Introduction

Vittorio Guidano (1944–1999) was a prominent Italian neuropsychiatrist and the creator of post-rationalist cognitive psychotherapy (non-classic cognitive approach) (PRCP). Since its inception, the model has emphasized how each individual interprets and ascribes personal meaning to their experiences, using the method of self-observation as a therapeutic tool, which constitutes a reality of primary importance for the individual (Guidano & Liotti, 1985). Since the mid-1980s, it has been argued that his work belongs in the context of the “cognitive revolution,” which has so far accounted for at least twenty-two modern varieties of models. His cognitive therapy was inscribed at that time as “constructivist cognitive therapy” (Mahoney & Lyddon, 1988), citing his works Cognitive Processes and Emotional Disorders (Guidano & Liotti, 1983), A Cognitive Outline of Cognitive Processes (Guidano, 1984) and Complexity of the Self (Guidano, 1987). This is important insofar as it shows that Guidano’s theoretical proposal was recognized early on by his peers. He was also valued and criticized by Albert Ellis, who stated that although his work made interesting additions to cognitive therapy, he regretted that he sometimes resorted to psychoanalytically oriented methods (Ellis, 1990).

Guidano (1995, 1997, 1998, 1999) develops a theoretical proposal about the development of the human being and how, through his life trajectory and, in connection with significant bonds, a stable and continuous sense of self is formed over time; however, the most innovative and interesting thing is how he manages to articulate a different, complex, modern and deep cognitive psychotherapy, considering among its central elements attachment theory and theory of mind (Barahona-Moore et al…, 2022; Bowlby, 1980, 1986, 1998; Fonagy & Target, 2002, Guidano & Liotti, 2006), ceasing to prioritize rationality and knowledge as an unequivocal representation of a real and external world, in order to emphasize a knowledge, that derives mainly from emotion (Aronsohn, 2001; Balbi, 1994; Guidano, 1995, 1997; Maturana, 1990). This new way of visualizing knowledge and the human being impacts on the elaboration of the psychotherapeutic proposal, emphasizing that people order reality in their personal experience in a self-referential way, such that therapeutic change implies a reordering of the immediate experience and the affects experienced in it; the assimilation of disturbing feelings requires changes in self-awareness and improvements in the patient’s understanding of the way he/she orders the flow of his/her experience, with the therapist becoming an emotional disturber in a strategic way, acting as a safe base for the patient, containing him/her, aiming to become a restorative link, allowing the patient to practice a healthier relational style (Guidano, 1994, 1995).

Since the 2000s, Guidano’s work has been mainly discussed in the Italian Revista di Psichiatria, in particular his “organization of personal meaning” construct, which plays a key role in his post-rationalist approach. To test it empirically, its validity has been analyzed through the development of psychometric studies through the application of the Personal Meaning Questionnaire (Picardi et al., 2003, 2004). This has made possible the advancement of subsequent developments (Mannino, 2005) and proposals that seek to reformulate his model of treatment by integrating the principles of phenomenology (Gaetano et al., 2015; Morales, 2009). Studies published in other journals have explored Guidano’s PRCP model and his reflection on the epistemological foundations linked to the self-organization movement (Pena & Oliveira, 2012). His sudden death left open several conceptual questions within the model (López-Silva & Otaíza-Morales, 2023); however, from the above it is possible to visualize the scarcity of studies concerning his itinerary and influences, although there are some exceptions (e.g., Barahona-Moore et al., 2022; Gissi, 2000; Korman, 2011, 2020; Pena & Oliveira, 2015).

That said, the historiographic and scientific literature has not given any account of the installation of the post-rationalist model in the world. If we analyze the works cited above, we find that they stem mainly from Chile, the country to which he made the most visits in South America (eight), followed by Argentina, with seven visits, and Brazil, where he offered a single seminar in 1996. This itinerary will provide additional contextual details to the data provided by Susana Aronshon (2001).

The first of Guidano’s visits to our country took place in 1990 (A. Zagmutt, personal communication, October 22, 2018); however, a year prior to this first meeting between the Italian psychiatrist and an expectant Chilean audience, the father of post-rationalism visited Buenos Aires (H. Fernández-Álvarez, personal communication, January 30, 2019), in the framework of a conference held by a therapeutic and clinical training center called Aiglé. This 1989 meeting in the Argentine capital was attended by two psychologists who would be key in these constant visits of Guidano to our lands: Augusto Zagmutt and Alfredo Ruiz (A. Zagmutt, personal communication, October 22, 2018), who had already had an intellectual approach to Guidano’s work.

The Beginnings of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy in Chile: Universidad de Chile and Pontificia Universidad Católica (PUC)

Entering into the beginnings of the history of psychology in Chile for the purposes of this research implies delving into the implementation of the professional training of psychologists at the Universidad de Chile and the PUC, which has in its beginnings the creation of the Central Institute of Psychology at the Universidad de Chile, on October 27, 1941. Among its main purposes, the Central Institute was intended to develop scientific research in both practice and psychological theory (Ligueño et al., 2010; Parra, 2017; Salas & Lizama, 2013).

Early in the previous century, in 1910, German Greve Schlegel, a physician at the Universidad de Chile, presented at the Congress of Hygiene and Mental Health in Buenos Aires the work entitled “On Psychology and Psychotherapy of Certain Distressful States,” a work of which Sigmund Freud was aware (Ardila, 1986; Ruperthuz, 2014). After this, Fernando Allende and Ignacio Matte Blanco himself developed psychoanalytic theory in the Chair of Psychiatry at the School of Medicine of the Universidad de Chile (Arrué, 1991).

More specifically, the Nassar Report (Salas, 2014) published in the proceedings of the First Congress of the Interamerican Society of Psychology, held in Ciudad Trujillo, Dominican Republic, shows that, in the first training course for psychologists in the country, clinical training depended exclusively on the training that Matte Blanco could provide (Nassar, 1955). In general terms, a clinical psychology project strongly linked to psychodiagnosis began to develop, driven by the aforementioned Matte Blanco, who, since 1956, began to teach psychoanalysis in the psychology schools of the Universidad de Chile and the PUC (Ruperthuz, 2015). Also relevant to the beginnings of clinical psychology in Chile is the inclusion of anti-psychiatry coming from the European model, promoted by Dr. Marconi, also at the Universidad de Chile. In 1968 Dr. Marconi promoted a program of alcoholism, in 1970 one of neurosis and between 1971 and 1972 a program of sensory deprivation in popular kindergartens (Mendive, 2004).

Development of Clinical Psychology at the CAPS of the Universidad de Chile

To understand the inclusion of cognitive psychotherapy in Chile, it is important to consider its incorporation into the Psychological Care Center of the Universidad de Chile. Founded in 1972 as part of the Department of Psychology, initially it provided psychological care to students and university employees, as well as developing academic activity in the cognitive-behavioral line under the direction of Gabriela Brahms and Elida Picotta. In the psychoanalytic line, the clinical group was led by Teresa Corcuera. Alfonso Mazzarelli directed the gestalt area as well as the psychodiagnostic work (Kusanovic, 2010).

This academic activity, so important in the early days of psychotherapy in Chile, was soon interrupted by political events, which will be described later. As for the PUC, its work in clinical development from the year 1955 onwards stands out (Camus & Muñoz, 2017). However, the arrival of psychologist Sergio Yulis to Chile from the United States, in 1969, generated a strong impact at the academic level, at both the PUC and the Universidad de Chile. In 1970 Yulis assumed directorship of the School of Psychology at the catholic university, imprinting his behaviorist stamp on the career (Camus & Muñoz, 2017) and incorporating Skinner’s ideas in Chilean classrooms. His training at the University of Iowa made a strong impression on him, focused as it was on the markedly scientific character of the discipline (Quezada et al., 2014; Quezada-Scholz, 2021).

