The psychotherapeutic process with a pre-adolescent suffering from a chronic intestinal disease

Journal title PSICOTERAPIA PSICOANALITICA
Author/s Zeno Giusti, Simonetta Maria Gabriella Adamo
Publishing Year 2022 Issue 2022/1 Language Italian
Pages 11 P. 103-113 File size 192 KB
DOI 10.3280/PSP2022-001007
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This article aims at reflecting on the interplay between organic disease and mental illness in a pre-adolescent suffering from a chronic intestinal disease. The patient was followed in psychotherapy in an hospital setting. The patient’s condi-tion was worsened by the presence of serious mental disorders in both parents. The authors, starting from a theoretical frame of reference of British psychoa-nalysis, focus on the first years of the parallel therapeutic path of the boy and his parents, characterized by the patient’s movement from a situation of withdrawal and isolation and by the presence of omnipotent defences and almost delusional aspects to a gradual possibility of developing symbolic thought, reflecting on his feelings and to a growing capacity to discriminate between the internal and exter-nal world. The physical illness seems to have represented for the patient and, indi-rectly, for his parents, the only way to access psychological help.

Keywords: preadolescence, Crohn’s disease, isolation, psychotic traits, parental pathology, hospital psychotherapy.

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Zeno Giusti, Simonetta Maria Gabriella Adamo, Il processo psicoterapico con un preadolescente affetto da una patologica cronica intestinale in "PSICOTERAPIA PSICOANALITICA" 1/2022, pp 103-113, DOI: 10.3280/PSP2022-001007