiting to see, of waiting for the right moment, when the person can be looked at and is able to hold the gaze of others. It seems a bit paradoxical, but Eurydice disappears because she is seen. She is seen and watched when she only needed to be perceived and waited for. Orpheus' gaze is a gaze that annihilates, a gaze that destructive instead of constructive... One track pursued will be that of the timing of the gaze, taking the weight off the act itself (seeing/not seeing) to bring it onto the moment in which the act takes place (seeing at the right moment/not seeing because it is not the moment). Delicate issues for both the social worker engaged as an educator and the social worker. Thus, through the biographical interview, the experience of the gaze of others in one's own journey of suffering will be explored, when this has been helpful, encouraging and when not. The gaze within the caring relationship becomes an important pivot from which the experiences of the gaze stratified in the stories of life and illness will be explored. But the theme of loss, which every stumble, suffering, illness brings with it, will also be addressed, evoking the inner Eurydice that each person contains and that mark their personal biography. The project is developed as a polyphonic activity of working side by side with different interlocutors, each of whom has the opportunity to articulate their own path of growth and maturity by actively collaborating in the realisation of a common project, which, together with the students of the University of Music of the Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana, will take the form of a staging, transposing onto the stage, duly transformed, the life stories collected during the biographical interviews.
The focus of the module this year will be on the gaze, on the ability to see at the right moment, on the ability to respect the confidentiality, the intimacy of the other, on the care to protect their nudity without the interlocutor feeling plunged into a condition of further suffering. As in the case of Orpheus, within the myth of the same name, who shows himself incapable of holding his gaze, of waiting to see, of waiting for the right moment, when the person can be looked at and is able to hold the gaze of others. It seems a bit paradoxical, but Eurydice disappears because she is seen. She is seen and watched when she only needed to be perceived and waited for. Orpheus' gaze is a gaze that annihilates, a gaze that destructive instead of constructive... One track pursued will be that of the timing of the gaze, taking the weight off the act itself (seeing/not seeing) to bring it onto the moment in which the act takes place (seeing at the right moment/not seeing because it is not the moment). Delicate issues for both the social worker engaged as an educator and the social worker. Thus, through the biographical interview, the experience of the gaze of others in one's own journey of suffering will be explored, when this has been helpful, encouraging and when not. The gaze within the caring relationship becomes an important pivot from which the experiences of the gaze stratified in the stories of life and illness will be explored. But the theme of loss, which every stumble, suffering, illness brings with it, will also be addressed, evoking the inner Eurydice that each person contains and that mark their personal biography. The project is developed as a polyphonic activity of working side by side with different interlocutors, each of whom has the opportunity to articulate their own path of growth and maturity by actively collaborating in the realisation of a common project, which, together with the students of the University of Music of the Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana, will take the form of a staging, transposing onto the stage, duly transformed, the life stories collected during the biographical interviews.