PEER GROUP »SOPHIA«-IN THE IPA-AND-IN THE COMMUNITY: “RE-(DIS)COVERING TRAUMA IN THE COMMUNITY”

AUTHOR OF THE PROJECT:

Peer Group »SOPHIA«

 

REPRESENTATIVE OF THE PROJECT: Igor Okorn, address: Galičeva 25, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia; e-mail: igiokorn@gmail.com; phone: 00386 40 460 123

 

 

Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Beograd (Serbia), Zagreb (Croatia), Ljubljana (Slovenia)

 

January 2019

1.)      »SOPHIA«

It was Sigmund Freud who formed the first »psychoanalytic peer group«. Out of the group that met on Wednesday’s meetings, a whole psychoanalytic movement grew. The very first »psychoanalytic peer group« was a »golden seed« for constitution and foundation of the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA).

Peer group »Sophia« was formed by 5 members from 4 different Republics of former Yugoslavia (Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Slovenia). We are members and candidates from three different psychoanalytical societies- Croatian Psychoanalytic Society, Belgrade Psychoanalytic Society and Psychoanalytical Society of Serbia. We are 4 different nationalities and come from different cultural, religious and geographical societies. It seems easy to constitute a group of members who once lived in the same country and who were once called »brothers and sisters« and are peers at the moment. In reality, it is not so simple. It took time to pass and the appropriate transitional space and distance from the past for the right moment to come for constituting this peer group. We are actually the »adolescents and children« of war in Yugoslavia, which means that we are the representatives of the second and third generation which were exposed to blood conflicts in the regions of former Yugoslavia on the borders with other East European countries which also went through a transition at that period. Some of us met trough our psychoanalytic training, which was organized by Psychoanalytic Institute for Eastern Europe. At the time we started our training process, two societies we are members of now did not yet exist. We continued our training and became candidates and psychoanalysts of new psychoanalytic societies.

Members of the Sophia group were chosen and linked to the group very spontaneously, by principle of free associations. What has been very clear from the beginning of our meetings was that we all shared the same need for a transitional space, where we could dream and think together about the things that were going on in our societies, our communities, our countries; that we were willing to discuss what was happening with the patients we work with as well as what was happening in our lives.

THE IDEA OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE PEER GROUP “SOPHIA” WAS, AMONG ABOVE MENTIONED THINGS, TO RE-(DIS)COVER TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCES AND IMPACTS OF THEM ON OURSELVES AND TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCES OF OUR PATIENTS. IN THE FUTURE, WE WILL BE TRYING TO ANALYZE AND THINK ABOUT THE TRAUMA THAT INFLUENCED OUR LIVES AND OUR COMMUNITY (COUNTRY) WE LIVE IN NOW.

AT ONE POINT (IN THE SUMMER OF 2018), THE REPRESENTATIVES (IPA ANALYSTS AND CANDIDATES) OF DIFFERENT REPUBLICS OF THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA FORMED A PEER GROUP CALLED “SOPHIA”.

THE AIM OF THE GROUP IS TO OFFER “PEER GROUP DREAMING AND CONVERSATIONS IN THE GROUP AND IN THE COMMUNITY” ABOUT DIFFERENT TOPICS WHICH WOULD BE OF INTEREST TO THE GROUP AND THE COMMUNITY. WE WILL TRY TO BIULD A “FIELD” BETWEEN THE GROUP AND THE COMMUNITY. ONE OF THE TOPICS WILL BE “DREAMING, THINKING AND WORKING-THROUGH” TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCES (OF WAR). THE PEER GROUP WILL BE SHARING EXPERIENCES AND WILL BE ORGANIZING DIFFERENT PROJECTS AND EVENTS TO SHARE AND TO OPEN THE FIELD OF DISCUSSION, DREAMING, THINKING, AND TRYING TO WORK THROUGH (INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP) TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCES AND THEIR IMPACTS.

THESE PROJECTS WILL BE OF EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL NATURE.

WE WILL BE DISCUSSING AND OPENING TOPICS IN THE FIELD OF »DREAMING AND THINKING« ON THE BASIS OF OUR CLINICAL AND THEORETHICAL THINKING AND CLINICAL EXPERIENCES.

