The cognition of pain in individuals, the family, in caregivers, institutional groups

Journal title INTERAZIONI
Author/s Anna Ferruta
Publishing Year 2018 Issue 2018/1
Language Italian Pages 12 P. 19-30 File size 162 KB
DOI 10.3280/INT2018-001002
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The cognition of pain is the most widely experienced dimension in psychopathological syndromes, a pain which provokes feelings of unacceptability in all the individuals affected. These feelings are often transformed into projective forms in an attempt to be free of them, attributing the responsibility to others. But rejected and refused pain rapidly reclaims its space. It is a question here of a narcissistic wound, the fourth one after those inflicted by Copernicus, Darwin and Freud, regarding a conception of the human subject who perceives him/herself as the centre of the universe, forcing him/her to recognise their emotional dependence on the anonymous groupal environment to which they belong (Bleger, Kaës). Becoming oneself in the relationship implies acknowledgment of the need to depend on contexts which are only to a certain extent modifiable by a subject’s will and intention. Part of the cognition of the pain which afflicts those in contact with serious psychic suffering regards the sensation that this suffering represents an attack on the sufficient narcissistic integrity of the subjects involved (families, caregivers, society, patients), because they are all forced to acknowledge the groupal dimension which is a constituent part of every subjectivity. Who is the recipient of the treatment? Who is treating who? Group Clinical Seminars are seen to be very useful as training tools, because they offer participants the experience of groupal mentality at work. Recognising a place for the other in oneself does not constitute a depressogenic wound for healthy narcissism, on the contrary it potentiates it. There is always something "other", there is always someone to receive and learn from.

Keywords: Pain, psychopathology, environment, group, training, narcissism, depression

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Anna Ferruta, La cognizione del dolore nell’individuo, nella famiglia, nei curanti, nei gruppi istituzionali in "INTERAZIONI" 1/2018, pp 19-30, DOI: 10.3280/INT2018-001002