Search

The vicissitudes of a group of psychotherapy with adolescent patients, from its foundation to just over one year of work, bring to the attention of the conductor and of the observer of the group the suffered subject of the absence of the other. Depending on the analysed matter, and therefore at different levels, in this paper they retrace, listening also to their own countertransference, the trouble and urgency to match depressive and deadly experiences linked to absence and loss. Far from regarding the matter as depending only on the patients, the conductor and the observer ask themselves about the drives that have supported and influenced the birth and the definition of this group, which shows working features of its own, which are described in here. Then the hypothesis is suggested that a "joint" among different facts (such as the lack of a shared group culture in the institution where the group was born, the often small number of participants, the histories of the patients scattered with dropouts and also the tasks of adolescent development itself) have resulted in and allowed the group, if not to work through the matter of the absence of the other, at least to push on presenting it in different times and with different languages (interactions among participants, actings out, movie storytelling,...), aiming to expand increasingly broader areas of thinkability. [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]