Entries by @dmin

From the top to words: conduction and transformation in a therapeutic group of children

Abstract In my experience with groups of children (beginning age 4-5 years old, children with an intellective level in the average and with development blocks more or less important: sometimes I also included a child with a psychotic personality structure) I noted that the conductors have different functions, according to the group’s different moments, functions […]

Reality and fiction for the therapeutic couple

Article already published in the Notebook n. 14 – July-December 2001 of the Institute of Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy of Milan edited by the Pisa-Rome International Polygraphic Institutes Abstract The necessity to have a precise time and a limited place where the group processes could take place, is a fundamental requirement for the survival of […]

The adult therapist in health services: between parents and public institution

Abstract We could affirm that in the Institution’s base, that has mental health as an aim, in a paradoxical way we can find a primitive psychic functioning, thus infantile. This infantile position seems to constitute the link between the three original objects: Institution, therapist, parents. The three objects are linked by a common affiliation and […]

The therapist and the group of deviant adolescents

Abstract I chose to talk about a sexual crime because I think it’s particularly interesting following the working-through in the group of a crime against a person and not against property, that represents the most diffused kind of adolescent crimes. It is also interesting, for describing the therapist’s position difficulties, that she not only represents […]

By our selves or in pairs? Problems and resources of two different group conduction modalities

Abstract We shall conclude asserting that the comparison between mono-therapy and co-therapy has to be pursued according to the fact that they are to be considered not only like two interchangeable dispositives, but like two technical fundamentally different, with the possibilities of different applications, according to the needs to which the therapist is called to […]

The poliphonic texture of intersubjectivity in the dream

Abstract My research on the Dream are based on the hypothesis that it is developed in the polyphonic texture of the interdiscourse. This assumption owes a lot to the work of M. Bakhtine and his followers. Bakhtine introduced the idea that the literary structure is elaborated at the crossing of several structures, just as the […]

Dreams: are they personal or social?

Abstract The history and lineage of dreams is ancient, mysterious and revelatory. Dreams have been used for prophecy, fortune-telling, for access to the spirit world and for extending our vision beyond our diurnal limits. Ancient Greece sought healing through sleep and dreams; Bion asserts the psychotic hallucinates because he cannot dream, cannot use normal dream […]

An Image Mediator in a Dream Mediator within a Group

Abstract The image as a mediator in individual therapy and in group sessions provides the occasion to mobilise the primary process of the unconscious, in a movement of regression necessary to any initial visualisation. Starting with this type of visualisation, it is possible to reach an authentic process of symbolisation. By “symbolisation”, I mean the […]

Dreamtelling as a request for containment and elaboration in group therapy

Abstract The traditional, intrapersonal way of working with dreams has been enriched by an interpersonal approach (Ferenczi, 1913, Kanzer 1955). Dreaming may no longer be viewed as an exclusively internal and autonomous working-trough (event) occurrence, as classical approaches suggest (Freud 1900, 1932, Meltzer 1983). Containment and elaboration of the exciting and the dreadful in dreams […]

The advent of a dream in a group of children

Abstract This paper follows the perspective suggested by Francesco Corrao in his writings on groups (F. Corrao, 1998), taking up some of the elements present in clinical practice that help to describe the question of dreams in a small early-childhood analytical group. The paper is divided into three parts. In the first I treat the […]

Children who dream in groups

Abstract Working with a group of children borders on an oneiric experience, a tale, a cloth so complex as to make it hard to pick out the warp and woof of the dream. The group and its members rarely “relate” the dream; they tend to “dream” the dream. What follows is drawn from an experiential […]

Primordial group and oneiric images

Abstract The purpose of this communication is to present configurations that become evident as dream- or oneiric images. These images are expressed mainly in ludic activities of children during parents-children’s therapy sessions with the approach named by me as “Parents-Children Joint Therapeutic Interventions”. Such approach was inspired on Esther Bick’s Observation method, as well ason […]

A treatening dream in a homogeneous group of patients expecting kidney transplants

Abstract This is an account of a Brief Analytic Group Psychotherapy experience with patients with chronic renal damage who were being dialyzed while waiting to receive kidney transplants. This practice was carried out in 1997, in the Psychiatric Liaison Unit of the Psychiatry Division of Hospital El Salvador, in Santiago, Chile. The authors had the […]

Group Field and School Context.

Abstract We have chosen the previous quotation because we consider it accounts for some unconscious beliefs shared by the social groups which are part of the community, such us parents, journalists, teachers, students, politicians and leaders. Based on Bion’s approach to groups, we could say that the aforementioned groups show beliefs that make them work […]

Psychoanalytical considerations on Ingmar Bergman’s “Cries and Whispers”

Abstract The Author rereads Ingmar Bergman’s film “Cries and Whispers” not only as a representation of the process of emotions and thoughts revolving around dying, but also as a potentially transformational experience for the audience’s self that generates a profound change in how they interpret death. Psychoanalytical considerations on the film, juxtaposed with Heidegger’s concept […]

Who dreams in the group?

Abstract The author proposes to investigate the group dimension of the dream. Shows the clinical material of a mixed group, closed, comprising six participants engaged in this approach for reasons of training or treatment, which meets once a week for two years. According to the ‘author’s interpretation of dreams is the royal road to the […]

Presentation, Mith, Dream and Group

In May, 1999 the first issue of Funzione Gamma went on-line. The theme was Dream and Group. Not long after, a second issue on that same theme came out. Three years have gone by and the ninth and current issue focuses on the theme which is Dream, Myth and Group, once again. In a few […]

Psycho-Dynamism of dramisation in groups

Abstract The author relates the dream to a production typical of the group, the dramatic representation and tries to show the similarities and differences between the two. The author takes into consideration the thought of Anzieu (1963), who pointed out the equivalence between the small group and the dream. A group would be, in a […]

Goldfishes with a conscience divided into compartments

Abstract In 1974 Italy changed from being a country of emigrants to a country of immigrants. Thirty years on, immigrants are playing an ever more important role in the country. Facing the consequences of migratory phenomenon, the author seeks to show the relevance of an overall view that doesn’t lose the concreteness of specific references. […]

The difficult patient in group: blendig the mayor psychoanalitic prespectives

Abstract As Horwitz (1977) noted, “Paradoxically, the very qualities and deficits that make the …patient a problematic group member are the same deficits that are often best treated in a group setting” (p.404). This is because group psychotherapy is the medium nonpareil for highlighting and ameliorating the associated relationship conflicts that these difficult patients have. […]