“Under the black sun of the silence, the words burned slowly” (Pizarnik) use of literature in a therapeutic group in a closed psychiatric ward – as a creative way to return to recovery process

ABSTRACT

This article presents a therapeutic-group held at a closed-ward, for people coping with psychotic-disorders. Psychotic people generally have difficulty organizing their thoughts and expressing their internal worlds. Moreover, the therapists needed a different and creative way to create relationships and to have insights about the participants. We created a theme group that used the verbal-affective metaphoric instrument of literature. The use of literature leads to the dissipation of fear and suspicion and gradual familiarity in the relationship, and also to a strong therapeutic process and to the creation of a change. Additionally, the therapists were able to understand in a different perspective, the participants and their experience, but at the same time to be an observer from the side. The use of this instrument in therapy facilitated, the creation of a relationship, the ability to share insights and the beginning of a recovery process in a better and customized way.

KEYWORDS:

• Psychosis
• therapist experience
• literature
• metaphoric tool
• recovery process

Acknowledgements

A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the 21st Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology (Eurocrim 2021), virtual conference, September 2021.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Code of ethics

In order to comply with the code of ethics, we have used de-identification criterion to present the group clinical case. The presentation includes anonymous information that does not identify a certain individual.