Search

Group-analytic diagnosis was explored in the following paper. In the training field, the writing of this paper resulted from collaboration between teachers and postgraduates of the COIRAG Postgraduate School, in Rome. In particular, a paper's excerpt was submitted by some students at the seminar entitled "The field of diagnosis: personality, family and context", held by Vittorio Lingiardi and Nancy McWilliams. A case illustration has been described, exemplifying a way of observing the diagnostic process and constructing the therapeutic project, within the groupanalytic field. So the authors focused on some process diagnostic variables, such as the relationship between identification and identity, family network and social network, "co-transfert", dream work, the institutional level. For the authors, the analytic diagnosis of the patient involves careful observation of both the intrapsychic world of patient and therapist and the interpersonal and social context. This way of approaching the diagnostic process is very present in the research project carried out over the years by the seminar speakers, which led to the writing of the PDM. Some connections between the psychodynamic setting of PDM and the group-analytic one will be proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present paper the authors reported some results of a preliminary investigation on the process of a short-term group psychotherapy for college/university young adults, carried out within the Psychological Assistance Service for students - Dynamic Psychotherapy Service (SAP-DPS) of the University of Padua. The study aimed to examine the thematic development during the course of psychotherapy, with specific attention to both patients and psychotherapists. For this purpose, techniques of content analysis have been applied to session reports, with the support of Atlas.ti software. Results, however partial and not generalizable, highlighted the developmental nature of emerging adulthood. This paper can be a meaningful starting point for subsequent studies to deepen the relationship between efficacy and process, and the dialogue between research and clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following paper is the first of a series of contributions with the aim of highlighting the value of the National Workshop as an essential part of the COIRAG advanced training program in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. After a brief survey of its historical origins and a description of its format from its inception till 2014, the authors describe the Workshop's current formula which foresees participation of all trainees - 1st to 4th year included - attending the COIRAG institute in five centres across Italy. Special mention is made of all distinctive elements of this training device: among others, heterogeneity in group formation; the possibility for trainees to experience different and yet intertwined settings; its residential setting. A section of this paper is devoted to highlighting the training value of the enlarged group as proposed in the Workshop program. All these traits are unique and cannot be compared to any other training context. Mention is made of further training elements which are peculiar of the ongoing Workshop maintenance, such as continual attention to the holding environment and conduction by the professors' team. Experiencing different settings favours the emergence of themes, phenomena and dynamics linked to social and cultural aspects, thus offering the chance to explore the meaning of citizenship (being citizens of the COIRAG training community) and the social unconscious. In this paper, special attention is given to the first emerging theme that characterized past Workshop editions: technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The human sense of smell is an area which has been under estimated, especially in psychotherapy. Recently, an increasing body of ground-breaking evidence has demonstrated the crucial role that odors play in our lives. Most importantly for the topic of the present paper, each individual produces a unique odor signature which is able to communicate -- mostly subconsciously -- awide range of social information (e.g., emotions, health status, age) to conspecifics. Nowadays, there is an ever-increasing number of people delivering psychotherapies over internet as a practical alternative to traditional methods. However, we need to consider the limitations linked to the non-verbal domain on the analytic dialogue. The aim of the present paper is to focus on the role of the sense of smell as a medium for conveying important social information within a group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the author examines the events that involved the population in this long pandemic from the point of view of group dynamics, in particular assuming to be linked to the fifth basic assumption BaM, Me-ness the appearance of nonrational behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the characteristics of clinical work done outside the consulting room at home with adolescents. According to the group-analytic perspective, the contribution intends to highlight the complexity of the intervention by grasping its multiple psychosocial levels. The two clinical cases are described both through the two dreams of the adolescents and through the clinical gaze of the two therapists. During the work, in fact, the therapists shared both professional and personal experiences, possibly related to their professional role in a social work environment. This sharing was subsequently made also in other group contexts, to broaden the resonances and associations about clinical activity with adolescents. That is, the therapists have built associations with some other colleagues both in a small group on the Third Sector and in the median-institutional group of the Observatory. The text, therefore, allows both different possible readings, and the possibility of broadening