Family Therapy. The Group Analytic Approach as an Open System

Family Therapy. The Group Analytic Approach as an Open System, Robin Skynner, 2003. Introduction: Thalis Papadakis. Translation: Alkyoni Tsegkou. Publications: Savvalas

From the back cover:
… If consciousness is equated with light, then the analytic methods of Freud and Jung are like trying to find objects one by one in a dark room by continuously lighting matches. Paradoxical techniques and those that set goals are like turning on a photographic flash, which instantly illuminates the entire room like a vision, and which is therefore impossible for anyone to deny having seen, even if they forget the details. The various meditation techniques, as a whole, seek to produce a more powerful and reliable source of light, which will replace the flickering “matches” and occasional “flashes” that constitute our ordinary waking consciousness, thus illuminating reality and dissolving fantasy, just as when someone wakes up from an ordinary sleep and dissolves the reality of dreams or, at least, alters the belief that they were real.

… I describe here the equivalent of “transference” in individual psychoanalytic technique, but in terms of systemic projective expectations (in short, through “projective systems”) and their recognition by the “countertransference” activation of corresponding “irrational” emotional reactions of the therapist, which also constitutes the cornerstone of the distinctive difference of my method.

… Skinner’s present work contains an outline of the basic principles and concepts of the Group Analytic approach, the methods and techniques used, as well as a clinical example that illuminates the process of change in the family, written “in vivo”, since the therapy is evolving during the writing of the present work. Finally, it presents the basic principles of training the future family therapist in the Group Analytic approach.

CONTENTS

A Chronicle Instead of a Prologue, I.K. Tsegos

Robin Skinner in Athens

Introduction, Thalis N. Papadakis

A. Development of the Group Analytic Approach

B. Health and Dysfunction in Families

C. Basic Concepts

D. General Principles of Therapy

E. The Technique

F. Clinical Example

G. Additional Comments on the Group Analytic Method

H. Effectiveness of the Approach

I. Training in the Group Analytic Approach