Dream and progressive mirror drawing in the psychoanalytic psychotherapy of psychoses

Journal title PSICOTERAPIA E SCIENZE UMANE
Author/s Maurizio Peciccia
Publishing Year 2014 Issue 2014/3 Language Italian
Pages 4 P. 467-470 File size 27 KB
DOI 10.3280/PU2014-003006
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The technique of "progressive mirror drawing" for the psychodynamic therapy of psychoses, developed by Gaetano Benedetti (1920-2013) and Maurizio Peciccia, is described. In this technique, patient and therapist simultaneously draw a picture on two different paper sheets, and subsequently both of them complete and transform the drawing of the other. The patient and the art-therapist - by repeating the same hand movements within this graphic dialogue - enter into the world of the other through shared unconscious communications and, like in a dream, open themselves to a previously hidden meanings. This technique differs from Winnicott’s "squiggle game", in which the therapist draws a squiggle that the child subsequently transforms into something else, while other times the child draws a picture that eventually the therapist elaborates and completes.

Keywords: Drawing, progressive mirror drawing, psychodynamic therapy of psychoses, squiggle game, art-therapy

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  • From the “squiggle game” to “games of reciprocity” towards a creative co-construction of a space for working with adolescents Alberto Stefana, Alessio Gamba, in The International Journal of Psychoanalysis /2018 pp.355
    DOI: 10.1080/00207578.2017.1416270

Maurizio Peciccia, Sogno e disegno speculare progressivo terapeutico nella psicoterapia psicoanalitica delle psicosi in "PSICOTERAPIA E SCIENZE UMANE" 3/2014, pp 467-470, DOI: 10.3280/PU2014-003006