by Dimitris Anastasopoulos

At the end of May (26th – 28th) the last Syros workshop took place in Hermoupolis, the capital of the island. The invited speaker was Dr Roberto Basile, who presented a paper on “Unity of analysis: similarities and differences in the analysis of children and grown-ups”. The main points of the paper were that what we must consider as a central point in our psychoanalytic work is the bi-personal interaction between analyst and patient and the transformational potential this might have and not the age group of the patient. At the same time we have always to think to which part (child, adolescent, adult) of the patient we relate and address our intervention each time. Dr Basile gave a vivid presentation enriched with clinical examples, based on Bionian theory and Baragne’s field theory. Afterwards there was 3 lively discussion in small groups and plenary meetings, which brought up a lot of issues.

Next day Mrs Olympia Skleidi from the Hellenic Association of Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy presented case material, which was really a complete paper. The rich material of this paper gave more opportunities for further discussion in relation to the previous presentation. I think that in the end we all felt satisfied sharing thoughts on a number of different issues such as: The use of humor in psychoanalysis, the way we interpret and use transference – counter-transference, how we deal with parent involvement in a child’s therapy ; what is the meaning of analyzability of a patient ; to what extent the therapist brings his / her own personal issues in the session ; what is the impact of the training process on psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists ; what is each one's contribution in the field of the participants of a therapeutic dyad ; which are the possible factors that bring a transformation in a therapy ; critical comments on the idealization and overuse of transference interpretation and the necessitity for the therapist to bear the anxiety that he / she is alone in his relationship with the patient ; without the use of rules which he / she could use for support or cover and also the need to wait until the meaning appears. Of course it is impossible to mention any contribution from a long and intense two days discussion. But I hope I gave you an idea of the context.

The whole meeting was run in the usual friendly and creative atmosphere in the beautiful environment of the hospitable island of Syros. At the end, Dimitris Anastasopoulos, the co-organizer of all the 5 Syros Workshops said goodbye to all the participants, thanking them for their contribution and declaring that this was the last workshop for him, something that he regrets but has to do it.

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