Alessandro Garuglieri PTSTA P
Field of audience: P

Language: Italian with English translation
Level of audience: All

The growth path of adolescents goes through the words “Legacy-Legitimacy-Identity” in a profound way. On the one hand, these terms carry with them an evolutionary potential, on the other hand they entail a risk of being tied by a bond with symbiotic characteristics:

Legacy, as the transformation of what has been received, but also in the sense of taking on too much of the emotional-affective investment;

Legitimacy, as a permission to manifest the self or as existential withdrawal;

Identity, as the gradual discovery of the individual’s own place in the world and an inner coherence, or as a confusion of the self.

The highly-performing society, a changed relationship with the body, family crisis, the adults’ affective engagement, are some of the elements that strongly stimulate identity issues. New symptoms are appearing in our clinical work, that question us as adults and as psychotherapists. In order to approach our clients effectively, it becomes crucial to be able to understand and acknowledge the interconnections between family system, social context and intrapsychic world.

The aim of the workshop is to offer participants a space to delve in depth and discuss about these new emerging needs in the therapy with adolescents. I will use a theoretical-experiential methodology, and engage participants to reflect and discuss about clinical cases brought by them, as well as on theoretical insights.

Besides Transactional Analysis, the theoretical framework of this workshop will be based also on the reflections about evolutionary breakdowns in psychodynamics (Lancini,2020; Nicolò,2021) and by Porges’ (2014) Polyvagal Theory. I will also use the following theoretical TA references and offer them as a stimulus to participants: Symbiosis (Shiff,1975), interconnections with W.Cornell’s work on the Script Protocol (Cornell,2015), starting from the exploration of the relational field in therapy (Hargaden,Sills,2002) and how it can be visible in the case studies analysed in the workshop.