We could say that in this edition, various types and levels of connections are described and analyzed in therapy.
In the first article, Valeria Pomini and her partners analyze data collected from the family therapy Unit of Eginition Hospital and how family problems emerge during the therapy session in the years of economic crisis. This analysis helps us understand how the biopsychosocial model works. This model influences families, therapists and the healthcare system towards either the side of psychopathology or the side of mental resilience.
Francesco Vadilonga refers to another connection, analyzing the new model about adoption which is based on the idea of continuity between the past and the present of the adopted children, connecting the three parties—children, biological parents, foster parents—and understanding through this interaction the current dynamic of each adoption. This is crucial for older children that have been through psycho-traumatic experiences.
Dimitris Kokkalis analyses co-therapy through a case, showing how the co-therapeutic relationship is utilized and how two different therapeutic models are utilized and connected in the same case while maintaining the identity, the limits and the potential of the therapeutic context.
Sotiris Manolopoulos in his article for the physically sick child guides us to the child’s inner experiences in a poetic way, in relation to the parents, the family and how they experience the illness and give meaning to it, always in relation to their history, with varying degrees of functionality.
In the next article, "Dialogue with the voices", Lycourgos Karatzaferis et al. refer to how a person who hears voices can be connected in a different way and how to utilize the voices in a dialogue with them, if we establish the voices as a dissociative experience rather than a psychotic one. In this approach the voices are not considered to be delusions but reflections of social relationships. So the person is connected with his polyphonic identity.
In the last article, Kostas Morogiannis makes an analysis of Tom Ormay’s theory and discusses the connection between the individual and the group from a different point of view. The individual and the group are not separated but represent different levels of the same observation frame. He analyses the notion of NOS, which refers to the notion of a person in a social relationship, so that psychology becomes social psychology.
Two book presentations follow, from two psychotherapists, Haris Kataki and Katia Charalabaki.
Haris Kataki’s "A therapist’s diary", presented by Nikos Marketos, takes us on a journey through the unknown aspects in the life of a writer-therapist with a long history in systemic therapy. As we connect with her and follow her trail, she in turn connects with her genealogical and cultural origins.
Katia Charalabaki’s "Families in leap years, a psychiatrist’s notes", presented by Dimitris Kokkalis, reveals and connects the descriptions of the current situation in family relationships during the economic crisis, through clinical cases and general theoretical questions such as ‘’dialogue’’ and the ‘’polyphonic self’’.
This issue concludes the ** cycle of connections ** , so that another cycle with a different theme can begin in our next issue.
Happy reading!
For the Editing Committee
Katerina Theodoraki