The median group as an transcultural device in treatment and formation Comparison between the Groupanalytical and the Ethnopsychoanalytical model
Abstract
In this article the author compares the Groupanalytical model (in particular the Italian approach) and the Ethnopsychoanalytical model (in particular that developed in France by Tobie Nathan and Marie Rose Moro); moreover she compares two therapeutic devices: the median group for Group Analysis and Transcultural Consultation for Ethnopsychoanalysis. Beginning from these comparisons, the author argues that the median group may be an effective device in therapeutic contexts and also in transcultural training contexts, that is, in contexts where many levels of difference are involved: differences of countries of origin, of languages, of cultures, of professional communities, of institutional contexts (workers coming from different services). Consequently the median group is an effective instrument to work with foreign people, in the transcultural training of cultural mediators and with groups of workers belonging to different institutional and professional contexts. The author underlines, in particular, that the median group may better allow the manifestation and the expression of “otherness” and its utilisation as a therapeutic tool and an instrument for change by the construction of devices that permit expression and elaboration of the conflict and attainment of a level of dialogue between the different cultures involved. For this purpose, these median group devices have to be realized by building settings in which these differences may Read more