the thinkability of the object of reflection, which is the group. Through a double observation point, this reflection is addressed, therefore, both to the group of adolescents and to that of professionals who work in these contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work originates from an interest of the Observatory group in exploring different associations dealing with groups: what theories inform their practice? What questions do they try to answer? Where do they find their origin and how much resonance can be found among group therapists, in spite of different affiliations? This paper will be followed by other papers aiming at describing and reviewing Italian journals on groups, so as to broaden the reader's knowledge while stimulating new lines of thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a number of training experts with different cultural backgrounds and theoretical and technical approaches dialogue. Their aim is to open a debate on what kind of competences mental health professionals dealing with migrants and migration should have. Today's major social transformations are bringing about changes in clinical practice, in the organisation of care services and in job opportunities: all of this implies an inevitable rethinking of training. Everyone agrees in recognising the group device as one of the main resources to face these difficulties. The reception of migrants leads to important experiences of bewilderment towards the new and uncertainty towards one's own cultural paradigms. It is fundamental to learn notions of anthropology and ethno-psychology to be able to listen to the other and understand his/her real needs within his/her personal and specific cultural and meaning framework, made of peculiar symbolic registers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Those who experience integration issues - as migrants or as receivers - know that integration is the result of a very long - and sometimes very hard - mediation effort. Both parties need to take up the responsibility of the negotiation, that often gives rise to strong emotions and requires to compromise between resources and opportunities of a economic, as well as psychological and affective, nature. In the introduction possible relationships between foreigners and the land they have moved to are outlined, and possible fantasies prompted by their arrival. The paper focuses on the crossing of borders by new entries in a small psychotherapy group, and the dynamics of hospitality, acquisition and integration. The arrival of a new patient in a group bears similarities to the arrival of a newborn sibling, but also with the arrival of a foreigner from a different culture. A number of clinical vignettes will show how the borders of the therapy group change after each new entry and the extensive work that must be done to re-define and re-shape the identity and culture of the group. As migrants take a stance about those who have never left home, new patients prompt fantasies about siblings who have left the small therapy group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from ethnopsychoanalysis approach, we describe in this paper an experience of transcultural group psychotherapy we are developing since many years with immigrant families. It is a public service to whom families are addressed by local health operators like child psychiatry or family planning services. The group is leaded by one psychotherapist and others are taking the role of co-therapists; two cultural linguistic mediators and an interpreter are part of the group and the session can take place either in mother tongue or in Italian. The author briefly explains theoretical principles, setting, methods and therapeutic aims, which are basically oriented to sustain and appreciate cultural diversity, and master splitting mechanism, which develop after migration trauma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper Cristina Testa, who has been the Workshop director since 2016, and three group conductors of experiential, large and median groups discuss their experience as Workshop staff members. Some members of the Osservatorio board prepared a series of questions exploring what the COIRAG Workshop really was, what its origins were and how it changed in the course of the years. The Workshop director and the group conductors were also asked to describe this peculiar training device and to produce an image expressing their feelings both as staff members and as individuals taking part to experiential groups. Since the interview focused on one and the same experience, the interviewees' answers were somehow similar, yet they also revealed each conductor's specific, methodological and technical viewpoint. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking inspiration from Gabriele Profita's paper: "Malinteso e conflitto, il sottile confine tra negoziare e agire", which was published in this Journal in 2014, the author discusses some case studies while also drawing parallelisms with other professions. Some aspects of the phenomenon: "misunderstanding" are thus investigated from the patient's and the psychotherapist's point of view, while also keeping in mind norms and theories. Exemplifications will help to define misunderstandings arising from a condition of suffering which is difficult to verbalize, when both patient and therapist are confronted with unpredictability and the unknown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper was written by a group of COIRAG trainees and postgraduates. They all answered a series of questions aiming at collecting impressions and feelings tied with the national Workshop, one of the most challenging and interesting parts of their training. All interviewees gave very personal and diversified, yet somehow similar answers. The Workshop residential setting seems to touch trainees deeply, while arising feelings such as disorientation, fragmentation and anger. However, final feelings of enrichment