26.06.2018 Views

Group-Analytic Contexts, Issue 80, June 2018

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

Newsletter – Summer <strong>2018</strong> 19<br />

'It's only after you have qualified, that you have a chance of<br />

becoming an analyst'<br />

(Bion, 1987)<br />

This should not mislead somebody to believe, that the engine<br />

can run on intuition from the beginning! At the end of therapy the<br />

therapists desire 'for perfection', 'for gratitude' and 'to be known as a<br />

real person' are well-known difficulties (Gorkin, 1989)<br />

Clinical vignette II<br />

The patient was a painter who painted abstract and very black<br />

compositions. He gained through his three years in group analytic<br />

psychotherapy and left my consciousness till the day one year later, I<br />

suddenly saw him on TV in front of his exhibitions of very colourful<br />

painting in New York. A journalist asked him what had made such a<br />

change in his life that could explain his vivid work. I was prepared to<br />

collect some narcissistic gratification, when he responded: My little<br />

baby-daughter!<br />

Patients’ expressions of gratitude sometimes need analytic<br />

exploration and sometimes plain and simple acceptance. The<br />

importance of 'the capacity to have pleasure in one's patients' pleasure'<br />

(Treurniet, 1997, p. 621) can hardly be overemphasized.<br />

Clinical Vignette III<br />

Recently a young woman at the beginning of a group session declared,<br />

that she had something important to announce. In the excitement that<br />

followed in the group I happened to think, that she might have become<br />

pregnant. Almost bursting into tears and warning that she had never<br />

before said this in public, she stated: I think I am a good person! I am<br />

not perfect, but I am good enough!<br />

I think the patients can come to that recognition, if the therapist<br />

feels good enough to hold a group, which is good enough.<br />

'We all hope that our patients will finish us and forget us, and<br />

that they will find living itself to be the therapy that makes<br />

sense'<br />

(Winnicott, 1968)

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!