Metastable structures and size effects in small group dynamics

In his seminal works on group dynamics Bion defined a specific therapeutic setting allowing psychoanalytic observations on group phenomena. In describing the setting he proposed that the group was where his voice arrived. This physical limit was later made operative by assuming that the natural dimension of a therapeutic group is around 12 people. Bion introduced a theory of the group aspects of the mind in which proto-mental individual states spontaneously evolve into shared psychological states that are characterized by a series of features: 1) they emerge as a consequence of the natural tendency of (both conscious and unconscious) emotions to combine into structured group patterns; 2) they have a certain degree of stability in time; 3) they tend to alternate so that the dissolution of one is rapidly followed by the emergence of another; 4) they can be described in qualitative terms according to the nature of the emotional mix that dominates the state, in structural terms by a kind of typical 'leadership’ pattern, and in 'cognitive’ terms by a set of implicit expectations that are helpful in explaining the group behavior (i.e. the group behaves 'as if’ it was assuming that…). Here we adopt a formal approach derived from Socio-physics in order to explore some of the structural and dynamic properties of this small group dynamics. We will described data from an analytic DS model simulating small group interactions of agents endowed with a very simplified emotional and cognitive dynamic in order to assess the following main points: 1) are metastable collective states allowed to emerge in the model and if so, under which conditions in the parameter space? 3) can these states be differentiated in structural terms? 3) to what extent are the emergent dynamic features of the systems dependent of the system size? We will finally discuss possible future applications of the quantitative descriptions of the interaction structure in the small group clinical setting

Infinite Singletons and the Logic of Freudian Theory

The aim of this paper is to advance a formal description of the implicit logic grounding of the psychoanalytic theory. We therefore propose a new interpretation of the logical features of the Freudian unconscious process, starting from the Bi-logic formulation put forward by the Chilean psychoanalyst Matte Blanco. We conceive the universal undifferentiated state of the deep psychoanalytic Unconscious in terms of particular sets named infinite singletons, and we show how they can represent the logical foundations for a formal description of the Primary process. We first disclose some implicit assumptions underlying the common logical language. In doing so, we discover an unexpected presence of symmetry even in the most basic of logical and verbal structures. In the approach derived, we show that infiniteness, not finiteness, is the primary mode of sets, and therefore, of thinking. The pivotal consequence of this model is that the unconscious elements cannot be characterised in the absence of external reality, which produces the collapse of infinite sets and allows for the emergence of linguistic representations. Finally, we discuss how the model could represent a platform to formalise further developments of psychoanalytic theory, in particular with respect to the shift from the First to the Second Topics in Freudian theory

Cognitive network structure: an experimental study

In this paper we present first experimental results about a small group of people exchanging private and public messages in a virtual community. Our goal is the study of the cognitive network that emerges during a chat seance. We used the Derrida coefficient and the triangle structure under the working assumption that moods and perceived mutual affinity can produce results complementary to a full semantic analysis. The most outstanding outcome is the difference between the network obtained considering publicly exchanged messages and the one considering only privately exchanged messages: in the former case, the network is very homogeneous, in the sense that each individual interacts in the same way with all the participants, whilst in the latter the interactions among different agents are very heterogeneous, and are based on "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" strategy. Finally a recent characterization of the triangular cliques has been considered in order to describe the intimate structure of the network. Experimental results confirm recent theoretical studies indicating that certain 3-vertex structures can be used as indicators for the network aging and some relevant dynamical features.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures, 3 table

I vissuti dello staff e dei volontari che assistono pazienti pediatrici terminali: aspetti etici, diamoci e metodologici.

