Bittolo, Christophe

Sensitive Space and Groups: Regulating, Containing, and Transforming Sensoriality in Groups, Families, and Institutions - 2012.


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This examines how the aesthetic of the group form and the emotion it arouses play a role in transforming diffuse sensoriality in the life of groups. It identifies the ways in which a group regulates the sensoriality underlying fantasy activity and organizing forms of linking. The scope of the modes of communication of a group’s psychic life is identified in relation to the role played by affect in the phenomena of group dynamics, both in the institution and the family. The extraterritoriality of the linked psychic apparatuses is demonstrated by group energetic states which complete and extend the notion of protomental system. After exploring the different forms of these energetic movements, this paper discusses the various ways of containing and transforming these states. Three modalities of so-called “regulation” are highlighted. Diverse forms of group emotionality, group motor stylistics, and disjunctive procedures make it possible to account for the evolutions and stumbling blocks in the conditions in which a work of group psychic elaboration is feasible.