Phobic disorders

UNA CONVERSAZIONE DOMINATA DALLA SEMANTICA DELLA LIBERTA’

According to Ugazio(1998,2013), conversation in families where phobic disorders develop, is dominated by the semantic of freedom.

Here freedom- independence and exploration-attachment are the main semantic polarities.

members of these families will feel, or be defined as, fearful or cautious or, alternatively, courageous, even reckless. They will find people who are prepared to protect them or will meet up with people who are unable to survive by themselves, who need their support. They will marry people who are fragile or dependent, but also individuals who are free and sometimes unwilling to make commitments. They will suffer for their dependence. They will try in every way to gain their independence. In other cases they will be proud of their independence and freedom, which they will defend more than everything else. Admiration, contempt, conflict, alliances, love and hatred will be played out around issues of freedom/dependence

(Ugazio, 2013, p.84)

IS THE PARTICIPATION IN A CONVERSATION DOMINATED BY THE SEMANTIC OF FREEDOM SUFFICIENT TO EXPLAIN THE DEVELOPMENT OF A PHOBIC ORGANIZATION?

Certainly not! It is the positioning that individual family members take within this semantic to play a much more important role in the development of a phobic organization and in the possible onset of a full-blown phobic disease. It is a positioning that makes these people experience a great fear of the world and the dangers we are surrounded by, but also an urgent desire to explore and an intolerance for relationships and protective niches, experienced as suffocating. As a result, they experience a dilemma:  

For these people, having a relationship  that is enjoyable and satisfying means being protected, being able to rely on someone being close at hand in order to help them deal with fear, but it is translated into a humiliating dependence  that produces a negative self-image. On the other hand, to acquire a positive self-image, it is necessary to be autonomous, independent of others, alone. A task of this kind is impossible for those who have grown up in the belief that the world is dangerous and they are weak”.(Ugazio, 2013, p.90)

MA PERCHE’ SVILUPPANO QUESTO DILEMMA? E QUALE RAPPORTO HA QUESTO DILEMMA CON GLI ATTACCHI DI PANICO E L’AGORAFOBIA?

You will find the answer to these questions and to many others in:

SEMANTIC POLARITIES AND PSYCHOPATHOLOGY IN THE FAMILY

Permitted and Forbidden Stories

by Valeria Ugazio

3^rd chapter (83-127)

New York: Routledge, 2013

 doi:10.4324/9780203552384

In this book, Valeria Ugazio outlines both the intersubjective context at the origin of the previously summarized dilemma and the configuration of relationships which feed it in the “present moment”, i.e. in the period immediately preceding the onset of symptoms.The book also describes the ways in which phobic patients construct the therapeutic relationship. Knowing these, it is of crucial importance for setting up an appropriate therapeutic strategy.

ESISTONO RICERCHE CHE CONFERMANO IL MODELLO?

Yes, some, carried out by us, use a specifically designed instrument to identify and classify the family semantics -– The Family Semantic Grid (see “semantic analysis” ). Others, carried out by independent colleagues, have used different instruments applied also to participants from other European Country (Spain).

• Castiglioni, M.,  Veronese G., Pepe A. e Villegas, M. (2014), The Semantics of Freedom in Agoraphobic Patients. An Empirical Study, Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 27, 2, 120-36, doi: 10.1080/10720537.2013.806874.
• Ugazio, V,, Negri, A., e Fellin, L. (2015), Freedom, Goodness, Power and Belonging. The Semantics of Phobic, Obsessive-Compulsive, Eating, and Mood Disorders, Journal of Constructivist Psychology, vol. 28, 4, 293-315, doi: 10.1080/10720537.2014.951109
• Ugazio, V., Negri, A., & Fellin, L. (2011). Significato e psicopatologia: la semantica dei disturbi fobici, ossessivi, alimentari e depressivi.[Meaning and psychopathology. The semantics of phobic, obsessive, eating disorders and depression]Quaderni di Psicologia Clinica, 2 (pp.69-100). Bergamo: Bergamo University Press.
• Ugazio V., Negri, A., Zanaboni, E., & Fellin, L. (2007) La conversazione con i soggetti fobici è dominata dalla semantica della libertà? [ Is conversation with phobic subjects dominated by the semantic of freedom? ,Quaderni del Dottorato in Psicologia Clinica (vol.1, pp. 103-133). Bergamo: University Press.
• Veronese G., Procaccia R., Romaioli D., Barola G. e Castiglioni M. (2013), Psychopatho­logical Organizations and Attachment Styles in Patients with Fear of Flying. A Case Study, The Open Psychology Journal, vol. 6, 20-27, doi: 10.2174/1874350101306010020.

COME SAPERE DI PIU’ DELLA SEMANTICA DELLA LIBERTA’ ATTRAVERSO UN’ESPERIENZA LETTERARIA?

Reading the works of D. H. Lawrence and Thomas Hardy, Tim Parks (2008) argued that their novels, like their lives, are dominated by the semantic of freedom.

Parks T. (2008) Semantic Polarities in the Writings of Thomas Hardy and D. H. Lawrence Merope, vol. 53-54, 5-46.

Parks T.(2015) The Novel. A Survival Skill Oxford University Press New York.

Parks T. (2014) Romanzi pieni di vita[Novels full of life], Laterza Roma-Bari 2014