The visual depiction of dreams in group analytically oriented art psychotherapy groups has two basic pillars : on the one hand, the group analytic culture and, on the other hand, the therapeutic dimension of artistic creation. Central to group analytic art therapy is the healing capacity of the artistic process, the release of unconscious material which, when consciously assimilated, can lead to the release of creative potential for the individual, whereas the basic concepts of group analysis, such as matrix, the group as a whole, resonance and so forth are constantly present, penetrating and characterizing the whole therapeutic process. The image resides in the creator before it is depicted on the paper. It is also inevitably found in the mental apparatus of the other members of the group, who can complete it using their own imagination. Being Oedipal creatures we constantly reestablish our relationships with our significant others, through internalized mental representations, exploring our transference constellations by means of the actual experience of group dynamics. The setting of group analytic art therapy serves as a transitional space, to which the inner worlds of the members and the external world both contribute.

1. Social Dreaming: theory, practice and research applications

Time: 1:00 pm -2:30 pm

Conductor:

Domenico Agresta, Italy

Abstract:

SDM is a psychological device which transforms the thinking of dreams using free associations, thematic amplification and systemic thinking in order to create links, find connections and liberate/generate new thinking. Social dreaming was discovered by G. Lawrence in the 1980s when he was the director of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in London. The experience of the SDM in the field of ethnopsychoanalytical research and in particular in the field of history has enabled us to make important observations on how the matrix takes shape, what it is and what it represents in terms of the collective unconscious and hence the social unconscious. The Matrix creates culture: it is thus a foundation element. From the rite or rituality, from the dream to the building of an identity and culture, the step is short. he Matrix is a container but it is above all a psychosensorial experience with an affective base which leads to the formation of a “structure process” that can be defined as the building of meanings by means of dreams. It enables us to represent “ideal anthropological structures” and so, in terms of group processes, give maximum facilitation to the capacity of the collective to accesses into knowledge.

2. The Aesthetics of Interconnection workshop on Dance Movement Therapy in Psychiatry

Time: 1:00 pm -2:30 pm

Conductor:

Barbara Dragoni, Italy

Vincenzo Bella, Italy

Abstract:

We report a DMT project, implemented in a psychiatric day-center and including also recurrent social sessions open to several other members of the community. Patients experience a virtuous circle among social participation, self-healing and empowerment. We emphasize, also showing a video sample, the choreographic devices and the methodological cornerstones, highlighting some references to Laban/Bartenieff Movement Studies.
The Expressive-Relational approach to Dance Movement Therapy (Dmt) works by reintegrating connections: the connections in everyone’s individual body, and the connections in the group, which is a social body. It is the development of such interconnectedness that promote creativity and that makes everyone’s body image evolve.

The Italian psychiatrist and group analyst Franco Fasolo observed (2002) that not the insight, but the outsight is therapeutic for psychotics. As a matter of fact, in our clinical experience, the therapeutic efficacy lies entirely in the sense of belonging and participation, in feeling recognized from the outside and in internalizing this external gaze on oneself. It is the embodied experience of the group’s choreographic process, where the group is the coherent collective body in which each patient recovers her/his own healthy individual body.