<p><span>The development of guidelines for palliative care in the paediatric settings is judged to be still incomplete and characterized by many controversial issues; in order to explore the life-experience of individual health care professionals, we proposed a semi-structured questionnaire with open questions on end-of-life procedures to the staff members of the Paediatric Onco-hematology Ward of the University of Padua, of the Oncology Ward and in the Home Assistance Module of the Giannetta Gaslini Hospital, Genoa, both in Italy. This paper will focus on the responses provided to the third question: “<em>In your opinion, can inducing the suspension of the state of consciousness be counted among end-of-life procedures? If so, how and when?</em>”. Staff members were found to face challenging interactions at at least three levels: within the professional team, with respect to the parents and with respect to the adolescent patients. Among the most complex issues raised by the participants we found the moral distress sometimes experienced by nurses with respect to the decisions assumed by doctors, as stated by a nurse: “<em>Everything is subjective in those 24 hours  (…) and you are to do or not do certain things and it makes you feel distressed</em>”. Second, it emerged that the relationship with the parents becomes very challenging when the two are not in agreement: “<em>The father wants to give the morphine, but the mother secretly closes the drip</em>”. Finally, the relationship of trust with the adolescent patients is under threat when they ‘want to know’ while parents seem to be unable to tolerate this degree of painful but essential self-consciousness in their ‘child’: “<em>He locked me in the room and asked, ‘Am I dying?’, and I wanted to die at that point…</em>”. Our study shows that health care professionals require not just guidelines but a tailor-made training and support which integrate much deeply the therapeutic as well as the moral and philosophical approaches to the issues raised by palliative care in paediatric settings.</span></p><div><span><br /></span></div><p><strong>Articoli Selezionati del Congresso “Medicina Narrativa e Comunicazione nella Pratica Clinica” ·  Cagliari · 14 Aprile 2014 </strong></p> <p><span><strong>Guest Editors: Massimiliano Zonza, Vassilios Fanos, Gian Paolo Donzelli</strong></span></p

A bidimensional instrument to assess the sense of guilt in childwood: the Guilt Feelings Scale for Children (GFS_C).

In the psychoanalytical theoretical perspective the Sense of Guilt has been formulated in terms of the two related constructs: Persecutory Guilt and Reparative Guilt. The focus of this paper is to develop a bi-dimensional Scale of the Sense of Guilt for Children and verify its conceptual structure via exploratory and confirmatory approaches. Starting from two scales for adults prosed by Caprara and colleagues (1990), the authors develop the Guilt Feeling Scale for Children (GFS_C) that in the final version includes 9 items for Persecutory Guilt (P-GFS_C), 9 items for Reparative Guilt (R-GFS_C), and 6 control items. The sample was composed of 242 Italian children (132 males and 110 females), aged 8-11. Overall, results confirmed the hypothesized structure of the scale providing a good level of fit of the model to the data. Finally, the results showed a good internal consistency of the global scale and of both the subscales

Virtual Reality Analgesia for Pediatric Dental Patients

Background: Dental procedures often elicit pain and fear in pediatric dental patients.Aim: To evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of immersive virtual reality as an attention distraction analgesia technique for pain management in children and adolescents undergoing painful dental procedures.Design: Using a within-subjects design, five patients (mean age 13.20 years old, SD 2.39) participated. Patients received tethered immersive interactive virtual reality distraction in an Oculus Rift VR helmet (experimental condition) during one dental procedure (a single dental filling or tooth extraction). On a different visit to the same dentist (e.g., 1 week later), each patient also received a comparable dental procedure during the control condition “treatment as usual” (treatment order randomized). After each procedure, children self-rated their “worst pain,” “pain unpleasantness,” “time spent thinking about pain,” “presence in VR,” “fun,” and “nausea” levels during the dental procedures, using graphic rating scales.Results: Patients reported significantly lower “worst pain” and “pain unpleasantness,” and had significantly more fun during VR, compared to a comparable dental procedure with No VR. Using Oculus Rift VR goggles, patients reported a “strong sense of going inside the computer-generated world,” without side effects. The dentist preferred having the patients in VR.Conclusion: Results of this pilot study provide preliminary evidence of the feasibility of using immersive, interactive VR to distract pediatric dental patients and increase fun of children during dental procedures