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This article represents the first complete systematization of the basic assumptions as theorized by Wilfred R. Bion and post-Bionian authors. The authors reviewed, compared and systematized all the Bionian developments concerning the basic assumptions taking the prevailing anxieties, group topology, leader peculiarities, interactions with the work-group mentality into account. The analysis evinced five main ba(s) and five subsets (i.e. their features resemble one of the five main basic assumptions). Briefly, in the first paragraph the authors summarize Bionian thought and its underlying logical criteria while in the second they reviewed all the new proposals for basic assumptions emerging from the psychoanalytic literature (i.e. Lawrence, Bain and Gould, 1996; Romano, 1997; Sandler, 2002; Sarno, 1999; Turquet, 1974; Hopper, 2009). In conclusion the authors focus on the main strengths and critical points of the systematization. In the last section 'Promising developments' they address the methodology of the study of basic assumptions, its main features and potential developments. The article rounds off with a clinical appendix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neoclassical Economics assumes that economic agents are independent and optimizing. The achievements of Psychoanalysis concerning the development of mind and human interactions, on the contrary, indicate that considering an individual as independent and optimizing is incorrect, as everyone, since birth, is mentally interconnected with other agents. In this research we firstly deal with and criticize the Neoclassical economics concepts of Independence and Optimization; then, on the basis of the psychoanalytic model of the mind, we draw a new definition of Competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A systematic single case study with a mixed quantitative and qualitative methodology was conducted to investigate the nonlinear dynamics of change in play profiles of a child in psychodynamic play therapy. The first aim of the study was to cluster the different features of play characteristics (i.e., descriptive, cognitive, affective, and social characteristics of play, and the defensive strategies used in play) in order to construct the different play profiles of this child, and secondly to assess the transitions between profiles over the course of treatment. It was expected that there would be an increase in critical fluctuations during the transitions between the profiles and an increase in the variability of play profiles. Results showed that the child’s play characteristics clustered into eight states and three attractors. The Markov Transition Matrix showed how play profiles evolved over time. Entropy analyses comparing the first and the second half of therapy showed an increase in variability. Qualitative analyses indicated the importance of expression of the child’s underlying fear, and its integration with overt anger in the generation of the new play profiles. The results indicate an increase in variability, and a destabilization of old play profiles that were used towards generating new play profiles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Statistical mechanics investigates how emergent properties of macroscopic systems (such as temperature and pressure) relate to microscopic state fluctuations. The underlying idea is that global statistical descriptors of order and variability can monitor the relevant dynamics of the whole system at hand. Here we test the possibility of extending such an approach to psychotherapy research investigating the possibility of predicting the outcome of psychotherapy on the sole basis of coarse-grained empirical macro-parameters. Four good-outcome and four poor-outcome brief psychotherapies were recorded, and their transcripts coded in terms of standard psychological categories (abstract, positive emotional and negative emotional language pertaining to patient and therapist). Each patient-therapist interaction is considered as a discrete multivariate time series made of subsequent word-blocks of 150-word length, defined in terms of the above categories. "Static analyses" (Principal Component Analysis) highlighted a substantial difference between good-outcome and poor-outcome cases in terms of mutual correlations among those descriptors. In the former, the patient's use of abstract language correlated with therapist's emotional negative language, while in the latter it co-varied with therapist's emotional positive language, thus showing the different judgment of the therapists regarding the same variable (abstract language) in poor and good outcome cases. On the other hand, the "dynamic analyses", based on five coarse-grained descriptors related to variability, the degree of order and complexity of the series, demonstrated a relevant case-specific effect, pointing to the possibility of deriving a consistent picture of any single psychotherapeutic process. Overall, the results showed that the systemic approach to psychotherapy (an old tenet of psychology) is mature enough to shift from a metaphorical to a fully quantitative status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We studied the synchronization dynamics of a therapist and patient during a psychotherapy session. This investigation was developed in order to explore a new possible perspective and methodology for studying the expression of emotions. More specifically, literature concerning synchronization of in-session non-verbal variables emphasises its positive correlation with empathy and therapeutic outcomes. We compared the dynamics of galvanic skin response (GSR) and linguistic prosody, chosen as indicators of emotional expression in different domains. We studied their synchronization through complementary methodologies: Recurrence Quantification Analysis (RQA) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Markov Transition Matrix (MTM) and Cross-Recurrence Quantification Analysis (CRQA). We investigated the nonlinearity of GSR in terms of self-similarity and power-law, as emerged in autocorrelation functions and signal variations. We considered time-lagged correlations as a measure of dynamical systems' memory. This article concludes by highlighting the importance of a deeper study of all variables related to the psychotherapeutic process and their synchronization in order to extend our knowledge of general human dynamics.