Psychodynamic and Systemic Paradigms: an Attempted Integration in the Light of Personal Experience with Groups

In the systemic and psychodynamic approaches we will be examining here, we occasionally observe interesting oscillations between rigorous orthodoxy on the one hand and cultural and methodological open-mindedness on the other hand in the contributions of members of one or the other current. Sometimes the categories can even overlap and then it can be difficult for a careful observer to make a precise conceptual distinction.

In group work in particular it sometimes seems possible to make use of both paradigms in the observation of group dynamics, in formulating the therapist's interventions and in thinking about the effects of all of this on the group as a whole or on the individual members. We will begin our paper by examining a clinical experience.

Piero has entered the group recently. During one of his first sessions two older members of the group, Monica and Carlo, have an argument about some points on which they disagree. As their discussion gets more bitter, Piero begins to worry and intervenes repeatedly in the attempt to calm them down with an involvement as generous as it is useless and stressful. He is astonished that the others appear detached as they look on, and that the therapist himself is silent. He almost seems to feel the need to substitute for him as Monica and Carlo begin to argue with Piero as well. At a certain point, instead of stopping the discussion between Monica and Carlo, the therapist intervenes with Piero, saying, “I think that what you are trying to do now with Monica and Carlo is what you used to do often with your mother and father to try to stop their fighting.” For the first time in his life, Piero becomes aware that he is involved in this triangular pattern, which he acts out so compulsively and unconsciously that he hasn't been aware of it, despite the fact that in this way his real suffering is increased (instead of being decreased, as he would automatically have expected).

This intervention was quite im