Vol. 3 No. 2 (2021): July - December 2021
Research hypotheses

Autism: parental difficulties and Integrated Gestalt Intervention

Lorena Vincenza Perrone
SiPGI - Postgraduate School of Integrated Gestalt Psychotherapy, Trapani, Italy
Claudia Tornetta
SiPGI - Postgraduate School of Integrated Gestalt Psychotherapy, Trapani, Italy

Published 2021-07-13

How to Cite

Perrone, L. V., & Tornetta, C. (2021). Autism: parental difficulties and Integrated Gestalt Intervention. Phenomena Journal - International Journal of Psychopathology, Neuroscience and Psychotherapy, 3(2), 23–33. https://doi.org/10.32069/pj.2021.2.118

Abstract

The hypothesis that we intend to confirm through this article is that parental support, in the case of families in which a person with an autism spectrum disorder is inserted, is fundamental and requires integrated treatment to ensure the success of the various interventions, including cognitive and behavioral, proposed to these subjects and presented as electives. A questionnaire was constructed to survey the parental difficulties in adapting and adhering to the cognitive behavioral treatments of their children with autism spectrum disorder. An investigation was launched by administering it to the parents of children with autism who follow a cognitive behavioral treatment, which requires a modification of the home environment and daily routine to adhere to the intervention plan, with the aim of deepening and detecting any possible difficulties these parents face in following the therapists' directions. The analysis of the data collected would allow us to confirm the presence of difficulties in the management and implementation of the strategies proposed by the cognitive-behavioral treatments and that this could negatively influence the outcome of the treatment. The proposal of an integrated Gestalt intervention provides for constant parental support from the psychotherapist and an openness and greater flexibility of the treatments tailored to the patient, taking into account the parental difficulties in supporting the child's therapy, becoming an integral part of it, fundamental for the good successful. Parents suffer and experience frustration at their inability to manage their children. Their suffering becomes, in a Gestalt frame, a suffering of the field and therefore also of the subject with autism who is inserted into it, who experiences it from a neurological point of view due to the pressures that the rigidity of the intervention requires and from a point of view of climate, environment and family system.

Keywords = parental support, integrated gestalt, autism