A Sightless World – Readdressing Sight-Loss with Some Merleau-Ponty Ideas – PAULO RIBEIRO – 28th of July 2020 @ 6 pm to 8 pm.

A Sightless World – Readdressing Sight-Loss with Some Merleau-Ponty Ideas

Paulo Ribeiro

Paulo is an existential psychotherapist currently working for Headstrong Counselling, an extremely busy low-cost therapy service in London, where he sees clients with complex presentations, mostly personality disorders, major depression and anxiety and gender identity. Before that, Paulo worked for the RNIB – Royal National Institute for Blind People and for Hammersmith and Fulham Mind.

Paulo holds a BA in Social Communication, a Master’s in Integrative Counselling and Psychotherapy and he is at present finishing an advanced diploma in Existential psychotherapy at Regent’s School of Psychology and Psychotherapy.

Blindness and psychotherapy have been present in Paulo’s life for a few years. Paulo lost his sight six years ago, and in the process of his rehabilitation, and through his therapeutic work, Paulo discovered that embodiment speaks in many ways in a therapeutic encounter.

In this talk, Paulo will be sharing a bit of his life and the process of his rehabilitation as a sightless psychotherapist and how he found out, through the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, that our body speaks in many ways where vision, and visibility, in  their absence, open a world of new possibilities to a being-in-the-world. He will emphasise the process of his rehabilitation and re-engagement with the world through some Maurice Merleau-Ponty ideas such as body intentionality and the concepts of concrete and abstract movements.

Paulo believes that our current situation with the Corona virus, where the embodied aspect of therapy has transitioned from body encounter to digital encounter, mirror, to some extent, a phenomenon present between client and therapist when technology replaces physicality – i.e. phone sessions, online sessions.

At the RNIB, Paulo counselled individuals  affected by sight-loss over the phone. He will be sharing his experience during this time.

This event will take place on Zoom. A link will be sent prior to the date.

A 2-hours Certificate of Attendance will be emailed to participants.