N. 1 - Marzo 2001
“The swan and the ugly duckling”
Anna Emanuela Tangolo
"Reality doesn't want me. I run chasing the threads of memory.The labyrinth splits, housing crazy bees carrying golden nails to transfix the rotten minds." In this way Luigi, 19 years old, desribes his difficult relationship with reality and Sara, 28 years, adds: "I feel split....Sometimes I am the swan, sometimes I am the ugly duckling.", speaking about her difficult relationship with herself. Luigi and Sara are two young people with a high grade of mental suffering which, at the beginning, I thought was due to abuse of acids. But the two youngsters didn't take drugs and anyway they felt the HIGH and DOWN , effect usually caused by drugs. In their therapy I had pose a series of behaviour contracts immediately, accompanying them also with psycho-pharmacological treatment for some periods. The psychotherapy was indispensable to improve the pharmacological compliance and to create an environment of control in order to limit the destructive spurs (Structuring of the P and A setting ). The job was aimed to improve the patient's self-consciousness, so that understanding the separate functioning of their "Ego-states" they could decide to cooperate with their therapist (A-A alliance). In this way we could work on the decontamination and the growing of the use of the Adult in order to solve the problems. During the advanced phase of the treatment the job was focused on the integration and re-composition of the split parts and the subsequent emotional re-decisions. At this point the treatment continues in a group, in oeder to allw the experience of the optiacal re-decisions in a real context and the learning of new options for thinking, feeling and acting.
Anna Emanuela Tangolo