Sense of self and psychosis, part 1: Identification, differentiation and the body; A theoretical basis for amniotic therapy

Abstract

We will describe in two articles (“Sense of self and psychosis”, 1 and 2) the theoretical basis and the methodology of a new therapeutic group approach called amniotic therapy, which aims to improve the sense of self of psychotic patients. In this first article we explore the role of the surface of the body and its early sensorimotor interactions in the processes of self/other identification and differentiation. We propose that these processes have common origins, the body surface and its interactions, but different destinies, depending on where the body’s surface is projected. When it is projected intrapsychically we have differentiation, and when it is projected externally onto the body’s surface of the other, we have identification. Identification is a reciprocal process, in which the self’s and the other’s surfaces mutually contain each other and co-create a shared field. The neural correlates of identification and differentiation are discussed. The second article, which follows, describes amniotic therapy and explores a single case study.

Key words:

• psychosis
• body surface
• identification
• differentiation
• affiliative touch

Notes

1 By “identification” we imply a relation of similarity between self and other, enabling the possibility to implicitly recognize the other as another bodily-self. Nothing is ever completely identical between self and other, at least not from a neuroscientific perspective.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maurizio Peciccia

Maurizio Peciccia is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. He is director of the Gaetano Benedetti Psychoanalytic Existential Institute in Assisi, Italy and also contract professor of dynamic psychology at the Department of Philosophy, Social and Human Science of the University of Perugia. In addition, he is president of the Italian branch of the International Society for the Psychological and Social Approaches to the Psychoses (ISPS).

Livia Buratta

Livia Buratta is a psychologist and holds a PhD in human science. She is a research fellow at the University of Perugia, Italy, where since 2008 she has collaborated in several research projects. Her main field of interests are the study of psychological wellbeing throughout the lifespan in nonclinical and clinical populations, and the study of the efficacy and effectiveness of psychological and psychotherapeutic interventions in clinical settings.

Martina Ardizzi

Martina Ardizzi has a PhD neuroscience and a Master’s degree in neuropsychology. Her main field of interests are: embodied bases of self in healthy individuals and psychiatric patients; the effects of extreme traumatic experiences on autonomic regulation and electrophysiological muscular responses to the facial expression of emotions; the influence of interoceptive signals on autonomic regulation and on interpersonal space representation, both in healthy participants and in psychiatric patients; and neural bases of self–other distinction.

Alessandro Germani

Alessandro Germani, PhD, is a psychologist and contract professor of clinical psychology and psychosomatics at the Department of Philosophy, Social Sciences and Education of the University of Perugia, Italy.

Giulia Ayala

Giulia Ayala is an art therapist. She is a member of the International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis (ISPS), a member of the Italian Professional Association of Art Therapists (APIART), and a member of the Associazione Sementera Amnios. She offers amniotic therapy to individuals with a diagnosis of psychosis.

Francesca Ferroni

Francesca Ferroni has a Master’s degree in neurobiology and a PhD in neuroscience. Her research focuses on the investigation of bodily self-alterations along the schizotypal and schizophrenic spectrum, on the multisensory integration mechanisms underlying the plasticity of peripersonal space in both schizotypy and schizophrenia, and on the neural bases of the individual differences in peripersonal space plasticity in healthy individuals.

Claudia Mazzeschi

Claudia Mazzeschi, PhD, is a psychologist. She is a full professor of clinical and dynamic psychology at the Department of Philosophy, Social and Human Science of the University of Perugia, Italy, and also the department’s director.

Vittorio Gallese

Vittorio Gallese, MD, is a trained neurologist and professor of psychobiology and cognitive neuroscience at the department of medicine and surgery at the University of Parma, Italy. He is the adjunct senior research scholar, Department of Art History and Archeology, Columbia University, New York, USA, and Einstein Fellow at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain of Humboldt University, Germany. As a cognitive neuroscientist, among his main scientific contributions, together with his colleagues at Parma, is the discovery of mirror neurons, and the proposal of a new model of perception and imagination: embodied simulation theory. He is the author of more than 300 scientific publications and three books. He has received the following awards and prizes: the Grawemeyer Award for Psychology in 2007; the Doctor Honoris Causa from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium in 2010; the Arnold Pfeffer Prize for Neuropsychoanalysis in New York in 2010; the Musatti Prize from the Italian Psychoanalytic Society in Milano in 2014; the Kosmos Fellowship from the Humboldt University of Berlin in 2014; and the Einstein Fellowship from the Einstein Stiftung in Berlin in 2016.