and gratitude offer each trainee a chance to dream, to find new meanings, to verbalize aspects of one's Self and to talk about the group settings experienced during the event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this short paper Antonino Aprea, the dean of the COIRAG Institute for training in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, describes the National Workshop institutional framework. The author underlines how this event reflects the epistemology of the COIRAG Association, which the Institute is part of. The National Workshop - whose title is: "Polis: psyche, culture and society" - is a distinctive feature of the COIRAG Institute training program, both in terms of methodology and training objectives. In fact, the Workshop device was specifically conceived so as to provide psychotherapists-to-be with first-hand experience of one's own cultural and social matrix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short paper offers an introduction to the use of psychodynamically oriented group therapy in treating pathological addiction. The current forms of addiction are rooted in narcissistic frailty, a condition in which individuals often resort to various forms of addiction in an attempt to counterbalance a frail and vulnerable Self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtual reality is increasingly becoming part of everyday life. The authors wonder how and to what extent internet communication modifies a psychotherapist's way of thinking and working. This paper includes a short survey by Gruppi which investigates how psychotherapists use new technologies both in individual and group psychotherapy, with comments on the relevance of this phenomenon. From a technical point of view, the authors first tried to understand if basic rule, transference, counter transference, defense mechanisms and therapeutic alliance were, in fact, possible when the subjects involved took part to the session in a digital setting. What happens if the therapeutic room takes shape in the world of technology? Can we still consider it a psychoanalytic or group-analytic setting? Is a psychoanalytic method still applicable, or else, would it be wrong to see it in these terms? The debate is open. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a reasoned review of the works produced on the "FoMO" phenomenon, starting from the date of the first scientific paper. FoMO stands for Fear of Missing Out. It is a specific form of social anxiety explained by the need to remain in contact with other people and the fear of being excluded from an event or social context. According to the definition of Andrew Przybylski, the first author to deal with FoMO, it is possible to define it as «a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent (...) is characterized by the desire to stay continually connected with what others are doing» (Przybylski et al., 2013, p. 1). In the US, many efforts were done on FoMO, while the same cannot be said for the rest of the world. Nevertheless, this is a condition that we can be observed everywhere. This review aims at defining the field for future insights on the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a synthesis of the work of reflection and research carried out by the ASVEGRA Study Group "Family dynamics and relationship problems" in 2017. A series of analogies have been identified between the concept of the nascent state of a therapeutic group in private practice or in the institution, the nascent state of a family and the so-called evolutionary crises in the family life cycle, between a working group in the institution, a family group and the mode of operation of our own study group. The leitmotif, or momentum of change, identified through group work is that of dreams, even 'open-eyes' dreams, for the precious intersubjective and integrative value they add to every context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, reference is made to theongoing, great changes in the relationships between women and men following to the invention and widespread use of the contraceptive pill, the approval of the law legalizing divorce and the Italian Law 194, which has made voluntary termination of pregnancy legal. Relational changes also derive from the fact that, for the past thirty years, having sexhas not implied conception anymore; at the same time, thanks to medically assisted procreation, conceptionhas become possible without implying a sexual act between a man and a woman. A brief historical review of the relational patterns between women and men follows. The author maintains that the small, analytically-oriented group can be the most suitable setting where to rediscoverone's own identity - gender identity being an important part of it - or else, where to findit for the very first time. Feminine and masculine are relational constructs which can, therefore, be best defined through those identification and differentiation processes that are typical of group work. Working with the group and in the group makes it possible to overcome stereotypicalroles shaped by family and society and to attain authenticity in the woman-man relationship. Clinical situations are included to exemplify the author's assertions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What do we see when we observe a psychodynamic group with adolescents? The present paper tries to put in evidence three possible observational perspectives: centered on the single-case, on the group as a totality and on the intersubjetive interactions. The three points of view do not exclude each other and, if they are integrated, new hypothesis can be opened on the interrelations between individual and group functioning. The observation represents the main tool to understand and explore the group process while working with children and adolescents. For this reason it is necessary to reflect on how this tool defines the observed field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]