Volume 5, Number 1, April 2017
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Articles:
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Freedom, Goodness, Power, and Belonging: The Semantics of Phobic, Obsessive-Compulsive, Eating, and Mood Disorders
by Valeria Ugazio, Attà Negri e Lisa Fellin
AbstractFreedom, Goodness, Power, and Belonging: The Semantics of Phobic, Obsessive-Compulsive, Eating, and Mood DisordersAre the semantics of “freedom,” “goodness,” “power” and “belonging” characteristic of the stories narrated in psychotherapy by individuals respectively with phobic, obsessive-compulsive, eating, and mood disorders? To verify this hypothesis, put forward by Ugazio’s model of semantic polarities, the Family Semantics Grid (FSG) was applied to the transcripts of 120 individual video-recorded systemic therapy sessions, the first two sessions carried out with 60 patients with phobic (12), obsessive-compulsive (12), eating (12), and mood (12) disorders and asymptomatic patients (12) with existential problems who made up the comparison group. The results confirm the hypothesis. All but one patient were correctly
assigned to their diagnostic group only by drawing on their narrated semantics. The semantics alone therefore seem capable of defining the correct diagnostic group to which each patient belongs. We suggest considering the semantics as contextual and cultural diagnostic dimensions, expressions of the bonds but also of the resources of people, and above all useful for a diagnosis aimed at fostering processes of transformation and change.
Key words: semantics, family semantic polarities, positioning theory, phobic, obsessive-compulsive, eating, and mood disorders.
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The “rhythm” is a mental construct, considerations
by Stefano Gambini
AbstractThe “rhythm” is a mental construct, considerationsIn this article I am going to re-propose and defend the analysis of “the rhythm” explained in mental operations, made by Silvio Ceccato a lot of years ago. The greatest artists are those ones who have been able to manage, aware or unaware, how to measure out the various attitudes in order to reach the result they wanted. In Art you need the aesthetic attitude which develops through the rhythmic composition of some special elements, built by the rhythmic fragmentation of what is observed and this is a mental construction, too. For an artist it is extremely important to be aware of the constitutive operations of the rhythm, obtained again by mind operating according to a “summation module”, which is very different from the “substitutive module” which lets you get, instead, the relationship between what you are thinking of and how you say it.
Furthermore, in this article, Giorgio Marchetti's opinions about this analysis are refuted
Key words: rhythm (summative form), thought (replacement module), attention, memory, circularity of the technique of operational analysis.
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Darkness in the Theatre: the perception of the embodied self in action
by David M. Mills
AbstractDarkness in the Theatre: the perception of the embodied self in actionDrawing on the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, especially his concept of bodily space, the author elaborates the parallel between the actor on stage, inhabiting many characters, and the person in the world, acting in within alternative sets of meanings. By juxtaposing Kelly’s geometric model of personal meaning with Merleau-Ponty’s basically theatrical view of the bodily situational space in which we each find ourselves, the paper explores the dimensionality of that lived space from which our ideas of geometric space are abstracted. While the two views may seem at odds—with Kelly making our meaning construction accessible by giving our attentiveness to it a geometric structure, and Merleau-Ponty emphasizing the fundamental inaccessibility of the mystery of how meaning derives from bodily experience—taken together they point us toward a deeper understanding of what Kelly might have meant by saying that a person “lives in anticipation”. This consideration of the actor as person and vice versa leads to a theatrical view of bodily experience in which the person is seen to inhabit multiple spaces of meaning, navigating among them as an actor would set aside a character and take up or ‘become’ another.
By showing how spatial movement and meaningful action are intricately intertwined, the paper points toward a consideration of a person’s kinaesthetic sense as much more than a sense of movement—in fact as the perception of the meaning of their own embodiment in action.
Key words: personal constructs, embodiment, acting, phenomenology.
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Experiences:
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Alpine Tales: an experience of lived constructivism
by Susan Bridi, Chiara Lui, Veronica Mormina, Giovanni Stella
AbstractAlpine Tales: an experience of lived constructivismAlpine Tales is a residential event organized by the European Constructivist Training Network (ECTN). The aim of the winter school is to promote the networking between people interested in PCP from different countries. This event is thought as an opportunity to share resources and ideas, therefore enhancing our professional skills and potentially starting new collaborations. Hosted in an alpine self-managed house, the event offers participative training activities, like workshop and Open Space Technology sessions. It is focused on a collaborative approach: in Alpine Tales every activity - training as well as the houseworks - needs the active involvement of everyone. The Winter School, now at its third edition, has represented so far an enthusiastic experience of exchanging thoughts and ideas, useful both in the professional field and in our everyday life. This event has been a chance to share new and creative tools for working in a strategically oriented way, to reflect on concrete projects and to build relationships that constitute the basis for a strong european network. Alpine Tales is therefore to be considered a great experience of lived constructivism.
Key words: constructivism, Alpine Tales, Open Space Technology, learning environments.
Interviews:
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Constructivisms in research and psychotherapy: interview with Guillem Feixas
by Chiara Centomo
Translated by Caterina Bertelli and Elisa Petteni
Guillem FeixasConstructivisms in research and psychotherapy: interview with Guillem FeixasGuillem Feixas, now Professor at the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Barcelona, completed his PhD at this center and hold a postdoc position at the University of Memphis, USA. He is the director of the Master in Cognitive Social Therapy and other postgraduate courses. He has published more than 90 papers in reputed journals and 10 books and led several research projects. His investigations have been focused in interpersonal construing and its role in health (both mental and physical), and in the process of psychotherapy.
Key words:: psychotherapy research, research methodology, implicative dilemma, brief psychotherapy.
Book reviews:
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“Il costruttivismo in psicologia e in psicoterapia” by Gabriele Chiari
by Francesca Del Rizzo
Glossary:
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Personality
by Dušan Stojnov
Translated by Davide Scapin and Riccardo Lorenzon