Presentation, Practicing mediations in therapeutic groups

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The primary role of the image in the life of the mind is evident in an experience that we all have of ourselves, of our own selves.  It is one that is presented, to put it evocatively, like a kind of interior “film,” one that excites us, involves us, makes us rejoice and suffer and, through this, allows us to be living witnesses to the continuity of our existence. Psychoanalytic research, from its inception, has witnessed and investigated the role and importance of the image in the life of the mind, a “path” that began with Freud and has been trodden by many of his greatest followers, and one that still seems rich and fertile.  Perhaps it is because, among the countless other reasons, “images,” as Gribinski sustains, “have an acute intelligence of the world, of our separate relationship with the world,” and at the same time they have the magical power to render incomplete separations “happily imperfect.” Like a bridge that anchors us to the ground, images anchor us to the background Read more

Photolanguage© : a method for use with groups in a therapy or training context

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Abstract

The purpose of this special issue is to provide information to the reader about how a Photolanguage© session actually works. Before presenting the setting and its specific features, a few words about the origin of the method and a Read more

Photolanguage with mentally handicapped adolescents

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Abstract

During my work with mentally handicapped adolescents (mild and moderate) in a centre for special education, I quickly felt the need to offer a support to the clinical relationship. These adolescents suffering (for most of them) from both intellectual and language deficiencies,  had no ressources to invest in a relationship of a clinical type where language is the only medium. On the other hand, I noticed that the educational teams were very concerned by these adolescents, who were seen as unable to project themselves in the future, and as following their course day after day without investing themselves, and with more or less passivity. How to make them aware of the active role they could play in relation to their own future ? How to mobilise them around a professional project ? How to prepare them to leave the centre at the end of their course ? As a conclusion to this analysis, I decided to  create this “Photolanguage group”, as a psychic Read more

Photolangage©. A play space for remobilizing the psyche

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Abstract

We are working as clinical psychologists in a long term care institution with physically and psychically dependent older patients, some of whom suffering from of Alzheimer or other types of dementia. For some of them, we have set up a therapeutical service to remobilize  psychical functioning, in order to stimulate their creative potential and their capacity to experience pleasure. Indeed, these residents have to cope with multiple losses due to ageing, including the ultimate loss, that of their life. Among these losses, the loss of their dwelling, and sometimes that of their husband or wife, and its corollary, the adaptation to the institution, often causes great suffering, at both personal and familial levels. With Photolangageã, we propose a therapeutical framework susceptible to bring help and support, in Read more

“Nothing is going on ” from a frozen mourning to mourning one can handle Following through of the nurses with the help of Photolanguage

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Abstract

This article aims at showing that Photolanguage© facilitates the ability to speak out for the nurses who are otherwise totally silent in the discussion group. I witness here the experience of the discussion groups in which the state of shock Read more

Photolangage® and institutional crisis

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Abstract

This paper describes the application of the Photolangage® mediation during a training intervention at a healthcare institution going through a Read more

The function of vacuum in a Photolangage group

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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

The Missing Boundary: a Report on “Photolangage” Experiences

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Abstract

Purpose of this article is to elaborate on the “Photolangage” psychotherapeutic group technique and to report the results obtained during a set of experiences made in National Sanitary Service Institutions. Before the actual analysis of these results it is necessary to introduce a series of general considerations about the institutional context, about the patients cured within this Read more

The Photolangage method in a family mediators group

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Abstract

The present study deals with some reflections emerged from my experience of many years making use of the Photolangage in training groups for family mediators.
The choice of this method in training courses makes reference to the theoretical model of crisis event interpretation elaborated by Kaës. This model constitutes the theoretical basis for both my practice as a family mediator and for my work within training Read more