Extreme trauma in a polluted area: Bonds and relational transformations in an Italian community

Abstract

In the community of Casale Monferrato, exposure to asbestos has led to an extremely traumatic situation that has encompassed cancer and death and affected a variety of social and environmental aspects of both individuals and the community. When an entire community is severely traumatized, psychoanalytic group therapy seems to be the most suitable therapeutic setting: it allows for the historization of the event and the creation of multiple narratives of somatopsychic suffering, producing a transformative effect on nonmentalized emotional aggregates. Making reference to clinical material, I will show how the possibility of sharing, with other minds, the meaning of the trauma also brought into the field each participant's vital aspects, possibly not very intense in each individual but consistently present in the functioning of the mind of the group. I will also illustrate how this led to the development of a new and more mature psychic asset, with which painful and deadly experiences connected to the trauma could be faced.

Key words:

• massive trauma
• contaminated site
• group
• mourning
• transformation

Notes

¹This is a rare neoplasia, involving an uncontrolled growth of cells, that affects the thin tissue that covers the lungs and the thoracic cavity. The first symptoms of pleural mesothelioma may be pain in the lower back or on one side of the chest, shortness of breath, cough, temperature, fatigue, weight loss, difficulty swallowing, or muscular weakness. The prognosis is extremely poor. The average life expectancy after diagnosis is about nine months. Only 10 patients out of 100 are still alive five years after the onset of symptoms, and the number of survivors decreases over time. Moreover, pleural mesothelioma has an incubation period of about 30 years: in the next 20 years, 500 more deaths are likely, and the number of deaths is expected to peak between the years 2015 and 2020 (Fazzo et al., 2012; Ferrante, Bertolotti, Todesco, Mirabelli, Terracini, & Magnani, 2007; Furlan & Montarino, 2012; Lo Iacono et al., 2015; Magnani et al., 2008; Marinaccio et al., 2007).

²The appeal sentence condemned the accused to 18 years’ imprisonment, on grounds of causing a voluntary permanent environmental disaster and of voluntary negligence of health and safety measures. The court also decided that the region of Piedmont should pay a fine of 20 million Euros, and the Casale Monferrato City Council a fine of 30.9 million Euros. In 2015, the Court of Cassation overturned this sentence, declaring that the statute of limitations had expired and the crime was not prosecutable.

³All the sessions were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim, and informed written consent was collected from all the group participants.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Antonella Granieri

Author

Antonella Granieri is professor of clinical psychology and director of the Post-Graduate School in Clinical Psychology at the University of Turin. She is a full member of the Italian Psychoanalytic Association and the International Psychoanalytic Association.