The 6th issue of the journal starts with an interview which pays homage to Luigi Boscolo, one of the founders of the Milan School, who passed away a few months ago, on 12 January 2015. Valeria Pomini edited the interview he gave to Paolo Bertrando. The interview attempts a review of what was not only a long but also an extremely important career, which –to some extent– describes in parallel the history of systemic therapy, which Luigi Boscolo influenced in many ways.
Next, Katerina Matsa refers to a particular kind of treatment, the drug treatment, which, according to the author, aims to transform the drug addict from an extremely estranged person to a social subject. The psychotherapeutic process is performed in the therapeutic context in which the poetic function of psychotherapy and the role of art as a dynamic agent of change emerge.
The next article by Dimitra Siousioura also refers to a special form of intervention, relating to Diabetes Mellitus type 1. The article presents and proposes the Combined Model of Group Psychological Intervention for adult patients with Diabetes Type 1 as a therapeutic model for treatment of the disease along with medical treatment, which is oriented to humanistic care in medical practice and combines biological, psychological and psychosomatic aspects of the disease.
The next article by Susan Gantt and Yvonne Agazarian, translated and edited by Nikos Marketos, refers to a systemic perspective on the development phases of groups in the workplace. The authors identify three major phases in the development of the workplace system: power, cooperation and integration. They argue that, by influencing a system development phase, there is a change in the norms of communication and in the functioning of the work group. This redounds to the development of the emotional intelligence in both the system and its members.
Efrossini Moureli then refers to the importance of the balance between certainty and uncertainty for our personal development, our meeting with each other in general, and more specifically in the context of psychotherapy. According to the author, the certainty allows the emergence of basic confidence and uncertainty allows the meeting of the subjects themselves. She also considers that psychotherapists need some certainties, so they can face the unpredictable of any oncoming system. These certainties allow the therapist to be quite open to meet with the unpredictability that the other constitutes and perhaps causes.
In Kostas Zervos’ article “Telemachia, or your father’ quest” there is the perpetual dilemma of the father’s being or not being. The hero's father may be alive or dead, but this is not related to the father‘s existence or non-existence. And, according to the author, it is the second question that must basically be answered, not the first. In this way, the hero will be able to express a judgement "yes or no" for the father’s being. Through this judgement, Telemachus has the potential to transform the passive attitude to an energetic attitude, to make judgements of yes or no -lives or died- (basically neurotic judgements, unlike the psychotic judgements "yes and no" or borderline judgements "neither yes nor no"). In this way, he is finally able to leave the charm of arbitrary power and proceed to the pursuit of human power.
The next article by Sotiris Manolopoulos deals with corruption as a mental condition which abolishes the limits of the difference. In particular, corruption is studied as an inherent component of human nature and as a criminal pathology. These two are joined by a disorder of thought concerning the sovereignty of pathological narcissism and the elimination of differences between self and other. According to the author, the question is not how a system (person, family, group, community) may punish, but how it may contain phenomena of corruption.
This issue closes with the presentation of Titus Milech’s book "The scene of the crime" by Katia Charalabaki. According to the presentation, this book has the outlook of a historian and politician, the language of the psychoanalyst and the deep human suffering, as it reflects on Nazism in Germany and asks questions such as: How could all this happen? How could common people (Hana Arend) lead to absolute evil? The (German) writer raises this question, a question that has been set for 70 years now by all kinds of scientists, but also by any everyday man. And also: What happened in postwar Germany? How did the Germans retrospectively look in the mirror, what image did they see in it?
THE EDITING COMMITEE