 

 

2.)      SETTING OF THE PEER GROUP MEETINGS- FRAME OF WORK AND PROJECT

We started with monthly meetings through Skype, but since we found out and agreed that direct contacts and meetings would be of most value, we have started to plan to meet at least twice for 2-3 days within a year. We met in Belgrade (Serbia) last year and had an intensive and very productive weekend together, with 5 consecutive sessions and pleasant moments we shared outside the clinical setting. That created a more intimate, authentic, open and safe space and time we worked in. This was actually the official »birth« of the group Sophia.  We realized that after a very anxious and unpredictable beginning, where we founded the group in a paranoid-schizoid position, we were beginning to work more spontaneously. We did not need to talk and dream about »difficult« and traumatic material in a way that would put ourselves in a position of victims or persecutors. Maybe we started to be more capable and more prepared as our »parents« and their generation were, to talk, discuss and work trough the traumatic experiences that happened to us or to our relatives. It seems that working with peers from other regions, from other societies, from other psychoanalytic environment is a great advantage. Communication within the psychoanalytic society and between societies (what is one of our traumatic experiences) is sometimes difficult and does not offer a safe space to talk.

We agreed that the group would work within this frame for at least one year. We agreed that after that we will discuss opening the group to new members, and the final number would be from 6 to 8 members. The name of the group was chosen during group dreaming and associating.

Members of the group are educated and trained in different fields and professions, but we are all trained in the psychoanalytic and psychodynamic field. We are trying to find similarities and differences in our thinking about our patients and about the societies we live in. We are trying to analyse and find the characteristics that would be typical for the geographic, cultural, ideological and social community we live and work in. With case presentations in the group we try to think outside the »border« and the phenomena that is presented for that particular patient. With this »logical and common sense« method and with »peer reverie and dreaming« in the group, we help each individual to develop, and we form the material in the group, which would later be used in the clinical work with a particular patient on one side, and the material which is an indicator of the processes in the group dynamics. The reflection of clinical material presented in the group and the integration, working through the material, sharing the material, reactions to the material, etc. of each member of the group and of the group as a whole, give each member in the group a lot of material to confront with his/her internal and external reality. We can speak about these realities and we can think about them, we can work them through. The group represents a safe space and sometimes the group is »the cell of gratification« and »beneficial space for our professional and personal needs«. We make regular notes of our meetings. We are in the process of choosing a supervisor of the group, who will be training and supervising IPA analyst, with experience in clinical work, but also with experience in working with different groups or organizations (within IPA).

Why trauma? The answer came slowly, again very spontaneously and was unconsciously crystallized and formed. It came through clinical case presentations and from patients’ narratives, with free associations of members of the group. We started speaking and thinking about our historical, cultural, physical, mental roots and backgrounds, about our geographical »destiny« and our ex-country. The trauma of disintegration forced us and pushed us to talk in spite of resistances, in spite of the »the sound of silence« in the group. We believe we have already built the safe transitional space in the group and each member of the group can speak in his or her mother tongue, which is for sure one of the advantages of the group.

3.)      PEER GROUP »SOPHIA«-IN THE »IPA«-AND-IN THE COMMUNITY

In the past, members of the peer group Sophia were part of the same community. We shared a common space, called Yugoslavia. We shared common politics, common ideology, common culture and common habits. »We must share everything,« was the »parole« we often heard. Yugoslavia fell apart in a terrible way. War. Civil war. Maybe we still could not realize and recognize what we went through. Talking about war and trauma is anxious. In the group, we speak about that. We actually realize how traumatized we are, and how traumatized the patients we work with are. Why? We were fascinated and shocked with our blindness. Sometimes we felt as if we were 5 or 10 or 15 years old, waiting for something big and beautiful to come into our lives. ‘Maybe we were not anything special,’ we thought; and at other times, we felt that future would come. With peer group Sophia we started coming out of isolation and we are trying now to fill the gaps that stayed on the level of our unconscious. We all know what isolation means. Being isolated is the opposite of being integrated. How familiar and »modern« these words are.

But we have to point out that we also had those feelings of isolation when we were thinking about our work. We realized that being a psychoanalyst, being a member of the psychoanalytic society didn’t necessarily mean that you felt integrated in the psychoanalytic community. And it doesn’t mean that if you are good enough at your profession, and you help your patients in the best possible way you can, that you are recognized by your colleagues or in the community where you work. Even more, sometimes you feel isolated, you feel frustrated. You go to seminars and congresses, but still you feel that you need some closer contacts and conversations with your colleagues in the psychoanalytic community. That’s what peer groups are constituted for. A peer group represents the »new cell« and a new link within the psychoanalytical community (IPA). Members and candidates from different societies and regions can connect and link together in groups which have a potential of something new, with the added value and potential in sharing and exchanging experiences about their work and their lives. Such peer groups are the new »amalgam/golden repair« and give new strength in the construction of IPA network and societies. A peer group also represents an easier way of connecting and a greater openness to the outer community. It is much easier and less formal to connect, organize, share, discuss on different levels in the community and with other formal and non-formal organizations and groups. Peer groups are flexible, can use personal links and contacts without too much bureaucracy and administration, a peer group can work more freely and spontaneously. Peer groups do not feel such pressure as PA societies and PA head organizations may feel. But it is clear that peer groups must follow all ethical and other regulations of the IPA in their work.

