Rethiking group therapy for anorexic patients
Abstract
This paper presents an approach to working with groups of anorexic patients via decoding of primitive concrete Read more
Infantile anorexia and the child-caregiver relationship: an empirical study on attachment patterns
Abstract
This study has the following aims: 1. To point out a higher rate of insecure and/or disorganized attachment patterns in the mother-child dyads with a diagnosis of infantile anorexia, as compared to a control group; 2. To show a concordance with respect to security/insecurity between the mother’s and the child’s attachment Read more
Presentation, Group with anorexic patients: therapeutic factors
Anorexia can be described in different ways, depending on what model we employ to do this. Firstly, Freud saw it as an outcome of hysteria (1895), and Abraham as an instinctual state (or instinctual failure) of the oral stage (even up to the present day, his splendid writings on the character and stages of instinctual development, continue to help us understand the anchoring to the oral stage and the transformations of sublimation). Successively, Kleinian object psychoanalysis considered it a severe deficit in the PS_D position, whilst in the reorganization brought about by Bion’s theories, anorexic somatization is described as the realization of an inverted container-contained function (Bruni, 2002). The point of view of the failing development of the separation-individuation process (Mahler, 1975), the symbolization (Segal 1957), and Winnicott’s idea of the transitional object, all contributed to bring the theme back onto the lines of valorising its origins Read more
Historical Introduction to Group therapy in the treatment of anorexic- bulimic disorders
Abstract
The history of homogeneous groups is presented, since they were first created in USA at the beginning of ‘900 until they were realized as a psychoanalitical thought of group, by Bion and Foulkes in Europe. The homogeneous group with anorexic patients and its organization is also Read more
Monosymptomatic groups with anorexic and boulimic patients and basic assumptions: the somatic dimension in these patients and the position of the analyst
Abstract
It is important to reflect upon Bion’s concepts about the basic group, as these groups are more and more growing. Many of them are centred and formed upon a symptomatology in which the somatic dimension is an important part in the subject disease entering the group. I believe that the first Bion purpose (1), -concerning his reflections upon basic assumptions – was to give a method and not only a theory to be tested Read more
Repetition in time and microtransformations Ten years’ work with a group of anorexic and bulimic patients
Abstract
I consider these years of working with anorexic and bulimic groups above all, have allowed me to be in contact with the repetitions among patients, and have also allowed me to re-examine many of the clinical and theoretical processes; depending on whether I have utilized them in an integral form or mixed them in an unconfused manner, have permitted me to get away from rigid chains enabling me to get closer to the enigmatic world of Read more
Therapeutic factors in the psychoanalytically oriented homogeneous group for eating disorders
Abstract
What emerges then is a self that is incomplete or vulnerable, or a self that has either not developed its own functions and objects or has only been to able to do it both by sacrificing, cutting off and isolating the self that is capable of learning from mental pain and by distancing itself from all those objects, including the body, that can instigate that learning experience. For anorexic and bulimic patients, the homogeneous group as Self-Object offers a self-recognition and affective regulation experience that lays the foundations for a process of self-exploration which would otherwise be impossible in people whose very sense of existence feels threatened. If the patients can see the subjective form of their affective life reflected by others as something shared and therefore meaningful, human, open to communication and hence to Read more
A family matter (inside). Notes on group aspects in eating disorders
Abstract
I’ll try to connect some of the bionian ideas about individual-group relationship to the specific manifestations of eating disorders, with regards to the fact that some of these remarks could be valid also for different pathologies. The aim of this paper is not so much to propose alternative aetiological explanations, as to stress the possibility of bringing group elements back to the individual dynamic. Though the most direct implications seem be addressed to group therapy, the stimulation is rather referred to a quality of analytic listening, in other words to a mental Read more
Bulimic images. Interpersonal rereading of a dynamic of a Photolangage© group
Abstract
The Photolangage revealed to be an instrument able to stimulate a dialogue among people closed up in the silence of their own experience.Preceding studies and clinical experiences demonstrated its strength in providing a container for the emotions emerging in group paths.This important feature of it permitted us to use the instrument respecting its own rules, experiencing a “new pair of glasses” to read its dynamics: the psychoanalytic interpersonal pattern. Listening to the world of images means listening to elementary sensations they cause “in the here and now” giving voice to the contents of one’s own experience. The photo images and the following comments are, for us interpersonalists, the metaphor of the relation which works between the therapist (parental figure) and the group participants (children). The therapist plays the role which is attributed to him/her in the participants’ phantasies , but recording what is said about the images Read more
Family groups and anorexia. Therapeutic and interpretative indications in systemic approach
Abstract
Author referring to a systems oriented thinking proposes a conception of mental anorexia as a complex syndrome in which socio-cultural, family and individual components are interconnected. Particularly, following the preliminary data of a research in progress, he examines the family groups as an interactional level as well as at a mythical one. Finally he underline the complementarity between these family aspects and the psychological Read more
Anorexia as a Symbol of an Empty Matrix Dominated by the Dragon Mother
Abstract
This paper reports the author’s understanding of anorexia reached through her clinical work and using Jungian as well as group-analytic concepts. Examples of individual, family and group work are given and they constitute facets of an overall picture of devouring hunger against the background of a depleted Read more