When the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet came about, by military order, Chilean psychology partially abandoned the principles of behaviorism, as well as the social character it had developed (Salas & Lizama, 2013). The Universidad de Chile and the PUC were no longer directed by civilians; appointed rectors took over in their place. Psychology careers suffered the same fate; the institutional rupture left a scarcity of professors developing important lines of research that could respond to the social needs of the time (Salas & Lizama, 2013). The Universidad de Chile was temporarily closed during 1973; it reopened in 1974 with important administrative changes, as well as a constant climate of political persecution (Ligüeño & Parra, 2007). The scenario was not so different at the PUC; Yulis was expelled from his position as director of the School of Psychology and Hernán Bertwart took over, appointed by military vice-admiral Jorge Swett Madge (Camus & Muñoz, 2017). This had consequences at the academic level since, in Berwart’s opinion, the university career training was strongly politicized; that is why at least a hundred academics were expelled (Luzoro, 2010).

From then on, psychology as a career would continue to develop at the margin of the behaviorism established by Yulis, taking on a strong humanistic character. Thus, during the years of dictatorship, Chilean clinical psychology was linked to the development of this latter psycho-psychological approach, highlighting the staging of experiential and gestalt principles (Salas & Lizama, 2013).

Brief History of the Chilean Society of Clinical Psychology at the End of the 1970s

The ravages left by the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet made it difficult to access knowledge on the latest trends in psychology as well as work spaces for psychologists. The military dictatorship deprived many health professionals of the opportunity to work as psychotherapists in public spaces. In this panorama of social upheaval, in 1979 the Sociedad Chilena de Psicología Clínica was founded; it would play an important role in the development of Chilean psychotherapy (Villegas, 2010). Among its founders was Augusto Zagmutt, a psychologist with clinical training who had been a victim of the labor crisis created by the military regime. In the beginning, the first affiliates met on the last Wednesday of each month; that is how they began to collect the signatures of those who wanted to become founding members, and eventually they were legally established (A. Zagmutt, personal communication, July 19, 2019).

A review of the available bibliography shows that there is no political influence in Vittorio Guidano’s work. There is also no any antecedents in the literature related to social involvement in the post-rationalist model. In this regard, Juan Balbi points out the following:

I am a didactic member of the Società Italiana di Terapia Comportamentale e Cognitiva that was founded by Vittorio Guidano in the 70’s, he was president of that association. I have contact with all my colleagues in Italy, both from the post-rationalist line and from other lines, who have known him, appreciate him and who have met him, appreciate him as a person, as a scientist and as a psychotherapist colleague. I know and this is shared by all the colleagues I know who have met him. that in no way has there ever been any kind of political influence or political intentionality in his work. political influence or intentionality in his work. Vittorio Guidano was a serious scientist, very responsible and everything he has written is well documented and supported by other scientists studying the self, psychopathology and psychoanalysis (Juan Balbi, personal communication, March 12, 2024).

Nevertheless, it is relevant to consider the heuristic value that this topic could have for future research.

On another point, over the years, Zagmutt left the Society and focused his career on clinical development together with other professionals in the field such as psychiatrist Mateo Ferrer and psychologist Alfredo Ruiz. Together, they grew interested in the principles of cognitive psychology as applied to psychotherapy (A. Zagmutt, personal communication, October 20, 2018).

On the other hand, in the mid-1980s, Camilo Castellón, a clinical psychologist trained in cognitive psychotherapy at the Center for Cognitive Therapy at the University of Pennsylvania under the watchful eye of Aaron Beck, returned to the country (C. Castellón, personal communication, November 11, 2018). With an important presence as a trainer of the first psychotherapists at the Centro de Terapia Cognitiva (CTC) in Argentina (Korman, 2011), Castellón began to prepare Zagmutt, Ferrer, Ruiz and other important psychotherapists in the mid-1980s, also forming a transitional CTC in 1985 (A. Zagmutt, personal communication, August 20, 2018). Enthusiastic about the new theoretical-practical body of knowledge, this group of Chilean psychotherapists began to develop their clinical work with a strong cognitive-behavioral substrate:

What I felt when I arrived is that there was a hunger for knowledge, there was an isolation in terms of having first source information. I studied where clinical psychology was founded in the world, so there was an eagerness and desire to know how it was done out there, how they do it and what are the things we can implement. They were adult professionals, who underwent a training that lasted a year, it was quite motivating for them (C. Castellón, personal communication, November 11, 2018).

