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Group psychotherapies: new answers to new questions

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Abstract

Group for the Recovery of Functions wants to be a new therapeutic resource available to operators, with its specificity. Specificity which consists not only of a group setting as a scenario that generates symbols i.e. a place where it is possible to conceive of what was until then inconceivable but also of limited time, of generational transference investments on therapist, of positive prospective and constructive tension of the peer group. So, GRF as a different answer, that is able to surprise, that has as a main aim to re-ignite the psychological engine of the patient, and especially allowing the patient to rediscover that the energies for change Read more

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Experiences and thoughts on training in psycho-oncology

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Abstract

Those who wish to concern themselves with training in the psycho-somatic field and, in particular, in the psycho-oncological field need to face the constant work of working through the passage from defensive splitting to operational splitting. A psychoanalytically trained observer, who comes into contact with an institution, as G.Vetrone says (1986), is quite soon aware of the fact that inappropriate splitting operates within it, for he discovers with amazement, anxiety and disdain, that some human needs are denied and the patient is related to as if he were a part-object. Recognising the splitting is a sterile operation if one does not understand the specific anxiety which made such a defence necessary. The observer must be able to identify not only with the more evident suffering, that of the patient, but also with that of the carers, which is generally more difficult to recognise precisely because, through splitting it Read more

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Getting to know crohn’s disease together with a group. Group therapy experience in an institution

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Abstract

The therapist of the group allowing the development of cognitive course, must analyse the meaning of the elements (patients, gatroenterologist, gastroenterologist, psychotherapist, university-context) and recognise the structure elements of the new bond that is forming. This movement can be considered as a process of Self reorganization. The patient’s group can be recognized as an Alter-Ego Self object who, as Neri says, supplies a “continuous presence …  giving an essential share to the building of the feeling of a human being”, in the process of the strengthening of the Self necessary to support the disease’s experience. It is possible to say that in the leadership of groups with patients affected by organic pathology the leader’s flexibility, his ability to pick up the meaning of every element and that of using them again to reinforce the Self, activate and build the process of knowledge of the disease. Thus, the group’s members can learn to live together Read more

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Homogeneous female group from the view point of participant observation: critical reassesment of an experience

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Abstract

In this paper I will talk about participant observation in a homogeneous female group and of some considerations that were born from this experience. I shall try to retrace the theoretical arguments that justify the group as a therapeutic instrument, and then pass to the motivations that support my choice to realize an observation experience in a female homogeneous group and the choice of a woman to woman therapy with a particular reference to the group’s development and to the questions due to the guiding hypothesis of my entire work, that is: the masochism issue and the supposed female specificity. At last I will analyze my counter-tranferencial position in an episode taken from some of the group’s sessions, finally end with a series of critical reflections.

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Presentation, Clinical and training in Homogeneus Group

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An introductory synthesis for this edition of Funzione Gamma

Request for dynamic group training in emerging and frontier areas today, is ever more frequent. These areas require interventions targeted at and limited by time; as Giannelli and Zucca write “to new requests, new responses”. Today, emerging institutions and pathologies do not accept long-term periods. In the public, moreover, work groups or therapy groups are often characterised by homogeneity. Homogenous can be the request of users (ex. family members of cardiopath patients or those with neoblastic diseases who meet to deal with changes, anxieties and distress provoked by the onset of the illness; persons who have undergone traumatic experiences and need to elaborate; members of a work group with a common training requirement), homogeneous can also be the diagnosis that Read more

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Note about a new Association for the Research on the Homogeneous Group

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This issue of Function Gamma on “The Homogeneous Group” was edited by A.R.G.O. (Association for the Research on Homogeneous Groups), with the collaboration of the Psychiatric Consultation Service, S.P.D.C. San Filippo Neri, Mod.19, D.S.M., U.S.L. ROMA E.
It comes out in conjunction with a convention organised in Rome 2nd June, 2001, entitled “Groups of Formation and Clinical Groups in the Health and Social Field”.
It is the first public manifestation of the association after a long process of work and confronting ideas between the founding members. During that time, theoretical reflections, clinical experiences, and above all a wealth of personal competences explored the use of the analytic micro-group in different spheres. Alimentation disorders, general medicine, disabled persons, social problems to do with the mixing of different cultures, formation and training for students and people in the helping professions are the main areas where efforts were concentrated.
In time we observed that these work experiences were starting to consolidate, resulting in the individuation Read more