Peer group Sophia will use the experience of the group members and share them and try to initiate communication in broader society. We need to grow to be able to go into »the real world«. We will share our experience in the community, we write about and present the experience of trauma that we are facing at our work. We will present the material at seminars and congresses in a psychoanalytic community and in outreach events. One of the aims of the group is to publish a book about our work. One of the media we are going to communicate through is the internet. We are preparing to construct our own web page. The page will be the right place for the public to get all the information about who we are, our work, our way of thinking, etc. We will be focused on organizing various events and round tables on our topic. These events will target special groups and special parts of the community- psychotherapists in education, cultural workers and artists, philosophers, young people who are involved in politics.

“Sophia” will present and spread its work through direct contact with people. We will try to organize public presentations and discussions. We will try to use our connections to introduce the group and our work through interviews and in the media- on the radio and TV. We are convinced that trauma is like the Japanese method called “kintsukurioi” or “golden repair”, which is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer-dusted or mixed with powdered goldsilver, or platinum.  Philosophically, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.

We will try to use the group and our contacts with the community and link the two and the people in a community with the »golden repair- amalgam«. We often hear that words such as »our community” or “our place« have been hated after the civil war. Especially when we talk about our past. The “golden repair” (K-, L-, H-link or alfa-function as Bion would say) is the exact connection- link to our neighbours. It is something sensitive, something good willing, something emphatic, something with strength and something we can be proud of. Only by opening traumas and working through them will we be capable of loving- and this is what one of the aims of psychoanalysis is.

4.)      SOPHIA’S PROJECT PROCESS IN THE IPA AND IN THE COMMUNITY- AIMS, CONTRIBUTION, EVALUATION, CONTROL

Being close enough, having distance, optimal distance, optimal frustration, good enough environment, transitional space, working group, assimilation, accommodation, adaptation- those are the psychoanalytic concepts which will be used for observing the group processes, for developing models that will be used outside the group. Re(Dis)covering and recognizing the starting points from which we will analyse and work-through different experiences are the basic functions that trigger different positions, ways of thinking, and dreaming with the aim of generalizing a new experience. Principle: a person in a group, a group in a person.

The need to tell our stories, the stories of children and adolescents, stories of witnesses of disintegration and destruction, stories of analysands, candidates, analysts, is bigger and stronger than fear. It may be so because the analytical discourse offers transitional and potential safe space, where digestion and containing of the destructive mechanisms and emotions are possible. It is the space of metaphor, transformational space.

Besides the book “Psychoanalysis and War- Psihoanaliza i rat” (2001), which represents the collection of psychoanalytic essays dealing with the topic of war, psychoanalysts did not play any particular or recognizable role in the public discourse. They didn’t have enough space to talk about reasons for the war, processes of disintegration, war crimes and victims, and furthermore, they had no place in public, in which they could be sharing their (professional) opinions and positions. People would think that the analyst’s place is only in their analytic rooms. We may partly share their opinion, especially if we try to look at the present situation from a political-cultural-educational perspective. In our countries, old, untransformed, rigid and populistic parties are back on the political positions. Those are »old boys« or their followers, who were once involved in the processes of disintegration and destruction. The reason is probably not just the situation in this part of Europe, but also the democratic crisis in Europe as a whole. As far as we know, we have never really faced war traumas and war crimes that happened in the 1990’s in Europe. We don’t know if there ever had been any discussion about that on a more international level. Untold stories about crimes which were committed in the countries of former Yugoslavia, silence and hopelessness of dehumanizing victims and identifying with the Other as an aggressor, all these are things, that are calling for coming-back of the splitting parts. We can see this in our everyday life, in the crisis of public institutions, destruction and privatization of public goods and spaces, degradation of culture and education, which can have a very strong influence on psychoanalytic education and everyday practice.

