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Chair: Ana-María Rizzuto
Panellists: Guillermo Bodner, Esther Romano and Juan Francisco Artaloytia Usobiaga
Reporter: Estela Rubinstein Gloger
In her introduction, Ana-María Rizzuto, chair of the panel, underlined that the common thread of the three presentations was the struggle to sustain intimacy and its vicissitudes in the analytic encounter with patients who present serious pathologies in their capacity to symbolize and to arrive at an internal representation of their traumatic experiences.
This difficulty is believed to be linked to an excess of trauma that overwhelms the capacity to represent it. The three panellists gave clear accounts on how this unrepresented excess leads to somatization, impossibility to establish and sustain intimate relationships, psychotic thinking and breakdown.
First, Dr Romano's case illustration concerned a man in his fifties suffering from gastritis, arrhythmia and urticaria amongst other serious somatic complaints and an inability to sustain a sexual relationship with his wife. Citing concepts of figurability (Botella Sara and Cesar), the “analytic field” (Baranger Willy and Madeleine) and Freud's theory of dreams she described the struggle to establish an intimate therapeutic relationship with her patient.
The patient was assessed by a colleague, a marital therapist using Modelo Estimulativo Perceptivo (MEP [Stimulative Perceptive Model], Esther Romano, unpublished). Briefly, as this could be the theme of another paper, MEP is a diagnostic technique developed by Dr Romano designed to assess patients suitable for brief group psychotherapy interventions in hospitals, schools and forensic settings. The model is based on simple geometric figures, easily identifiable. What is asked from the person is effectively to free associate to the figure presented. According to the verbal response to their visual perception this model allows for an assessment of the ego functions and the potential interactive capacity of the individual. The responses