During the early days of coronavirus quarantine, my supervision students described a loss of their sense of presence;the capacity to "feel their patients" as they abruptly shifted their practices from meeting in person to online This article explores the moving-feeling foundation required for a developing presence as it emerges or is thwarted within both the child-parent and patient-therapist dyad Drawing on phenomenologists Edmund Husserl and Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, who theorized about the consequence of a kinesthetic foundation for receptivity, I here discuss how therapists can rediscover a sense of wonder, the prerequisite for developing presence in themselves and their patients, and in so doing, clear the obstacles that prevent each from receiving the other Experiential components illustrate how to enhance the experience of presence (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)
Developing presence online