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ANCESTRALSTORIES

Presentation, Individual, Group and Nature

The quality of our future depends more and more on environmental balance and its stability. Nevertheless, there’s a contradiction that’s difficult to explain, without entering into complex psychological processes – between the widespread interest the public opinion has for environmental issues and, on the other hand, how little this results in specific awareness, or in a different way of behaving, and ultimately in putting strong pressure on political leadership. In point of fact, how serious is the environmental issue? The greenhouse effect? Degenerative diseases? Or energy resources? These are problems that are already a reality, and today imply a dramatic prospect for our species. The greenhouse effect isn’t just a simple idea that represents the phenomenon as a gradual rise of the temperature of the planet’s soil, the melting of the polar ice cap or other flights of fancy. Today the stability of the climatic cycle is seriously effected, something our small country pays for every year Read more

ComeSpecchio

Lansquenet from “tranquillité” to play. Based upon the film Chocolat by Lasse Hallström

Abstract

New is amazing, it affects senses, like a cold winter wind striking one’s face, like a red cloak standing out in the dullness of late winter night, like a good hot chocolate delighting even the most suspicious palate with its aroma, like exotic music attracting even the most insensible ears; new smells of spring and reawakening. On arriving inside a group it upsets its existing balance, which in some cases has become stale and stinks of death. At first new generates suspicion or even open rebellion, however it can awaken both Read more

PieroSogno

Dream telling as a request for containment – approaching dreams intersubjectively

Abstract

The dream as a means of access to the contents of the individual and unconscious element in the psychoanalytic discipline is revisited in the light of inter-factor, considering the functions it performs within the group context, with particular reference to the nature of communication and relational request . Food for thought comes from clinical practice and require the viewer a ‘study Read more

PieroSogno

The group as place and substance of dream

Abstract

The dream reported in a therapeutic group is one of the events which incisively characterizes its development; its frequence is comparable with that of other forms of psychotherapy and in any case its merit depends on the way the therapy is carried out. The dream considered in this contribution refers to that kind of group that achieves, even if in a discontinuous way, that state of emotional fusion among the members (Neri et al., 1990), so that it can be considered as “psyche-group”, set as such against the “socio-group” Read more

PicassoSaltimbanchi

A therapeutical community on its way towards dreaming

Abstract

For about a year, that is since we have assumed the community project ‘therapeutic responsibility for the structure has been given to a psychiatrist (psychoanalytic psychotherapist) to which were joined a psychologist (group analyst and expert in institutional dynamics), a clinical psychologist doctor (psychoanalytic psychotherapist, expert group phenomena), a psychiatrist (psychotherapist with special training in psychodrama). The authors are two psychologists, one leads to an experiential group with members of the structure, the other part weekly group organization and planning. A brief description of some of the tracks the experiences of these two moments groupal. The authors from experience groupal, observe that in some places appear fantasies similar to those that occur during pregnancy: what seems to us to support the use of metaphor (the teacher who proposes the work on the garden perhaps testifies to a fantasy of care something that is growing, the mental group, the possibility of therapeutic work with patients, Read more

ANCESTRALSTORIES

The Individual, the Group and Nature

Abstract

In this article, the author proposes to consider the complexity of the interconnections between individual, group and nature. Is there a link between mental representations of nature and psychological well-being. If the child is not, and ‘entity’ separate from the mother, the individual can not be seen isolated from its physical world. The relationship with nature and fundamental Read more

GauguinAnoressia

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

ComeSpecchio

Group, psychoanalysis and cinema. Notes about a formative group and cinema experience

Abstract

In this essay we are willing to bring out some remarks on the usage of movies within experiential groups. As it is already widely acknowledged, there exists a strong relationship between cinema and psychoanalysis, especially between Freud’s theory of dreams and the cinematographic language. It is indeed interesting to highlight that they both are born close to each other: the first projection of Lumière brothers’ La sortie de l’usine Lumière in 1895, and the publication of Freud’s The interpretation of dreams, in 1899. The connection between cinema and psychoanalysis can be analyzed under different perspectives: the way psychoanalysis and psychoanalysts are represented in movies (Gabbard, 1999), the psychoanalytic elements nested into movies and their narratives, the effects of movies on the spectator (Musatti, 1961, Elsaeser e Hagener, 2007 et al.), or, the usage of psychoanalysis in semiotic studies of the diegetic device (Metz, 1977). A further perspective is proposed in our work, that is the effect of a movie on a group of spectators, emphasizing the relationship between what is represented in the movie and the mental reality of group members who watched the movie altogether.  The rest of the essay is structured as follow: the next section preliminary introduces the meanings that a movie might have in a psychoanalytic model; the second section will focus on cinema and dreams; the third section, after a brief introduction on the relationship between cinema and group, describes the Read more

