Gruppi a mediazione terapeutica nella pratica istituzionale

Within the vast system of groups operating in the field of institutional practice, this article means to highlight the specificity of therapeutic negotiating groups. With regard to socio-rehabilitative implications, therapeutic connotations are guaranteed due to the fact that the group is employed thanks to its restraining and negotiating functions, which are offered by a mediating object that diffracts transference. Through Chouvier, the primary elements of psychic structuring are identified: the creation of a basis, the introjection of totality, the building-up of the duration and composition of a grid, which allow for the development of a diagram that can easily be referred to in order to characterize and evaluate therapeutic negotiating groups. Thus, what is stressed is that these groups’ negotiating ability is not connected with the presence or absence of different and varied objects, or with more or less sophisticated and inflexible techniques, but with how negotiation can be used, starting from its specific characteristic: a malleability that allows for creativity. This medium serves as an interpreter, transformer and symbolizing agent between psychic and exterior reality. Key words: institutional practice, therapeutic negotiation, mediating object.

Giacomo Di Marco, Gruppi a mediazione terapeutica nella pratica istituzionale in "GRUPPI" 2/2007, pp 27-41, DOI: