Group Analytic Contexts, Issue 77, September 2017

70 Group-Analytic Society International - Contexts
Strangers (meeting in) the Same World
By Kalliopi Panagiotopoulou
Reflections on the 17 th International Symposium of
GASi, Berlin, 15-19 August, 2017
A pivotal need to communicate and share eats my soul. My mind is
inculcated with the Berlin experience, never to be the same again. The
first day’s reluctant steps gradually led to cohesion and understanding
of ‘Berlin-as-a-whole’. My first image was a musical, cultural
colourful plurality weaving a patchwork carpet proceeding in a wavy
move towards different directions.
A feeling of containment overwhelmed me through Volkan’s
lecture and attitude, despite, or maybe I should say because of, the
technical problems regarding his slide projection. It somehow felt as
if an active developmental procedure initiated in order to explore and
expand psychological borders applying the principle of non-sameness.
It represented the character of the Symposium.
‘Berlin-as-a-whole’ being a new group, needed to be
nourished; not with milk, but in this case, with a glass of water. Even
though Thomas Mies walked along the scene to take it all alone, the
audience kept its breath and accompanied him alternating this event
in a symbolic gesture: a self-sufficient adult casually feeds himself
answering his inner need and liberates the symposium of its alleged
Germanic conformity. We are the Host, I am thinking, all of us are.
In the very beginning, the median group offered me a feeling