PieroSogno

The Myths of the Group

Abstract

You want to show how the analytic group to organize the first expression and sharing narrative needs to develop old and new myths. The ancient myths and formalized are especially useful in the early stages of the process by encouraging the natural myth-making of the group and allow you to approach the unconscious worlds inaccessible individually, for their wide social relations and their language polysemantic. In addition, the analytic group, especially when processing faces difficult times of deprivation, tends to create new myths that have developed within the group and in which the group feel represented, as they resonate with its main elements and the narrative qualities specific a given point in the process. This production of mythical elements – narration of events, memories, dreams, styles, mythologized by the group – has the function of ensuring a deep base and continuity of identity with the group and it will return there in times of evolutionary transition complex or fear of change : the ” re- mythologizing ” in this sense would be as important as the work of producing the legendary and myth used by the group to defend themselves at the beginning or at times regressive and deconstruction of the process, from the anxiety of confusion Read more

PicassoSaltimbanchi

Oneiric constellations and group field

Abstract

The new thoughts, not yet thought of, can become accessible through the creation, experience and discovery of what the author has called the constellation dream produced by re-dreamed by the group. The dreamer performs the function of “observation outpost” which on the whole, from his vertex, and with his autobiographical language, offers the group clues suitable to pinpointing an emerging and as yet unknown constellation of meaning. In addition, the  author puts emphasis on the responsibility of the analyst in this context. The function of the analyst is certain to develop a narrative that gives meaning to the experience of place, but also to be able to keep alive a particular “attention” (in Bion’s sense) that promotes development through affective interaction of the components of embryonic connections between the split parts (double) in the group. According to the ‘author’ s analyst Read more

PieroSogno

The fate of transference: infinite transformation of original fantasies

Abstract

Understanding new forms of psychic suffering in our society, especially in the border-line states, is much more relevant if we are able to consider their conduct as being an occurrence of the primal fantasies pertaining to two orders : that of the ritual and that of the myth. Very often, the antisocial behaviour of this type of personality is misunderstood because it is not considered for what it is. It is an expression of primal fantasies, dreams and nightmares whom, when transferred in the social realm, are transfigured into rituals or into private myths. I will attempt to outline this constant transformational form, which operates in dreams, in groups, in myths but also in rituals. Since the publication of the groupal psychic apparatus according to R. Kaës, we can consider as a fact that primal fantasies Read more

PicassoSaltimbanchi

Dreams and serious pathologies in the group: the Potential of the Dimension of Dreaming in the Group when Dreaming is not possible

Abstract

“The group that there isn’t ” means is that from time to time with the participation of patients in that day, and also that the dismissal of someone or the entry of new patients constantly changes the composition of the group. Presence of a new group for each session, in addition to clearly delimit the ability of the individual and the group to operate significant changes introduced into the room a special quality of time: a time without history, which narrowed and simultaneously accelerated, often beyond Read more

ANCESTRALSTORIES

Genius Loci: The Spirit of a Place, the Spirit of a Group

Abstract

The author divided the discussion is divided in three parts. The first, which is very synthetic, will cover some of Bion’s theories as regards “Work Group Mentality”, “Basic Assumptions Group Mentality”, and their respective leaders. In the second he introduced J. Bleger’s “Syncretic Sociality” concept, which introduces a third type of “Group Mentality” different from the one developed by Bion’s theory. The third part, which is the longest, is dedicated to the role of the Genius Loci. The Genius Loci is not a leader, like the Work Group mentality leader or the basic assumptions group mentality leader. However, it performs some important functions for the social and mental life of a Read more

GauguinAnoressia

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

PieroSogno

There and back. Migrants’ dreams and myths

Abstract

Such extreme crystallization of defensive experiences can be frequently observed in homogeneous communities or groups of emigrants of equal origin, too closed in themselves, anchored to surpassed habits, rituals, traditions and ideologies, clearly detached both from the reality of the place which hosts them (rejected because alien) and from the reality of the country they have left, since they maintain themselves still in time without ever evolving or transforming. The homecoming ideal thus looses its dreaming and Read more

PicassoSaltimbanchi

Group dreams as fractal images

Abstract

In fractal geometry, a fractal is an object with a complex branched structure subtly, gradually enlarging a portion of the structure are out details that remain the same at all scales of growth. fractals are not expressed by primary forms, but by algorithms. In this sense, the analytic group can be considered, using the theory of chaos, as the analogue of a fractal. The analytic group is the meeting point, the scene where you are replicating primordial collective dynamics and dynamics very personal, the group is the focal Read more

