The function of vacuum in a Photolangage group

Abstract

This short paper was a small part of an interesting research work during the academic year 98-99 at Lumiere University in Lion, in collaboration with Prof. Claudine Vacheret and Prof.Bernard Duez. My interest in this topic was due to my participation (as trainee) in a group through the Photolanguage method. It took place inside CE.S.A.P (Centre de Soin et d’Accueil Psychothèrapeutique). This centre is a C.A.T.T.P; that is a part time therapeutic reception Centre; its purpose is to promote the rehabilitation of suffered subjects from mental disorders and their reintegration in a social context through their participation in therapeutic groups. It was a group made up of six women (they were five in January only, because Florence left the group) between thirty and fifty years old animated by a psychologist, a psychotic nurse and me. The session took place from October to July, on a Read more

GauguinAnoressia

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