Systemic Thinking & Psychotherapy Iss: 28 pp. 1-3
“And still we carry on to the same tune…”
The 28th issue. Fourteen years for this digital journal. A passionate attempt to support DISCOURSE as a therapeutic and educational means.
The discourse of therapists, the discourse of trainers, but most of all the discourse of individuals that seek help, long for a better life, and want to fight for it.
Violence all around us. The mentality of law of the strongest attempting to prevail. Abolition of every sense of justice. Absence and disparagement of discourse as a means of improving the human condition.
The suprasystems of power tend to embrace the animalistic aspect of man, in order to serve the greed of the few. In order to control, obtain and possess. In order to satisfy emotional deficits and the aggressiveness that they have caused.
Yes, because behind every kind of violent authority there are always some individuals. People that are psychologically and emotionally deprived. People that have possibly been abused.
How can a person cope with their abuse?
One way is to become abusive themselves, repeating their trauma, this time as the perpetrator.
Are there other ways?
I believe this issue says “yes”!
DISCOURSE is the means. The introduction of the words of the therapist and of education, as well as the words of the body. Namely of reflection that refers to physical emotional expression.
The introduction of words as an opportunity of repairing the trauma. As an introduction of the concept of dialogue. A dialogue with both the Self and the Other. Eventually, as a political act. As an act of contribution to the creation of citizens with an increased capacity for empathy and discharge of their aggressiveness through that.
Discourse is based on human relationships. It is there that its use is given meaning. Thus, our therapeutic and educational responsibility is the effort to develop relationships that give meaning to words; that develop interaction based on the creation of a safe framework that can provide reparative emotional processes.
It is a difficult and demanding role. Especially in wider frameworks that function competitively rather that cooperatively to what we strive to achieve.
Yet we carry on to the same tune!
In the present issue:
Katia Charalabaki, on occasion of the book presentation for Maria Borsca’s and Valeria Pomini’s “Handbook of Online Systemic Therapy, Supervision and training” refers to some landmark events concerning the founding and development of the Family Therapy Unit of the Attica Psychiatric Hospital. She connects them with core values (like “…profound human relationships, …exceptional professional/medical ethics, …the sharing of human pain”) that inspired the creation of the Unit and determined its operation and its significance in the founding of the present journal.
Dimitris Magriplis then transports us to the entropic and complex processes of high-conflict divorces, and the efforts of the Public Community Mental Health Services to manage them. He highlights the necessity for developing functional collaborations on both an interdisciplinary level and an inter-institutional level, as well as the difficulties of doing this. The author comments on the paradoxes and formulates suggestions.
The following paper from Christina Kalyva, titled “Therapy Without Commitment, Change Without Desire?”, highlights in a complementary manner paradoxes of the therapeutic process. She discusses whether the therapeutic process can function sufficiently when there is ambiguity and indecisiveness towards commitment, regarding the decision to change. She poses questions regarding the role of the therapist and the power that is attributed to them, and makes special mention of the legal system and its (outlandish) expectations from the therapeutic process.
The next three papers are emotionally charged and refer to the tragic Tempi trainwreck.
The first of these, titled “A Tribute to Tempi” is Eleni Nina’s lecture at the 2nd Panhellenic Conference on Women's Mental Health. She poignantly writes: “Connection, Mourning and Tenderness can become a process of collective reconstruction, a substratum of social and political action, where society finds its voice, meaning and self-awareness”.
Next is Kia Thanopoulou’s paper, titled “When words fail: Maternal Grief in the Case of the Tempi Train Disaster”, a part of which was presented at the 2nd Panhellenic Conference on Women's Mental Health. It discusses the feeling of insufficiency on the part of psychotherapists, but also the power of words, when faced by the experience of a mother losing her child. The author also presents the case of “unbearable, unspeakable pain” of a mother that reached out to the Family Therapy Unit following the loss of her child in Tempi.
The third paper concerning Tempi, is that of Evangelia Andritsanou titled “The ashes of our dead has been scattered: Grief as a call for justice. From Sophocles’ Antigone to the collective trauma of Tempi”. This was also presented at the 2nd Panhellenic Conference on Women's Mental Health. The author uncovers and highlights analogies between Sophocles’ tragedy and the accident at Tempi, especially on the need for justice as a manner of regaining the (lost) psychic object “through returning to a condition of mourning” and as “a rendering of value to the psychic bond”.
The next paper is that of Efpraxia Nteli and Adamantia Karabini that also concerns trauma and the compulsion to repeat as well as its intergenerational transmission. The authors draw concepts from both the systemic and the psychoanalytic language idioms – regarding psychotherapy – aiming at a synthetic, integrational viewpoint concerning the things “that hinder change and reinforce the perpetuation of violence in the family”.
The paper of Federica Colombo, Vanessa Errico, and Tiziana Salvati has a similar theme concerning the intergenerational transmission of psychic symptomatology and its diagnostic utilization. It stresses the importance of the bequest of symptoms of anxiety and depression through intergenerational “complex and invisible paths”, and it presents a clinical case, where clinical interviews and diagnostic tools made their revelation possible[1].
The issue concludes with a book review for Kia Thanopoulou’s book “Psychic Pathways of Grief” written by Ioanna Anagnostopoulou. A book that, as the reviewer stresses, “explores experiences of loss and mourning through clinical notes, illustrative examples, and narratives drawn from her therapeutic work at the Family Therapy Unit, reflecting many years of (the author’s) clinical practice”.
Trauma, grief and conflict seem to prevail as themes of the current issue’s papers. They do, after all, prevail in our social life. Ultimately, it seems that psychotherapy today does not only concern a few people. It seems that it serves as an antidote to the sociopolitical status quo of our times.
On the other hand, its power seems to depend on the conditions and the capabilities for making use of it, not only of the individual but also of the context in which it functions. It is neither panacea nor a luxury.
As for us that practice it, we need to find the courage to highlight everything melodic and rhythmic that psychotherapy can produce.
Enjoy reading!
On behalf of the Editorial Board
Dimitris Kokkalis
[1] As part of an agreement for the reciprocal exchange of publications, this article is from the Journal of Psychosocial Systems.
The article is available for reading at the following link: Journal of Psychosocial Systems, 2025, Vol. 9 (2), pp. 45 – 57. https://doi.org/10.23823/9npts364
[1] Το άρθρο αυτό είναι μετάφραση στα Ελληνικά του πρωτότυπου άρθρου: “Psychodiagnostic assessment of a pathological organization: a case report of transgenerational symptomatic transmission” του Ιταλικού Περιοδικού Journal of Psychosocial Systems, στα πλαίσια της αμοιβαίας ανταλλαγής άρθρων μεταξύ των δυο περιοδικών.
