EMDR - Group therapy with patients having eating disorders

We understand a therapeutic group, here the EMDR-group, analog to the opinion of Watzlawick et al., Koffka and Grinberg as a multiplicity that is more than only the sum of the individuals. An individual is a part of a group, who expresses himself in the collective „we". Even if the individual expresses himself at first individually, the remarks turn into collective-appearances with basic-convictions–and assumptions. This group-structure, labeled by the authors as a dynamic collective-constellation, is based on unconscious processes projecting and introjecting identification. The group-member takes in those feelings and impulses of the others that are similar to the own emotions, and perceives them due to the experienced reinforcement more severely. Simultaneously the individual projects his objects of the unconscious imagination on the others and tries to reproduce the specific pattern of his difficult interpersonal relationships.

Conference

English

Reinhard Plassmann
Marion Mergentheim

Plassmann, R., & Mergentheim, M. (2003, May). EMDR - Group therapy with patients having eating disorders. In Eating Disorders. Symposium conducted at the 4th EMDR Europe Association Conference, Rome, Italy