Castellón would have been the first Chilean to approach Guidano’s work and he presented the beginnings of post-rationalism to Chilean psychotherapists at the CTC. As to how he learned about Guidano’s work, the author points out the following:

I was working at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. The center was specialized in mood disorders; it was not designed to treat other things, only unipolar depressions. That was the objective of the clinic [then] other types of patients began to arrive, perhaps because of the policy of the clinic, in other areas. They brought personality disorders; we began to look for them and incorporate them. We had to nourish ourselves from another body of knowledge to treat these patients, fundamentally from the concept of structural schemas. In this context I met Jeffrey Young. He told me to include an Italian who was called Guidano, [so] I introduced him in Chile and Argentina. (C. Castellón, personal communication, November 11, 2018).

Having the theoretical references of the body of knowledge proposed by Guidano, Castellón introduced the post-rationalist model to Chilean psychotherapists trained at the CTC; in this regard, Zagmutt says:

Talking with Camilo Castellón, I realized that Cognitive Therapy was good, but my patients referred by psychiatrists were a little short with this type of therapy. Well, I ask Castellón to help me with personality disorders. Camilo tells me to read Young and there I meet Guidano. I wanted to have a tool for personality disorders, there then I hit on the name Guidano (A. Zagmutt, personal communication, August 20, 2018).

The CTC that Castellón had created dissolved after his return to the United States in 1988. However, it had already trained an important group of therapists, and together Augusto Zagmutt, Mateo Ferrer, María Teresa Manríquez and Alfredo Ruiz formed the Sociedad de Terapia Cognitiva de Chile (M. Ferrer, personal communication, July 24, 2019).

In this period and, already interested in mediational variables, the group brings Jeremy Safran and Leslie Greenberg to Chile. Then, thanks to Camilo Castellón’s contact with Aiglé in Argentina, Zagmutt and Ruiz, soaked by their approach to Guidano’s first two works (Cognitive Processes and Emotional Disorders and Complexity of the Self), travel in 1989 to Argentina for a first meeting with Guidano (A. Zagmutt, personal communication, August 20, 2018). The Italian psychotherapist went to give a lecture sponsored by Aiglé; it made a significant impression on the attendees (Balbi, 1994). Impacted by Guidano’s first lecture in South America (Ruiz, 1994), the group of Chilean psychotherapists invited him to a first lecture at the Indisa Clinic (A. Zagmutt, personal communication, August 20, 2018).

The Trips

Guidano gave ten lectures in our country. The first visit was recorded in 1990 and the last one in 1999 (Gissi, 2000). The names of the conferences and seminars are described below in chronological order (Table 1).

Table 1 Vittorio Guidano’s lectures and seminars in Chile
Full size table

The Impact

Within the historical legacy developed by Guidano’s visits in Chile during the 1990s, two foundational milestones can be found: the creation of psychotherapeutic centers and the incorporation of the post-rationalist model as academic knowledge in some Chilean universities (Zagmutt, 2014). As for the therapeutic centers, two institutions were created that continue to function to this day: the Sociedad de Terapia Cognitiva Postracionalista (STCP) and the Instituto de Terapia Cognitiva Post Racionalista (INTECO).

STCP

In the mid-eighties, Zagmutt, Ruiz, Manríquez and Ferrer were very interested in knowing what was being done in the United States in relation to psychotherapy. Guided by curiosity and a large network of contacts, they arrived at the cognitive model, a body of knowledge transmitted by Castellón. Thus, together with Castellón, the group formed the CTC in 1985. The purpose was to assemble a team of professionals who could be trained in the new cognitive trends prevailing in the United States (C. Castellón, personal communication, November 11, 2018).

The CTC was formed by Camilo Castellón in order to have an institutional support that would allow them to train as professionals and, at the same time, to train psychologists interested in the model. Thus, Castellón rented a place in Carlos Antúnez where the center operated, and then rented another one in Ricardo Lyon. The institution had no formal structure or legal personality (M. Ferrer, personal communication, June 25, 2019).