We see a need and we will keep trying to open a space in the community for the discussion about war and war crimes in European territory at the end of 20th century. We also see an option inside the psychoanalytic community with the EPF congress to open such a discussion. We think that as psychoanalysts we need the courage to initiate and do this, otherwise the psychoanalytic community will be just one of those parts which are blind to the processes that were happening in Europe at the end of the 20th century.

„Sophia“ is functioning as a psychoanalytic model that will use the creative potential of trauma. But we will not reduce the work and projects of Sophia only in the field of trauma that is connected to war, but also to traumatic experiences that overwhelm and in-capsulate capacities of an individual and of a group and force them to react with particular adaptation in particular circumstances.

To summarize:  THE GROUP WILL BE TRYING TO DISCOVER SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES OF TRAUMATIZED INDIVIDUALS FROM DIFFERENT PLACES (CITIES, REGIONS, ). IN THE PEER DREAMING AND THINKING IN THE GROUP WE WILL BE THINKING ABOUT AND EVALUATING “TRAUMATIZED INDIVIDULAS AND THEIR EXCPERIENECES”. THE PSYCHOANALYTICAL CLINICAL MATERIAL- THE “COLLECTED PAPERS OF TRAUMATIZED PATIENS” WILL BE PREPARED AND PRESENTED.

THE GROUP WILL PREPARE PRESENTATIONS OF THE MATERIAL MENTIONED ABOVE AND WILL PRESENT THE MATERIAL ON (PSYCHOANALYTIC AND OUTREACH) SEMINARS, LECTURES AND OTHER PUBLIC EVENTS.

THE GROUP WILL TRY TO ACTIVELY PRESENT ITS WORK IN THE MEDIA (NEWSPAPERS; TV; RADIO; CONFERENCES; PUBLIC DISCUSSIONS).

THE GROUP WILL BE ORGANIZING DIFFERENT EVENTS, SEMINARS, LECTURES AND OPEN DISCUSSIONS AND “DREAMING AND THINKING ABOUT WAR TRAUMA IN THE COMMUNITY” IN ALL CAPITAL CITIES OF THE REPUBLICS OF FORMER YUGOSLAVIA (Sarajevo, Belgrade, Ljubljana, Zagreb).

THE GROUP WILL PREPARE FOR VISITING AND PRESENTING THE IDEA OF THE PROJECT OF “RE(DIS)COVERING TRAUMA IN COMMUNITY” ON THE “MOST FRAGILE AND MOST TRAUMATIZED PLACES AND PARTS OF THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA (E.G.- SREBRENICA)”;

THE GROUP WILL OPEN A WEB PAGE OF THE GROUP WHERE ALL THE ACTIVITES AND THE GROUP’S WORK WHICH WOULD BE CONSIDERED AS INTERESTING FOR PUBLIC WILL BE PRESENTED:

OTHER »PEER GROUP AND IN THE COMMUNITY DREAMING AND CONVERSATIONS« WILL BE HELD.

 

5.)      TIME AND FINANCIAL PLAN OF THE PROJECT- REPORTS, CONTROL POINTS

As we mentioned before, the group is formed for long cooperation.  As in a partnership or in a family, the limits given in the beginning would cause frustration and would determine its future. We jumped into a river- a river called Peer group Sophia- with faith, courage, trust, with authenticity and we formed a safe transitional space in the group. We all hope for the best and for a nice future of our group.

We have prepared a time and financial plan for the project that is presented in this document. In the first phase, which will last for next two years, the group will be collecting and talking about the clinical material in the group. After a year the first recapitulation and report of our work will be prepared. Since we began our work in the summer of 2018, we expect that the first annual report of our work will be prepared at the end of summer 2019. We regularly make notes of our work, which are of confidential nature, and we will use these notes for preparing the material for further work.  We are planning to have two 2-3 days meetings of the group and we are planning for at least one public event and presentation in 2019. In 2019, the web page of the group will be prepared. In 2020, we are planning to organize our first public event- “peer group-in community dreaming and conversations about trauma”. In the meantime, we will try to organize some connections with the media. In the next five years, we are expecting the project to have a final shape, which will be used as a regular and permanent “model” for the work of the peer group in relation to the community. We will be prepared to present our material to IPA and at formal seminars and meetings that are organized each year by different organizations which are members or partners of the IPA.

Peer group Sophia has a plan of the annual costs and a financial budget for the work of the group. At the moment, each member pays by her/himself for everything that we do, our meetings, our working hours, etc. We have a budget and a plan for annual costs of app. 10.000,00 EUR for all activities of the group, including two 2- or 3-day meetings, and other expenses that we will have.

