Mirroring of Psychogenic Autistic Barriers and Neurotic Boundaries in Group Process

Abstract

During a group psychotherapeutic process, many layers of inner and outer worlds are mirrored through constant interaction. The author follows up part of the group analysis of a small group of patients who, through projections and projective identifications, dreams and fantasies, slowly disclose their deep inner conflicts, up to the barriers that all of them avoid. `Going around' the projection of one patient opens a path through these psychogenic autistic encapsulations, enabling the whole group to develop the analysis of the group process. The author conceptualizes this situation as a phase preceded by high tensions and resistances and followed by new insights into the psychodynamics of each member and the group as a whole. Barriers are understood and well defended as nuclei of pregenital conflicts, disclosing early fixations, which imply autistic qualities, while neurotic `boundaries' are seen as conflictual lines against which one uses defence mechanisms, and which are generally more accessible to exposition and confrontation, and are of either oedipal or pre-oedipal origin.