Girolamo Lo Verso

Group analytic therapy for eating disorders: preliminary results in a single-group study.

OBJECTIVES There is a lack of empirical data on the effectiveness and process of group-analytic therapy in eating disorders. This single-group study aimed to explore the effectiveness of such treatment for anorexic and bulimic individuals. METHOD Eight patients (three anorexic and five bulimic women) entered group-analytic treatment, meeting weekly for 2 years. Eating behaviours, overall psychological distress and group process variables were regularly assessed using quantitative and qualitative measures, with comparisons made at the beginning and end of the therapy. RESULTS Treatment was discontinued in two cases. When outcome was classified on the basis of reliable change and clinical significance for the remaining patients at the end of treatment, four were recovered in terms of overall psychological distress, while one was unchanged and one had deteriorated. In terms of eating disorder symptoms, three patients were recovered, two were unchanged and one had deteriorated. Patients experienced an overall positive group climate and a positive group alliance. Perception of being understood by the therapist appeared to play an important role in the therapeutic process. CONCLUSIONS These preliminary results suggest that group-analytic therapy may be effective in helping patients with eating disorders. However, more work is needed before firm conclusions can be drawn. Implications for clinical practice and future research are discussed.

The Group-Analytic Model of the Functioning of the Inner World

The aim of this paper is to reach a thorough understanding of the functioning of the inner world, starting from an elaboration and development of the group-analytic concept of the transpersonal. The study also takes into account the results obtained at the metapsychological level of group-analytic research in England and Italy.

The Mafia Boss Yesterday and Today: Psychological Characteristics and Research Data

This article describes Cosa Nostra bosses’ psychological characteristics starting from research data collected over almost twenty years (1994–2013). Through the use of fragments of interviews to justice collaborators and their wives, children, and sisters-in-law, we analyze the boss’ role and relational context. This article also reports the results of a recent research on the relationship between boss and white-collar workers, carried out through the analysis of environmental tapping recorded at a famous Sicilian Mafia boss’ house: Giuseppe Guttadauro. This research highlights the psychological diversity the relationship between boss and white-collar worker is based on. The analysis of environmental tapping transcriptions has also allowed discovery of the main relational modalities used by the boss and white-collar worker in their conversations.

Communication Strategies in Cosa Nostra: An Empirical Research

The following article proposes an empirical study to explore communication strategies in the Cosa Nostra. Psychological studies on the characteristics of the language within the criminal organization are undoubtedly recent, but crucial to thoroughly understand the characteristics of implicit and explicit communication it adopts in the various contexts it works, as well as the power and value they assume. The data we have obtained from some videos concerning interviews and police interrogations to men of honor have been analyzed through a method that refers to the grounds of qualitative research in clinical psychology, the Grounded Theory by Glaser and Strauss. The analysis we have carried out and its relevant data show us a world of the Mafia where the care for linguistic choices, for both form and contents, is characterized as a crucial activity, even when words are replaced by silence or gestures.

Dis-Identity: New Forms of Identity and Psychopathology—Socioanthropological Changes and Self-Development

The passage from modernity to postmodernity deeply upset the group dimension, and, consequently, personal identity itself. Transformations involving the entire planet, socioanthropological changes our society had to cope with, are producing a change in the dynamics of identity formation and the appearance of new psychopathological figures. The loss of cohesion of the sense of belonging and the weak internalization process of the elements that form the individual identity (cultural, linguistic, religious traditions, etc.) draw an essentially uncertain and temporary existence. Drawing on some themes of subjectual group analysis theory of personality, the article proposes the concept of dis-identity as key to read ongoing psychic changes.

