Milena Ivanova Leblanc

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20 th Annual EFPSA Congress Špindleruv Mlýn,
Czech Republic 5 mai 2006 PHOTOLANGAGE

• Milena Ivanova Leblanc
• Justyna Sikora
• Université Lumière Lyon II, France

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Summary

• Presentation of the method (45 min)
• Origins and history of the method Photolangage
• Presentation of the method animation and tools
• Domains of application of Photolangage
• Theoretical applies about mediation groups
• Pause 10-15 min
• Session of Photolangage (2h)
• Analysis of the group work (10 min)

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20th Annual EFPSA CongressŠpindleruv Mlýn, Czech
Republic5 mai 2006

• Members of the workshop 15 persons (20th Annual
  EFPSA Congress)
• Animators Milena Ivanova Leblanc
• Justyna Sikora
• Duration 3 h
• Methods of working oral presentation (exposé),
  animation, discussion/debate
• Material and presentation tools power point
  presentation, files of photographs, flipchart
  (white board), hand out (information about
  training centres bibilography)

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Photolangage is a collection of photographic
portfolios and a method for group communication
with photographs.Justyna Sikora20th Annual
EFPSA Congress
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Origins and history of the method Photolangage

• Photolangage is a brand name and it has been
  created in 1965 in Lyon by Alain BAPTISTE and
  Claire BELISLE
• Origins created to help adolescents to express
  themselves and communicate with others
• 1971 France an act which declared the
  principles of continuous training (courses and
  workshops to all employees)
• In the years of 80s Photolangage was developed
  in the psychiatry hospitals as a therapys method
  
• It is also used in other European countries as
  well as in Africa, America, India or Australia
• Justyna Sikora20th Annual EFPSA Congress

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Presentation of the method -animation
and tools

• Photolangage is a collection of thematic
  photo-documents implying a specific approach of
  photography which can be used for groupwork.
• Photolangage focuses at the same time on work
  within a group, on the recognition, by the
  participant, of his personal concepts and in oral
  participation.
• Justyna Sikora20th Annual
  EFPSA Congress

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Presentation of the method Animation

• Introduction time - strict instructions
  describing the objectives, the orientation of the
  work, the role and the place of the photos and
  the limits of the sharing...
• Question concerning the theme of the group
  session
• Individual choice of photos according to the
  question (members are invited to choose one or
  many photos in the silence)
• Decision - the initial decision is the most
  important even the photo was chosen by someone
  else (silence)
• Presentation time presentation of the photos,
  personal impressions and feelings (comments and
  questions of the group)
• Justyna Sikora
• 20th Annual EFPSA Congress

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The specificity of Photolangage

• Personal expression
• Attentive listening
• Photographic language
• Justyna Sikora 20th
  Annual EFPSA Congress

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Personal expression

• The central aim in Photolangage is the oral
  sharing from each participant after deep inner
  personal work
• personal investment
• deep thought from each participant
• comprehension and integration the objectives of
  the method
• individual choice
• concentration of the group and the possibility of
  interacting
• critiques and defensive remarks are forbidden
• The objective should not be an agreement between
  members of the group on the proposed question,
  the aim is to allow everybody to express his
  views and be listened to by the others.
• Justyna Sikora
• 20th Annual EFPSA Congress

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Open and positive listening

• If people are eager to express themselves
  personally, they must be carefully and positively
  listened to.
• The emotional dimension in the experience of
  listening is fundamental.
• Listening
• is to give attention to the words that are said
• is the capacity to join the speaker where he is
• is to hear what he really says
• is to understand where the words come from and
  let oneself be modified by these words
• Justyna Sikora
• 20th Annual EFPSA Congress

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Photographic language

• The photo is an invitation to go back to the
  imaginary, this permanently vivid and boiling
  part of ourselves, where images are born and die,
  where nothing is lost, nothing is forgotten,
  nothing has passed
• PHOTOS
• allow a person to see and speak differently
• visual aid make easier the internal psychic
  elaboration and the speech
• the means of access, the front door to the
  functioning of the mind and this functioning is
  also the real subject which brings us back to
  images
• raise up and encourage a psychic work of
  association, appreciation, interpretation,
  remembrance, comprehension
• Justyna Sikora
• 20th Annual EFPSA Congress

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Presentation of the method Tools

