14

1
14 European symposium in Group
AnalysisDublin,17-22 AugustDespair, Dialogue,
Desire

• Dialogue through images, dialogue through
  projects
• Dott.sa Angela Sordano

2
Theoretical concepts

• Group inter-subjective relationships tend to be
  structured through symbolic configurations which
  characterize the meaning of interpersonal
  exchanges.
• In a Junghian perspective these configurations
  are archetypically and mythologically featured.

3
The four levels of a group configuration

• Structure
• Collective imaginary mythological, archetypical
• Emotive knots
• The contents

4
Theoretical concepts

• Our psychodynamic model does not refer to object
  relations, but to a Self model based on
  intersubjective (Fonagy, 2001) and Jungian
  concepts of personality (Lyard D, 1999, Neumann
  E, 1991). In this perspective, mind is a dynamic
  field regulated by integrating or deintegrating
  forces within the individual and the relational
  context.

5
self /Groupevolution
Selbst
Undifferentiated self
Ego
You- mother
Ego
Third father
Selbst
You mother
Bodied self
Selbst
Shadow
Ego
Psychological self
Alienated self
Other
Therapist
Grand father
non
Mother
Father
6
Theoretical concepts

• Figurative thinking (dreams, art, imagination) is
  the main media which allows interaction between
  affectivity and self structure (Jung. C.G., 1976,
  Kaes R.,2001,Sordano A. 2006, Arnheim R. 1996,
  Lucignagni e al.,2007) and between acting and
  thinking. The failure in working through images
  is an important diagnostic sign.

7
First meetingthe Opening scene

• A VERY WARM SUMMER DAY IN WHICH MY FRIENDS AND I
  WENT INTO A FOUNTAIN AND PLAYED SPLASHING EACH
  OTHER

8
The contents

• Opening dreamI am at the beginning of a wood.
  It was dark, but I felt the entrance as
  inevitable, even if I was scared. After a while I
  saw a fountain. I entered and suddenly I felt
  drawn into it. I realized to be in an abandoned
  town where all the buildings were damaged. The
  place inspired great desolation and everything
  was grey. Houses did not have doors or windows.
  After a while a dog came towards me and enjoyed
  playing with me. It was brown. It looked like my
  old dog. The one I had at home!

9
FIRSt configuration

• structure the group constitution
• Collective imaginary separation from home, the
  entrance into the wood and the wolf meeting
• Emotive knots despair and loneliness
• The contents most of the adolescents confront
  on experience of abandon and loss, parents
  inadequacy

10
The contents

• Someone speaks about her escaping from home and
  forgetting her shoes.
• All the members play throwing their real shoes at
  each other. The leader feels thrown out of the
  group.

11
SECOND configuration

• Structure the couples of brothers.
• Collective imaginary meeting the witch and the
  brothers partnership in the wood .
• Emotive knots the transgression experiences
• Contents most of the adolescent speak and act
  measuring adult limits

12
the contents

• Opening dreamI was with my schoolmates at
  lunch. A boy and a girl were in love and another
  boy was making fun of a friend of mine-I tried
  to help her, but in the meantime professors came
  in and suspended us.
• A real memoryThe teacher knew who stole the
  pokermon cards, but she wanted me to betray my
  group class.

13
THIRD configuration

• Structure generational differences
• Collective imaginery the defeat of the Giant
• Emotive knots the persecution feeling and
  invisibility as a protection strategy
• Contents holocaust, repression and conflictual
  requests from adults

14
Contents

• Opening dream I was on my bed with a girl of
  this group.Suddenly my mother enters in my
  bedroom and starts to dialogue with me.She
  doesnt see the girl. Probably she couldnt
  imagine what I was doing. She thinks I am still a
  baby
• Real memoryI am in the kitchen and having
  dinner with my parents and brother. The
  television transmits the news in which a 15year
  old girl was pregnant and wanted to carry on the
  pregnancy against her parents will. My brother
  asks my parents what would they have done if the
  girl had been me. They become angry and shout at
  him.

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Fourth configuration

• Structure the genders encounter and
• the construction of a inner dialogical space
• Collective imaginary the love between Eros
• and Psyche
• Emotive knots overcoming familiar matrix links
  and the birth of subjectivity
• Contents the impossibility to avoid
• examinations and the rituality of sexual
  initiation

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CONTENTS

• Opening a boys dream two boys are fighting
  over a girl. The relationship isnt equal since
  one is bigger and stronger and the other one
  looks like a child or a victim.
• Ridefinition of transgenerational script A girl
  with phobia I remember my grandfather and a
  trip in which he, my cousin and I were traveling
  in an old open car he was teaching me how to be
  free and how to be in contact with nature.
• Project I imagine to stop being Snowhite, I
  prefer leave the group as a princess to whom the
  king has left the kingdom
• Question Do you adults dream like we do?

17
Fitfh configuration

• Structure the passage from diadic
• relashionships to triadic ones
• Collective imaginary the hero appearance (new
  ego)
• Emotive knots overcoming victimization,
  transgeneretional predictions and trauma
• Contents the discover of the Third and the
• birth of new self projects

18
Therapeutic factors

• The birth of couples who imitate and tease each
  other. This kind of partnership is a mirroring
  form and the key to increase self esteem and
  self perception through the other relation.

19
Therapeutic factors

• The necessity to permit a performance space in
  which body can freely express through its objects
  and games for the passage from acting out to
  enactment and to dream (Sordano A.,2006-
  Schechner R.,1984).

20
Therapeutic factors

• The connections within dreams, real happening in
  the group and personal experience through a
  figurative narration able to translate
  projections and feelings within a dramatic plot
  (Sordano A, 2006, Gasca G.,2003).

21
Therapeutic factors

• Role playing and free play as promoters of
  empathy and emotive tuning (Zizzo G.2002).

22
Therapeutic factors

• Leader subjectivity, through the ability to swing
  between the necessity to impose limits and to
  read the symbolic scene of the group dynamics
  (Richardz B.,2008).

23
Therapeutic factors

• Group cohesion to overcome developmental
  conflicts between generations ( Evans
  J,2001-Cramer A.F.J, Richmond L.H.,1989).

24
THERAPEUTIC FACTORS

• Triangulating fuction through the group promotes
  secondary intersubjectivity level (ability to
  represent the others mental state) Do you
  adult dream as we do?(Fonagy P.-Target M.,2004-
  Lyard D,1999- Neumann E.,2000)