PicassoSaltimbanchi

Dreams in a group session: telling a dream as an instrument to develope one’ s own individuality

Abstract

In this paper some reflections will be formulated about a possible use of the dream as a useful tool to understand and have a view on the state of individual mind, related to group work, in a brief number of sessions of a psychotherapic group, managed in a Psichiatric Public Clinic. Then the process of telling dreams within a group, seems to bring meaningful traces of such an immersion in the inter-subjective plot, which I consider our original condition of being in the world as humans. Within a group, such a plot is alive and present, can be seen, listened, and this experience facilitates a possibility to gather access to personal, remote memories, and touching such ancient roos seems to allow a significant Read more

ANCESTRALSTORIES

A Sense of Place: Matters of space, mind and personhood

Abstract

The article emphasizes the importance of the place, which acquires profound significance in the mind of the group, influencing moods and emotions. The space itself, and ‘neutral, while the place and’ a cultural landscape on which are projected and constructed meanings. The trainers, through experience, using the effects of nature on the body and mind, and outdoor 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

PieroSogno

The sheaves. A dream recounted in Group. (From “The Young Joseph” by Thomas Mann. From “Genesis”, Chapter 37, Verses 1-32)

Abstract

The biblical story of Joseph, intertwined with “the young Joseph” by Thomas Mann and analytical affairs of a patient illustrating the vicissitudes of narcissistic object links within the pervasive and influenced, of Read more

GiocoLegame

Introduction

Abstract

In this introduction, after a brief account of the advantages and application areas of group psychotherapy as a method of intervention in developmental age, they are briefly summarized all the articles that make up the volume. In this way, it is given an overview of the content, following a Read more

PicassoSaltimbanchi

Traumatic representations associated with separation. Acting as dreams that can not be dreamed

Abstract

The presentation deals with the reactions to the absence of a therapist. The re-enactment, triggered by the absence of a therapist, provokes an automatic response of hyper-arousal that deprives the patients of the ability to modulate and control anxiety and aggression. This enhances the probability of acting-out. An acting can be regarded as a reactive action disconnected from its emotional symbolic meaning, as a dream that can not be dreamed, a coded message of unbearable painful mental content Read more

PicassoSaltimbanchi

Psycho-Dynamism of dramisation in groups

Abstract

The author relates the dream to a production typical of the group, the dramatic representation and tries to show the similarities and differences between the two. The author takes into consideration the thought of Anzieu (1963), who pointed out the equivalence between the small group and the dream. A group would be, in a sense, a dream dreamed by various dreamy. If we give the dream a function beyond that of satisfaction of desires processing, its reflection can get even closer comparison of the dream with the actions of a small group of psychoanalysts. The author suggests that dreams, in a group, have one of the main functions in this formalization: its function is to provide models of work and thought the group, as well as matrices for identifying its components. Spaces in which to adapt, or with whom you can establish oppositions. The dreams performing among other functions, to mediate between the production of an individual and the group. Allow it to develop models of reflection and action that can go from one form to the next myth, relatively polysemous Read more

ANCESTRALSTORIES

Discovering Time and Place

Abstract

The importance of place and displacement, represented in the mind as a clinical problem, is emphasized in this article. The movement takes on a double meaning, on the one hand that of metonymy, the other of spatial dislocation. The place and ‘built-in sense of self as an element of identity formation’. The attachment  theory describes the union with the body of the mother Read more

GauguinAnoressia

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

PieroSogno

Supervision of institutional groups: myths and dreams

Abstract

Just as the vertice of the dreamer is not the same as the one the dreamer finds himself in when he wakes up, and the vertice of the artist is not that of the interpreter of the work of art, in the same way the vertice of associations is not the same as the vertice of the psychoanalyst carrying out interpretations and the vertice of the creator of the myth is not the same as the one of the person who attempts to reformulate it, contributing to the transformations that occur in the course of institutional supervision. Viewed in this light, institutional myths become elements for the understanding of the basic functioning of the service. And if a non-rigid myth presents itself in the course of supervision, this helps professionals and the group to treat their patients. However, the discovery of a rigid myth can also sometimes give the supervisor an opportunity to make it interpretable, thereby offering it up to the understanding of the group, in an attempt to unblock it Read more

GiocoLegame

Identification Processes in Group Organisation

Summary

The group framework is the cause of a first moment of identity-based anxiety, characterized by the non-differentiation of the group members and the projection of cleaved aggressive and libidinal elements. The group becomes a real object, represented and invested by its members as they organize it into a container/ constructor of their primal anxieties. The identification processes, whether to the group or to its members, are constructed and help the psychological person’s Read more