In reference to this idea and the times they were living in, Zagmutt explains:

I was a student of Castellón and Ferrer. We started learning and the idea was to form a Beck clone center, in the year ‘86 approximately. Then in that context we were learning cognitive therapy. At some point we learned several different approaches associated with cognitive behavioral therapy (A. Zagmutt, personal communication, August 20, 2018).

Permanent updating was one of the fundamental principles of the group, generating training spaces through access to the written works of authors they considered a contribution to the therapeutic challenges they had with their patients. Castellón returned to the United States in 1988, leaving the group without its creator and trainer. However, the group decided to move forward. Thus, in 1990 they changed their name to the Sociedad de Terapia Cognitiva. Armed with this new identity, the group invited Guidano that same year (A. Zagmutt, personal communication, August 20, 2018).

In 1992, when Guidano’s third visit took place, they decided to change their name again, this time to Sociedad de Terapia Cognitiva Posracionalista (STCP); they also began to function without Ruiz. The group now comprised Zagmutt, Ferrer, Manríquez and Magendzo, thus initiating an institutional history in Chile that was structured on the basis of clinical care and professional training of psychologists in the post-rationalist model through courses and training programs, recognized by the National Commission of Accreditation of Clinical Psychologists, Specialists in Psychotherapy. The Society continued to bring in Guidano, who also served in an advisory capacity, until his death in 1999 (Barahona & Korman, 2022). The STCP training program, which ran until 1999, continued to evolve as new ideas were incorporated into the model (M. Ferrer, personal communication, June 25, 2019). Importantly, the partnership continues to operate to this day.

INTECO

The other institution formed in the 1990s is known by its acronym INTECO. From its beginnings in 1991, thanks to the initiative of Ruiz and Zagmutt, the center’s objective was to generate space for the dissemination of the model and training for therapists.

After two years of work, Zagmutt decided to leave the partnership; Ruiz continues with the Institute to this day. It changed its name in 1997 to Instituto de Terapia Cognitiva Postracionalista, although it kept the acronym INTECO (A. Zagmutt, personal communication, July 19, 2019). One of the most relevant things that INTECO does is to disseminate the model through the publications, including books and articles, of Alfredo Ruiz. Another of INTECO’s focuses is the training courses to educate professionals through the post-rationalist model. In relation to the courses, as in the STCP, these changed as Guidano incorporated new topics during his visits to Chile and Argentina.

Post-Rationalism in Universities in the 1990s

One of the impacts of Guidano’s visits to Chile and Argentina was related to the awakening in the different groups of Chilean and Argentine psychotherapists of an impetus and desire to disseminate the post-rationalist model (Barahona-Moore et al., 2022). It is striking that, since post-rationalism is such a new theoretical and methodological proposal, it has quickly become material for academic dissemination and a clinical discipline worthy of being taught in psychotherapeutic training centers and universities. Indeed, it is used as a clinical tool by many psychology professionals who found in Guidano an answer to many of their questions.

During the 1990s, undergraduate classes in post-rationalism began to be taught in Chile in a few, but significant, universities that were advised by Guidano (M. Ferrer, personal communication, June 25, 2019). In Argentina, the incorporation of the model in academic spaces was not a milestone of relevance because no university taught classes of post-rationalism, neither in undergraduate nor in postgraduate training for psychologists and/or psychiatrists.

Some invitations were extended to Juan Balbi to speak about the model in classes of colleagues in clinical psychology subjects and an attempt was made, together with Guidano, to incorporate an elective course on post-rationalism at the Universidad de Buenos Aires in 1996. In this module, Balbi was to be the full professor and Guidano would be a visiting professor, developing a seminar once a year. In 2000, Balbi would receive the refusal to develop the course, one year after Guidano’s death (J. Balbi, personal communication, July 17, 2019). It is important to note that days before his death in Buenos Aires, Guidano would conduct his last seminars in Chile. The following description corresponds to the Chilean universities that developed chairs linked to the post-rationalist model in their respective psychology programs.

Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (PUCV)

Since 1994, the School of Psychology of the PUCV has taught the subject of post-rationalism as part of the mandatory curriculum in the training of psychologists, in parallel with psychoanalysis and the systemic approach. As part of the training process, students who choose to take the course must take a year of theory, a practical workshop, professional practice and a thesis along the lines of the model. The course has been maintained from the 1990s to the present (L. Onetto, personal communication, September 27, 2019).

As an important milestone in the academic trajectory of the career, Mario Reda and Bernardo Nardi visited the university in 1996 and 2004, respectively, to conduct seminars, classes and supervision of workshops for students in practice (L. Onetto, personal communication, September 27, 2019).

Universidad de Chile

Between 1992 and 1994, Zagmutt developed the subject “Systemic procedural cognitivism: a scientific (explanatory) approach to human experience.” Those classes had a frequency of two hours per week (A. Zagmutt, personal communication, July 19, 2019).

Universidad Diego Portales

In 1999, Zagmutt himself taught the subject “The post-rationalist approach” at that university. The classes lasted four hours a week (A. Zagmutt, personal communication, July 19, 2019). In this same house of studies, the elective “Introduction to Systemic Procesal Theory” was developed. Mateo Ferrer was in charge of the teaching of the theoretical and practical aspects of the model in 1995. Between 1996 and 1998, the elective course was taken over by psychologist Francisca Melis. Regarding the development of the course and the reception of the model by the undergraduate students who were part of the pedagogical process, Ferrer says: “There was mysticism and interest. He taught psychopathology and psychiatry classes, [and] did an elective course on post-rationalism that was well received” (M. Ferrer, personal communication, August 19, 2019). In the same vein, Melis, who replaced Mateo Ferrer in the elective, notes:

The truth is that the elective had many people enrolled. After this course, we formed a study group that lasted several years, then several of those who started from there, such as Jaime Silva or Felipe Lecannelier, made very different developments. (…) The topics to be developed were evolutionary epistemology, motor theories of the mind, link and constitution of the self I/me, OSP, levels of processing and reconstruction of experience. (F. Melis, personal communication, August 19, 2019).

Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano

It was 1994 and Ruiz received an invitation to teach at the Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano. However, the Chilean psychologist refused the space and offered it to a group of therapists close to INTECO. The one who accepted the offer to give classes was Susana Aronson, a psychologist trained in the model through INTECO, who has been teaching post-rationalism for twenty-five years. In the beginning, during the 1990s, she shared the chair with Rosa Molina, and Jorge Leiva was the career director (S. Aronson, personal communication, August 30, 2019). The contents to be covered corresponded to epistemological bases, systemic procedural theory and the post-rationalist cognitive method (S. Aronson, personal communication, August 30, 2019). In the same decade, Aronson held classes in post-rationalism at the Universidad Pedro de Valdivia and the Universidad de Artes, Ciencias y Comunicaciones, better known by its acronym UNIACC (S. Aronson, personal communication, August 30, 2019).

Universidad Central de Chile

On August 24, 1999, Universidad Central de Chile received a letter signed by Magendzo, Balbi and Ferrer. In this letter, they declared their intention to develop a master’s degree called: Master in Cognitive Constructivist and Post-rationalist Clinical Psychology, which was addressed to professionals interested in developing the model. The letter was addressed to Ana María Zlachevsky, Director of the University’s School of Psychology, and confirmed financial agreements that had been reached at a meeting the previous day. Leslie Greenberg and Augusto Zagmutt were also present at the meeting. The professionals linked to post-rationalism committed themselves to develop a curriculum according to the requirements, as well as to add Greenberg and Guidano to the teaching staff as advisers. Finally, the intention was declared to develop a parallel master’s program of the same characteristics at the Universidad del Salvador in Buenos Aires, building a bridge of collaboration between both programs. Unfortunately, such a master’s program could not be developed due to the emotional impact left by the loss days later of Guidano (M. Ferrer, personal communication, August 19, 2019).

