The empathic bond in training as a basis for the "we-ness" in individual therapy and in the groups

Journal title GRUPPI
Author/s Roberto Carnevali, Elena Quadri
Publishing Year 2015 Issue 2015/1
Language Italian Pages 12 P. 29-40 File size 49 KB
DOI 10.3280/GRU2015-001003
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This paper has been dictated by the need to understand the "we-ness". We have a multi-layered we-ness, starting from the therapeutic couple, going through teamwork, up to an institutional level sharing methodologies, purposes and targets in a combined approach. If this we-ness falls apart, one can even drag into this fall the we-ness at different levels, this way creating conflicts or highlighting those destructive sides which a harmonic, combined approach allows to sublimate and/or to inventively transform. The authors suggest considering the empathic bond that develops in the different kinds of relations, starting from the formative experience of one of the two authors - a trainee at a school of psychotherapy psychoanalytically oriented, having the other author as a tutor - pointing out how fundamental the empathic bond between the tutor and the trainee is in order to create a "we-ness" serving as a relational model to be exported to other therapeutic and institutional contexts. The following are taken into consideration: the relation of the author being trained with one of her patients; the relation in a group led by the tutor, having the trainee as a partaking observer and eventually the relation between the two authors when debating clinical cases and traineeship as a whole, pointing out the repercussion which the awareness of emotions has on the relations involved, including that with the institutional team and the members constituting it.

Keywords: Empathy, conflicts, we-ness, teamwork, training, combined approach

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Roberto Carnevali, Elena Quadri, Il legame empatico come base per il senso del noi (we-ness) nella formazione, in terapia individuale e nei gruppi in "GRUPPI" 1/2015, pp 29-40, DOI: 10.3280/GRU2015-001003