Cannabis Use and Social Anxiety in Adolescence: The Role of Facilitation Expectancies

Cannabis use is frequently related to social anxiety in young adulthood, but the nature of this relationship is unclear. Moreover, much research has been conducted on the role of cannabis effects expectancies and their relationship to social anxiety among young adults, but less is known about adolescence. The study examined the relationship between social anxiety, cannabis use patterns, and cannabis effects expectancies among a nonclinical sample of 1,305 adolescents (51% female). Non-users reported higher social anxiety scores than non-problematic and risky users. Compared to users, non-users had more negative expectancies. Risky and problematic users showed higher social and sexual facilitation expectancies and perceptual and cognitive enhancement expectancies. In addition, social anxiety was related to global negative expectancies and social and sexual facilitation expectancies. Moreover, we found that among socially anxious adolescents, social and sexual facilitation expectancies are dissuasive reasons to use cannabis. Clinical implications and future directions are discussed.

La valutazione delle psicoterapie : un'introduzione

Le psicoterapie funzionano? Quando? Quali cambiamenti producono? I risultati sono stabili nel tempo? E ancora, cosa produce il cambiamento o la guarigione? Come avviene? L’articolo passa al vaglio questi e altri interrogativi relativi alla ricerca in psicoterapia. Il lavoro, in forma introduttiva, problematizza questioni stringenti che da anni animano il dibattito scientifico internazionale e propone un percorso di senso, supportato dalla letteratura sul tema, che consente di seguire i vettori epistemologici che hanno gradualmente intrecciato le esigenze della ricerca e quelle della pratica clinica. Dalle originarie divisioni tra psicoanalisti e sperimentalisti si giunge ad una fase attuale, di maggiore maturita, della ricerca in psicoterapia (process-outcome research) che studia la relazione tra cio che accade in terapia e il risultato della terapia stessa, privilegiando i trattamenti sul campo, per come essi vengono normalmente erogati nella pratica clinica routinaria (studi di effectiveness). Tra i risultati piu importanti di queste ricerche vi e la comprensione delle differenze sul piano patologico e strutturale di quadri diagnostici e il relativo adeguamento dei dispositivi cura.

Relational Goods: Costs and Effectiveness

Our society has undergone a great technological evolution but insufficient development about the psychic and relational maturity. In this article we affirm that group analysis and the clinical group can give a great contribution to the development of relational goods. These relational goods can become the great political objective for humanity in the third millennium. Furthermore, we believe that a therapeutic and systematic treatment can be useful in terms of costs and effectiveness.

A Therapist’s Different Style of Intervention in Two Group Treatments

In this paper we compare interventions of the same group analyst in two different groups - a traditional slow-open group of six out-patients with Eating Disorders diagnosis (all female; age: 16-26) and a time-limited, group of eight outpatients (different in age and sex) with organic vision disturbances. Our aim was to see if the same group therapist adopts different therapeutic interpretative interventions in the two groups, depending on the aims of each group and the different patients’ diagnosis. The sessions were recorded, transcribed and coded by the Code of Analysis of the Therapeutic Field Style (SCAT). In the traditional group, the therapist’s intervention style is focused more on interpretative individual interventions than the time-limited group. Similarly, the DCA patients used more interpretative interventions in all the therapy stages. The results show that the Organizational Area is of great importance in the conducting of both groups.

“Me lo offre un caffè?”: Una ricerca qualitativa sulla ‘collusione di strada’ a Palermo [“Would you offer me a coffee?”: A qualitative research on ‘street collusion’ in Palermo].

Il presente lavoro si propone come studio-pilota sulla collusione in terre di mafia. I suoi oggetti di interesse sono Palermo e i “suoi” posteggiatori “abusivi”, figure oggi aggrovigliate al panorama geo-politico della citta di cui parlano le strade, gli accadimenti mediatici e la cronaca giudiziaria del capoluogo siciliano. Ci siamo in tal senso chiesti: chi sono questi soggetti sociali? E quali sono le motivazioni della loro presenza ipertrofica in una citta come Palermo? Grazie ai dati raccolti attraverso 21 “interviste da strada”, possiamo affermare che il problema e complesso e, come afferma Leoluca Orlando, riguarda posteggiatori e posteggianti, in uno stretto intreccio di collusioni consce e inconsce tra “domanda” e “offerta” di un servizio abusivo, illecito, irregolare che produce un fenomeno di illegalita nascosta alla luce del sole legato al “sentire mafioso”.