Becoming an emergency psychologist: Alterity and presence in a comprehensive not-knowing relationship

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the fundamental aspects of training and intervention processes of professionals intending to work in emergency psychological services. Based on a person-centered approach and phenomenology, we consider the psychologist’s openness and presence in the relationship as fundamental to dealing with their own alterity and the alterity of the patient seeking help. We highlight empathy as a way for psychologists to make themselves present and available to decenter and focus on the other. This decentralization can only occur if the psychologist can connect to the present and to what is occurring with themselves, with the other, and especially with the relationship. We conclude, therefore, that emergency psychological service requires being open to the uniqueness of the present and putting the prescriptions of psychotherapy handbooks aside, although without denying them.