In the future it is our plan to find some partners, sponsors, donors or supporters that will be interested in cooperating with the group.

6.)      THE MEMBER OF THE PEER GROUP-IN THE GROUP-AND-IN THE COMMUNITY

Each member will do her/his work – psychotherapy and psychoanalysis- the work we are all trained and educated for. These are our professions. It is one of the most important things for the work of the peer group that all its members are and will be in permanent contact with the patients in clinical practice in the future. Here we see an advantage to collectively reach the clinical material for our work in the group.

Each member of the group should be active in her/his professional environment and should actively and in accordance with her/his capabilities participate in the recognition of the group in the community and the involvement of the group in the community.

Each member should be active in preparing the material about her/his work and other material which can be used in the group. Each member will give her/his best to promote and present the group in the community.

All the work of the group and all activities of the group will be documented and if necessary, the group will report about its work at any time.

 

Copyright in 2019 by

 

APPENDIX- MEMBERS OF THE PEER GROUP SOPHIA:

MAJA DOBRANIĆ POSAVEC (MEMBER OF THE CROATIAN PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIETY)

 

Maja Dobranić-Posavec was born in 1979 in Sarajevo, when Bosnia and Herzegovina was part of ex Yugoslavia. She finished Medical University in 2004, and after that started working in a pharmaceutical company. Very soon she began to work with addicts and she worked with them for most of her career. During this period, her psychoanalytical education started, and in the next 7 years, as long as the education lasted, she changed her job and was working in a public health institution, mostly with traumatic patients. Now she works in her own private practice and mostly she is interested in working with traumatic persons by using her psychodynamic knowledge.

ANTON GLASNOVIĆ (CANDIDATE OF THE CROATIAN PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIETY)

 

Anton Glasnović was born in 1981 in Đakovo, Republic of Croatia. He graduated from Zagreb University, School of Medicine in 2005, became a neurological consultant in 2011 and defended his PhD thesis in 2015. He is a member of Croatian Medical Chamber, Irish Medical Council, Croatian Psychoanalytic Society, Croatian Neurological Society and the Croatian Immunological Society. He currently works at the Zagreb University School of Medicine as postdoctoral fellow and has his private psychoanalytical practice in Zagreb, where he sees his analytical patients. He started his psychoanalysis training in 2014 and is currently in the last year of his second supervision. He mostly deals with neurotic and borderline patients, whereas he tries to get away from more regressed patients, like psychoses and psychopaths. Although the least experienced of all members of the group, he sees this group as an opportunity to learn, and also to bring to the group his own experiences of being actively engaged in the war conflicts during the Yugoslavia war as a child.

 

JOVANA MLADENOVIĆ (MEMBER OF PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIETY OF SERBIA)

 

Jovana Mladenović was born 1980 in Kladovo, Serbia. She graduated from Faculty of Philosophy, department for Psychology at the University of Belgrade in 2008. Since 2009 she has been employed at Psychiatric Clinic “Dr Laza Lazarević” in Belgrade. She became a specialist of medical psychology in 2016 at Medical Faculty University of Belgrade. She started her training in psychoanalysis in 2008 and passed the final examination for certification in January 2019. She has been practicing psychoanalysis in a private practice since 2012, working with adolescents and adults.

 

SABINA JAHOVIĆ (CANDIDATE OF BELGRADE PSYCHOANALYTICAL SOCIETY)

Sabina Jahović, born 1973, in Novi Pazar, Serbia, Yugoslavia. She is medical doctor, child psychiatrist, who worked for 10 years at Institute for Mental Health in Day hospital for adolescents. Since two years ago she has been working with adults, adolescents and children in private practice. She is candidate of Belgrade Psychoanalytical Society.

 

IGOR OKORN (MEMBER OF CROATIAN PSYCHOANALYTICAL SOCIETY)

 

Igor Okorn was born in 1971. He finished his first study in 1996-BSc CEng, and in 2000 became Master of Science- MSc CEng (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia). He worked as a Certified Project Manager and Civil Engineer (member of Slovenian and European Chamber of Engineers) on construction projects from 1997-2007. In 2006 he got his BA. Psth.Sc. and in 2013 he finished his second study program with PhD in Vienna, Austria. He is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, member of Slovenian Society for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (Member of European Federation for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapies), and psychoanalyst, member of Croatian Psychoanalytic Society. Since 2007 he has been working as psychotherapist and psychoanalyst in his private practice in Ljubljana (Slovenia). He is a candidate of C/A EPI training program.

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