Other Professors in Charge of Post-Rationalism Professorships in Chile

In March 1993, Paola Skoknic assumed the chair of post-rationalism at the Universidad Diego Portales. A year later, she would do the same at the Universidad del Desarrollo, laying the foundations for the development of the model in both universities. The professional in charge, taught classes in the subject “Cognitive-Behavioral” as part of the clinical line. The most important content of the course was the post-rationalist model. The same teacher taught the same module in the following universities: Universidad de Las Condes, Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano and Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez (P. Skoknic, personal communication, September 2, 2019). In the same decade, Erich Von Bischoffshausen would perform the same feat at Universidad Mayor (Temuco campus) (M. Ferrer, personal communication, August 19, 2019).

Conclusions

First, it is important to identify in the beginning and development of this story a group of people oriented by their common professional interests, i.e., an “intellectual network” (Devés, 2007; Ruperthuz, 2014) located in a specific and particular group of people with identity and concerns defined by that identity, professional interest and common sense (Danziger, 1979) established from a search driven by nonconformism with respect to the existing paradigms. In this case, this group of people corresponded to a small group of mental health professionals, anxious to find a model that would allow them to broaden their explanatory framework of the human experience. As can be read in the account of the interviewees, in Chile in the mid-eighties, there was a significant dissatisfaction with the models available to explain theoretically how the experience of human beings is constituted and what are the rules of functioning of human beings, which prompted efforts to generate spaces for intellectual training through exchange of knowledge, via literature review, on new trends in psychology, as well as through management to receive professional training through national and international guests. Likewise, the sociopolitical conditions marked by the dictatorship generated unemployment, forcing professionals to self-manage their own work spaces. These spaces for professional development were the support that sheltered the intellectual substratum of Guidano’s ideas in both countries.

According to those interviewed, Guidano developed a strong friendship with some psychologists from Chile and Argentina. His visits were not only inspired by work matters; he spent some holidays there too, traveled to Patagonia and the central coast in Chile (A. Zagmutt, personal communication, July 19, 2019), and even had among his plans to buy real estate in Buenos Aires and establish residence in that city, a project that he finally rejected for personal reasons. Guidano had a special liking for the Argentine capital, stating on several occasions that the three ideal cities to live in were New York, Paris and Buenos Aires (J. Balbi, personal communication, September 9, 2018).

Another important factor was the constant interest on the part of the Chilean therapeutic community to update its knowledge base in the model, which resulted in the creation of different centers and the need for professional advice and support; this generated a significant labor field for Guidano. The training programs of INTECO and the STCP were updated according to the different advances that Guidano was incorporating into the model. Associated with this idea, the strong institutional development by both centers created in the light of his influence somehow encouraged Guidano to travel often to South America, to outline new and enriching topics for an audience that, over the years, became larger and larger (S. Baringoltz, personal communication, August 28, 2019).

As relevant background, it is worth mentioning Guidano’s facility in speaking Spanish, a language he learned as a teenager while living in Venezuela. Regarding this point, it is important to clarify that his ideas were “well understood” by the community that attended his seminars, which generated interest and adherence to the model (J. Balbi, personal communication, September 9, 2018).

Another important point to highlight is related to the “attractiveness” of Guidano’s figure, described by all the interviewees. His figure generated great interest in the community of therapists who attended to listen to the ideas that were enriched year after year. It is also important to emphasize the existence of a scientific tradition and prior knowledge regarding Maturana’s so-called Santiago School (Primero, 2012). Such background knowledge would have contributed to the understanding of the model by the post-rationalist students and to generating a “shared sense of identity” between the biology of knowing and Guidano’s model (A. Zagmutt, personal communication, July 19, 2019).

In Chile, the academic development of post-rationalist psychologists in university classrooms was in the 1990s and continues to be an open field today, which facilitated the incorporation of the model in some universities, perpetuating an academic legacy that has been developing since those times. As a consequence, there grew a greater development and interest on the part of psychologists from undergraduate level in the post-rationalist model (S. Aronson, personal communication, August 30, 2019). As future developments in research, it is highly necessary to deepen study in the topics addressed by Guidano in his visits to Chile. A point of scientific relevance could be the relationship between post-rationalism and Maturana’s biology of knowledge, identifying the different moments in which the Italian psychiatrist’s work was influenced by the so-called Santiago Theory during the 1990s and the change of perspective he reached at the abrupt end of his work.