TILT – Therapeutic Innovations in Light of Technology
counsellor and whether they were written from the heart. This becomes particularly important in exactly the situations that Paul Silverman is describing during times of conflict, when there may be strong emotions being felt. Whilst the recipient of the email may not see the physical body language of the sender, they will receive the energetic expression of their emotion being felt through the words if this has not been dealt with in some way before writing.
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T I L T MAGAZ I N E MA y 2 0 1 1
Presence, like other qualities necessary for creating a therapeutic relationship, is hard to define and to describe. It is a feeling sense and cannot be directly taught (except in terms of focussing the senses on the ‘here and now’) but it is recognised as soon as it is experienced.
Here I have tried to describe my own experience of presence online, and my beliefs that our words carry much more than a simple expression of language when they are focussed and targeted to a known or named person.
About the author Joy Waddington is a counsellor who was, until recently, working for a small UK company supporting people who have experienced trauma. She is currently in the process of developing her own online and face to face work using Therapeutic Writing and Journal Therapy. She lives in North Yorkshire, England.