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Conference Agenda

Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).

Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 15th Sept 2026, 12:30:22pm EEST

Daily Overview

Session

Symposium 14
Location: Amphitheatre II (KEDEA)

Presentation 1

Learning through Live Session Observation, the Genogram and the Training Group : Dialogical Spaces, Polyphony, and the Development of Therapist Identity

Chair(s): Kia Thanopoulou (Family Therapy Unit, Integrated Mental Health Care Unit of Attica)

Discussant(s): Georgia Gkandona (University of Ioannina)

This symposium explores therapist training as a dialogical , reflexive and polyphonic process hilighting how observation, narrative processes and intergenerational meaning making contribute to the development of professional identity. Drawing on dialogical self theory, systemic perspectives, and psychoanalytic notions of thirdness, the symposium conceptualizes live session observations, the genogram and the training group as dialogical spaces where multiple self-positions, relational voices, and polyphony emerges.

Live observations of family or couple therapy sessions introduces a spatial form of thirdness, allowing trainees to observe therapy while simultaneously attending to their own emotional, ethical, and relational responses. The genogram introduces a temporal and intergenerational form of thirdness, activating voices, loyalties, absences, and repetitions that shape both personal and professional identities, including awareness of the trainee’s own vulnerabilities and wounded aspects. The training group provides a collective reflective space where trainees can share experiences, engage in dialogue, navigate ethical and relational tensions, and cultivate meta-positions, reflexivity, relational presence, and ethical awareness.

Together, these training modalities support the internalization of reflective meta-positions, enabling trainees to navigate complex relational and intergenerational dynamics with sensitivity, while fostering the development of a flexible, ethically attuned, and dialogically competent therapeutic identity.

Presentations of the Symposium

Observing Live Therapy Sessions as a Dialogical Space of Reflexivity

Christina Kounatiadou,¹; Valentini Patsea²; Elena Kollia³
1: Family Therapy Unit, Greece; 2: First Department of Psychiatry, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA); 3: Private Practice

This presentation examines live therapy session observation as a spatial form of thirdness that transforms observation into an active dialogical process. Drawing on trainees’ narratives, it explores processes of emotional activation, ethical tension, and embodied reflexivity. Live session observation is conceptualized as a form of external thirdness, supporting the emergence of a meta-position, from which trainees can reflect on their responses, identifications, and internal dialogues without intervening in the tharapeutic process.

Through this observational position, trainees develop increased awareness of their emotional, cognitive, and ethical reactions while witnessing therapy in action, cultivating the capacity to tolerate ambiguity and complexity within relational dynamics. The observational setting enables trainees to experience closeness and distance simultaneously, fostering reflexivity, ethical sensitivity, and dialogical presence. In this way, live session observation functions not as a neutral or detached stance but as a generative dialogical space that contributes to the development of professional identity

The Genogram as a Dialogical Experience: Self-Positions and Polyphony in the Training of Therapists

Kia Thanopoulou¹; Valentini Patsea²; Thalis Boutsiarakos³
1: Family Therapy Unit; 2: First Department of Psychiatry, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA); 3: Department of Psychology, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences

The genogram constitutes a core tool in systemic psychotherapy, particularly within the training of therapists, as it facilitates the exploration of family relationships, transgenerational patterns, and narrative meanings. Conceptualized as a temporal form of thirdness, the genogram activates internal and external voices, internalized others, and transgenerational meaning inviting trainees to re-author family narratives and to navigate tensions between multiple self – positions, fostering reflective, flexible and polyphonic therapeutic identities. Through this dialogical process, trainees move toward more reflective , flexible and polyphonic configurations of therapeutic identity, enhancing their capacity to tolerate complexity and intergenerational resonance .

The Role of the Training Group in the Dialogical and Reflective Development of Therapist Trainee Identity

Anna Maria Barlogianni¹; Elena Kollia²
1: Psychiatric Hospital of Attica; 2: Private Practice

Τhis presentation highlights the central role of the training group in the development of therapist trainee identity conseptualized as a community of practice within which trainees apprentice in the art of the therapist .Over time the group is experienced as a safe and reflective space of experience, thought, and meaning-making, one that remains open and continuously co-constructed by its participants, and within which what takes place actively shapes and transforms who trainees are becoming. Within the group, trainees engage in a collective reflective space that supports observation, dialogue, and experiential learning. The group setting allows participants to navigate ethical and relational tensions, integrate personal and professional experiences, and cultivate meta-positions, reflexivity, and relational presence.