• collection of photo-documents containing from 40
  to 100 photos (dimensions strictly specified)
• coloured photos - 16 x 25,5 cm
• black and white photos - 18 x 24 cm
• Role of the photos
• strong suggestive power, aesthetic quality and
  projective capacity and symbolical value
• show images which can be identified and named by
  the participants
• their role is to stimulate and reactivate our
  perception of the reality
• develop imaginative sensibility
• act as an activator of language and facilitate
  communication
• encourage a certain type of relation to reality,
  to knowledge and to people
• become a mediator which allow personal opinions,
  experience and ideas to be shared more easily
• Justyna Sikora
• 20th Annual EFPSA Congress

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DOMAINS OF APPLICATION

• Milena Ivanova-Leblanc,
• 20th Annual EFPSA Congress

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DOMAINS OF APPLICATION

• PROFESSIONAL DOMAIN INSIDE COMPANIES
• Integration of the new recruited
• Firm culture
• Social conflicts
• Milena Ivanova-Leblanc,
• 20th Annual EFPSA Congress

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DOMAINS OF APPLICATION

• SOCIAL DOMAIN
• Courses for social and cultural trainers
• Society Project for example The Mauritius
• Milena Ivanova-Leblanc,
• 20th Annual EFPSA Congress

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DOMAINS OF APPLICATION

• TRAINING PERIOD
• Professional internship
• Group animation internship
• Trainers and professionals group animators
• Milena Ivanova-Leblanc,
• 20th Annual EFPSA Congress

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DOMAINS OF APPLICATION

• HEALTH DOMAIN - PSYCHOLOGICAL TREATEMENT AND
  CARE
• Psychiatric institutions
• Daily centres for mental health
• Production centres and institutions for working
  people with light mental diseases
• Milena Ivanova-Leblanc,
• 20th Annual EFPSA Congress

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DOMAINS OF APPLICATION
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THEORETICAL APPLIES ABOUT GROUPS

• GROUP PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY
• Milena Ivanova-Leblanc,
• 20th Annual EFPSA Congress

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THEORETICAL APPLIES ABOUT GROUPS

• The English School - 1940-1950 gt M.BALINT, W.
  FOULKES, W. BION
• The Argentinean School 1950-1960 gt Enrique
  PICHON-RIVIERE, José BLEGGER, M. BERNARD
• The French School 1960-1970 gt Didier ANZIEU,
  René KAES
• The Italian School 1990-2000 gt Claudio NERI
• Milena Ivanova-Leblanc,
• 20th Annual EFPSA Congress

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THEORETICAL APPLIES ABOUT GROUPS

• What the concept of group means?
• Milena Ivanova-Leblanc,
• 20th Annual EFPSA Congress

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THEORETICAL APPLIES ABOUT GROUPS

• The group is a set of members, who can represent
  them-selves mutually. Its articulated by
  constants of time and space and it has an
  explicit task to do.
• (J. BLEGGER)
• Milena Ivanova-Leblanc,
• 20th Annual EFPSA Congress

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THEORETICAL APPLIES ABOUT GROUPS

• The group is pointed as a real object, as an
  imaginary object (representation) and as
  unconscious object (psychic apparatus). (R.
  Kaes)
• Milena Ivanova-Leblanc,
• 20th Annual EFPSA Congress

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THEORETICAL APPLIES ABOUT GROUPS

• According the clinical approach, the group is
• A social structure
• An object
• A theoritical notion
• Psychic group apparatus (R. Kaes)
• Milena Ivanova-Leblanc,
• 20th Annual EFPSA Congress

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THEORETICAL APPLIES ABOUT GROUPS

• The group
• Mobilizes the mental energy of its members
• Deploys real or fantastic processes
• The group can change of stages
• In the group there are rules
• The group keeps a trace of its history
• We all belong to groups
• Milena Ivanova-Leblanc,
• 20th Annual EFPSA Congress

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THEORETICAL APPLIES ABOUT GROUPS

• Concept of associations of words chain
• Imaginary and fantastic productions, manifested
  by metaphoric figures coming from the sub
  consciousness.
• Milena Ivanova-Leblanc,
• 20th Annual EFPSA Congress

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THEORETICAL APPLIES ABOUT GROUPS

