Is autumn a good time for online psychotherapy?
Autumn is a transitional period during which the level of light, temperature, and weather change. Our bodies react differently, we also need a different diet, a different length of sleep. It is difficult to immediately respond to the cold and the passage of summer, which quickly accustomed us to experiencing the richness of bloom, warmth, pleasure, light and security. It seems that by losing these elements with the new season, we can also lose our sense of security on a completely unconscious level. It also often happens that the attitude to work changes. After the holidays, we also often make planned changes. Autumn is therefore the time when we adapt to changes in general, because even culturally this is how we have a calendar arranged in terms of, for example, education.
It seems that in order to take up such challenges, it is necessary to work through the structures that hinder openness to change in a given period. And this is where such a phenomenon and even a diagnostic unit such as seasonal depression appears. Its intensity does not have to be high to make it difficult to cope with a decrease in mood and a decrease in strength.
The level of physical activity also decreases, and avoiding stimuli causes a kind of isolation, the need to hide. This makes room for a return to the past — to what was alive before, including resentments and sorrows.
What else can appear during such a period?
We often return to our memories, relatives, as well as to what we have lost — lost opportunities and relationships. Sitting under a blanket with tea and a book, all this can come back to us with redoubled strength. It is also a longing, an awareness of many unexplained matters. If we are alone, there may be mood swings, fears and returns to crises and memories of traumas. There is also no way to vent these emotions, a walk does not always bring relief at this time of year.
This is the moment when we look for support. And it is worth looking for it, it is also worth talking about what hurts and what needs to be repaired, so that such conditions do not return with redoubled force.
Working with loss in systemic psychotherapy:
From the perspective of systemic psychotherapy, loss, which also concerns people who have truly passed away, is an important element of the system, which, however, is no longer introduced at the level of relationships, e.g. in the genogram. We do not draw a relationship with the loss, unless it is absolutely necessary and it depends only on the approach or decision of the psychotherapist.
Symbolically, it makes a lot of sense. The loss is signaled, its cause is also marked, while at the level of the relationship we leave only the elements alive for a given system or a given person.
The system knows and recognizes the loss, has learned it and opens up to new dependencies.
We talk about losses during online psychotherapy, learn to say goodbye to them, and also sublimate them in some way through art therapy, meditation, and work on emotions. We can open up to the pain associated with them, and close it.
In systemic psychotherapy, deceased people are also an important topic for self-knowledge and knowledge about the family system. It can also happen that the deceased become closer to us than when they were alive. After some time, the relationship achieves peace, a good memory trace remains. It can also happen that someone manages to forgive only after a few decades. It is possible that returning to the cemetery is this job, a confrontation with the feeling for the deceased.
It happens that we finally see a person and the stories associated with them, realizing how important it is that they were. We noted it as an element of our own narrative and family and social system. After all, we can see who is remembered.
All Saints’ Day is therefore a social event, not only a religious one. The deceased is a figure, a trace, a story, a resource, and a teacher. How many memories does it generate if we were connected to someone regardless of our worldview or religion.
Similarly, a loss or defeat can be a figure or an element of the system that has no way to warm it up by signaling it on a genogram. It remains as a figure in terms of meaning, it is difficult to have a good relationship with it or an attitude towards it. It is a lesson and an opportunity to work so that it does not affect other decisions in life.
To sum up, let’s see how much can happen during the season itself, such as autumn — how much it can determine difficult experiences. Especially those that naturally happen on an individual, professional or emotional level, when confronted with loneliness or sometimes as a result of reflection, emotional returns to loved ones and losses in general. For others, it is a time of challenges and a different approach to time, and simply a space for online psychotherapy aimed at supporting self-development and self-knowledge.
I cordially invite you
Paulina Kubś, MA
Interventional Systemic-Cultural Psychotherapy Clinic
