Abstract
Are the semantics of “freedom,” “goodness,” “power,” and “belonging” characteristic of the stories narrated in psychotherapy by individuals respectively with phobic, obsessive-compulsive, eating, and mood disorders? To verify this hypothesis, put forward by Ugazio's model of semantic polarities, the Family Semantics Grid (FSG) was applied to the transcripts of 120 individual video-recorded systemic therapy sessions, the first two sessions carried out with 60 patients with phobic (12), obsessive-compulsive (12), eating (12), and mood (12) disorders and asymptomatic patients (12) with existential problems who made up the comparison group. The results confirm the hypothesis. All but one patient were correctly assigned to their diagnostic group only by drawing on their narrated semantics. The semantics alone therefore seem capable of defining the correct diagnostic group to which each patient belongs. We suggest considering the semantics as contextual and cultural diagnostic dimensions, expressions of the bonds but also of the resources of people, and above all useful for a diagnosis aimed at fostering processes of transformation and change.
Highlights
Are the semantics of “freedom”, “goodness”, “power” and “belonging” characteristic of the stories narrated in psychotherapy by individuals respectively with phobic, obsessivecompulsive, eating and mood disorders? To verify this hypothesis, put forward by Ugazio’s model of semantic polarities (1998, 2012/2013), the Family Semantics Grid (FSG) (Ugazio, Negri, Fellin, & Di Pasquale, 2009) was applied to the transcripts of 120 individual videorecorded systemic therapy sessions - the first two sessions carried out with 60 patients with phobic (12), obsessive-compulsive (12), eating (12) mood (12) disorders and asymptomatic patients (12) with existential problems who make up the comparison group
Ugazio et al (2009) have called these coherent sets of meanings “family semantics” because they come from the same emotional polarities, which typically originate within primary social contexts like families
In the 120 sessions analyzed we identified a total of 7255 narrated semantic polarities,9 73.9% are introduced by the patients
Summary
Are the semantics of “freedom”, “goodness”, “power” and “belonging” characteristic of the stories narrated in psychotherapy by individuals respectively with phobic, obsessivecompulsive, eating and mood disorders? To verify this hypothesis, put forward by Ugazio’s model of semantic polarities (1998, 2012/2013), the Family Semantics Grid (FSG) (Ugazio, Negri, Fellin, & Di Pasquale, 2009) was applied to the transcripts of 120 individual videorecorded systemic therapy sessions - the first two sessions carried out with 60 patients with phobic (12), obsessive-compulsive (12), eating (12) mood (12) disorders and asymptomatic patients (12) with existential problems who make up the comparison group. In families where obsessive-compulsive disorders are present, the semantic of goodness would dominate, whose driving-force is guilt and purity, and in those where we find people with eating disorders or chronic depression, the conversation would tend to give central place, respectively, to the semantics of power and belonging which, as we shall see, are fuelled by other emotive polarities. The prevalence of these semantics in the family conversation is not enough in itself to favor the development of the related psychopathology. Being in a close relationship can generate feelings of constriction, whereas moving away from protective ties can produce a sense of disorientation
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