The PRISMA Method

After years working in psycho-oncology, I have observed one constant: each of us is a unique ecosystem, made up of biology, the culture we belong to, family, society and experience.

These elements do not simply add up. They interact, giving rise to unique ways of responding to the same event: an illness, a change, growing older.

In a complex system, what counts is not only what happens, but how that event meets what was already there.

Out of these interactions comes something that no single element, taken on its own, could predict: a kind of personal code through which we approach specific moments in life.

PRISMA is a method for identifying that code.

Psychology, neuroscience and the study of the mind-body connection now offer scientifically sound techniques and approaches, usable during or after a course of treatment, or at the various turning points of life.

But how can we tell which approach is likely to work best for one particular person?

Take an example: someone may face an illness through a code strongly oriented towards action, challenge and control, close — to borrow an image — to that of the warrior.

A relaxation technique may well be scientifically valid, and still fall short of its full effect for that person, because it does not match the way they are living that experience.

Knowing what works is not enough. We need to understand who it works for.

PRISMA grew out of psycho-oncology, from experience alongside people who, while going through similar diagnoses and similar treatments, may face them in profoundly different ways.

It took shape in a setting where attention to personalised care pathways is becoming ever more central.

No. PRISMA does not replace a course of psychotherapy.

If we picture psychotherapy as a beam of light able to illuminate a person in all their complexity, PRISMA uses a light focused on one specific moment or chapter of life, working to make legible the code through which that person is approaching a particular experience. A prism separates light into its parts.

PRISMA looks at the deep structures that emerge from the way a person narrates and builds their own experience.

It does so through the analysis of language, psychological instruments, structured interviews and what we know from the study of the mind-body connection.