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Group psychotherapy: the practice and the formation of homogeneous short term groups

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Abstract

In fact psychiatric diagnoses, (not geriatric), are grouped, using the DSM-IV nomenclature, into ten psychiatric problems: general anxiety disorders, social phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorders, agoraphobia, panic attacks (with or without agoraphobia), disorders from post-trauma stress, schizophrenia, abuse and dependence on drugs and alcohol.
In a recent work we proposed to group the first six problems into the “anxiety disorders”, and to add “eating disorders”, “personality disorders” and “psycho-geriatric disorders”. Thus we have seven groups of problems that we will look at from another perspective. Read more

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Reflections on supervising groups of HIV positive patients with personality disorders

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Abstract

This paper is a critical reflection on the supervision of two groups of HIV positive patients with personality disorders for the duration of five years. The patients all suffered from personality disorders of various degrees, and they had became HIV infected through drug abuse or heterosexual or homosexual contact. The groups met twice a week for an hour and a quarter in the San Luigi Centre at the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan. They were open groups of men and women, counting eight participants in each Read more

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A short term group of formation with medical staff who work in oncological wards. Stefania Marinelli (Part one)

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Abstract

This paper is about an experience of a group of formation with doctors and nurses on the theme of cancer that we conducted in the oncological ward of the San Filippo Neri Hospital in collaboration with the Psychiatry Service within that hospital. It lasted three months with a weekly frequency. The group was conducted by the consultant psychiatrist (Dr.S.Bruni) and an external supervisor, a specialist in group psychoanalysis (Dr. S.Marinelli). We thought it better to privilege the basic and real significance of this experience, rather than use a technical and historical approach, and we have divided the work into two parts. The first part describes the events of the group from the viewpoint of the external supervisor; the dream is considered as a bi-lateral field of work where doctors of the body and the mind meet up. The second part is from the internal psychiatristís point of view, and examines the sequences in detail bringing the experience in close Read more

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The person internal to the hospital who acts as intermediary and guarantor of the experience. Simonetta Bruni (Part two)

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Abstract

This paper is about an experience of a group of formation with doctors and nurses on the theme of cancer that we conducted in the oncological ward of the San Filippo Neri Hospital in collaboration with the Psychiatry Service within that hospital. It lasted three months with a weekly frequency. The group was conducted by the consultant psychiatrist (Dr.S.Bruni) and an external supervisor, a specialist in group psychoanalysis (Dr. S.Marinelli). We thought it better to privilege the basic and real significance of this experience, rather than use a technical and historical approach, and we have divided the work into two parts. The first part describes the events of the group from the viewpoint of the external supervisor; the dream is considered as a bi-lateral field of work where doctors of the body and the mind meet up. The second part is from the internal psychiatristís point of view, and examines the sequences in detail bringing the experience in close Read more

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Working with the nursing staff of an in-patient admission ward

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Abstract

What follows is a clinical description of some experiences and observations which have arisen out of my acting as group work Supervisor for a group of nurses in an in-patient acute psychiatric admission ward, and as facilitator of a Staff Support Group made up of the same nurses, over the last three Read more

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Group analysis of those who deal with dying

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Abstract

To build up the trust of the participants in a group with dying patients, the therapist must make himself available as a transitional object due to the intense need for an object and the need for dependence expressed by the participants. On the other hand, the need to empathise with such strong and painful sentiments can represent a challenge for the therapist, activating powerful counter-transference reactions, such as fear of being overwhelmed, anger and negation. If the therapist knows how to deal with this delicate equilibrium, the group will be able to provide valuable aid for coming to terms with, and to integrate, the profound and ambivalent unconscious feelings evoked by Read more