• Concept of group frame (J. BLEGGER)
• Time, place task or trainers.
• Sense and a symbolic function.
• The frame is fixed (Blegger).
• The frame allows leaving down the most psychotic
  part of the group, that seems to be the most
  archaic part of the group, the most primary one,
  glutted with fears.
• Milena Ivanova-Leblanc,
• 20th Annual EFPSA Congress

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THEORETICAL APPLIES ABOUT GROUPS

• Concept of crisis (R. KAES)
• Employed on theoretical model to study the
  psychic processes of unties.
• The crisis is only a moment of transition, a
  negative experience, but it can be double crossed
  in the group.
• The group has a crisis resolution function. It
  contains sense and creates a new one, transforms
  the sense.
• Milena Ivanova-Leblanc,
• 20th Annual EFPSA Congress

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THEORETICAL APPLIES ABOUT GROUPS

• Concept of paradox (D. WINNICOTT)
• The para against and the doxa opinion
  (linguistic). A figure of speech.
• The Palo Alto school - the paradox can be
  pathological and create a paradox situation.
  Groups also can be paradoxal and communicate by
  double bind messages.
• The ability to illusion about ones self and to
  proceed on the transition. To reach the
  transitionality, a group needs to trust in his
  good enough mother / trainer.
• The major paradox inside training groups is the
  one of changing without change, without get
  broke, without risk of losing recognition of
  ones self.
• Symbolical and mediation objects and plays can
  replace and make psychic economy of
  representation.

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THEORETICAL APPLIES ABOUT GROUPS

• Concept of representation.
• Two approaches inspired by the Cave myth of
  Platoon
• social psychology (S. Moscovici), based on a
  model of the discursive thoughts and
  representational thoughts
• psychoanalysis (S. Freud), articulated on primary
  processes (5 senses) and secondary processes
  (words, ideas, concepts)
• Main ideas process of internalizing and
  something that got transformed.
• Representations inside groups
• something that move and changes - a process
• something fixed a content
• The group works like the dream (D. ANZIEU)
• Milena Ivanova-Leblanc,
• 20th Annual EFPSA Congress

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THEORETICAL APPLIES ABOUT GROUPS

• Groups phases
• Ideological position
• Utopian position
• Mytho-poetic position
• Milena Ivanova-Leblanc,
• 20th Annual EFPSA Congress

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THEORETICAL APPLIES ABOUT GROUPS

• Concept of Psychic group apparatus (R. KAES)
• A set of elements, organized to work together, to
  operate together.
• Contents of the representations, process of
  evolution and of construction of the
  representations, group itself and its members
  belong to that apparatus
• Elements of the groups apparatus stemming from
• culture and society, the 3 phases of the group
  life (Ideological, Utopian and Mythopoetic)
  deep-rooted in a common social and cultural life
• groups psychic life organizers topic, economic
  and dynamic constants revealed by fantasy
  productions like body images fantasies, family
  complexes, peers shores and identification
  processes, questions of origins etc.
• Milena Ivanova-Leblanc,
• 20th Annual EFPSA Congress

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CONCLUSION

• The mediation objects favour the intra psychic
  work, and the relationships between persons.
• Mediation objects and techniques mobilize
  essentially subconscious and imaginary, which
  makes easier the way of the recklessness
  representations to conscious representations.
• Mediation techniques or mediating objects as
  photographs, permit to set up a framework, with
  strict rules.
• Group frame has the function to contain processes
  and to make easier the emergency of psychic work.
  Thus, is proposed an area of plays between the
  inside and the outside, between the subject (the
  person) and the group, between the self and the
  mind.
• Milena Ivanova-Leblanc,
• 20th Annual EFPSA Congress

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PAUSE
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Session of Photolangage

• SECOND PART

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RULES FOR THE GROUP WORK

• No critics/defencing remarks
• Silent listening to the one who is talking
• No personal attack
• No judgments
• Everyone is invited to present his/her photo at
  the moment you want
• You can share your point of view with the others
  if you want

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WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR YOU TO COMMUNICATE?SAY IT
WITH ONE PHOTOGRAPH
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Analysis of the group work

• THIRD PART

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Thank you for the participationA special thank
to Claudine Vacheret for her scientific and
methodologic help during preperation this
project

• Justyna Sikora
• Milena Ivanova Leblanc
• Work and organizational psychology
• Université Lumière Lyon II
• France