1. L.ONNIS WHEN FUTURE IS UNCERTAIN OR BLOCKED THE METHOD OF “SCULPTURES OF FUTURE” Professor of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy University “Sapienza” of Rome Director of I.E.F.Co.S. (Rome) President of I.E.F.Co.S. (Cagliari)

2. THE SOCIO-CULTURAL CONTEXT  Society in rapid transformation: traditional values are changing as well as usual organized structures of living as the same family.  “Globalization”: continual contact with the “other”, with cultural ethnic and religious differences  “Liquid society” (Bauman): lack of assured berths, of fixed points to which being able to report stably.

3. POSSIBLE INFLUENCES (1) Two types of influences, of opposite sign, but in dialectic connection between them: 1.Influences of negative sign  Diffusion of anxiety conditions related to the uncertainty, fears of loss of identity ( Spreading disease: panic disorders)  “Evolutionary block” ( Spreading disease: adolescence anorexia and bulimia )

4. POSSIBLE INFLUENCES (2) 2. Influences of positive sign  The comparison with the difference allows to discover the complexity of human reality  The fall of unique and dogmatic truths allows the emergence of a multiplicity of viewpoints, which required respect and tolerance  We must accept the “ambivalence” that marks the transition from “modernity” to “post-modernity” (Bauman)

5. IMPLICATIONS FOR THERAPY AND TRAINING (1) Therapy and training are two “isomorphic” processes. The common element is the ability to transform what is perceived as a “limit” in a “resource”. In therapy: the therapist must help the family to find out which needs are hidden under the manifested suffering (the limit) and to activate the resources to deal with it In training: the therapist has, in turn, to learn to transform what appear to be a limit ( f.e., the personal resonances with the problems of anxiety of a patient or a family) in a therapeutic resource

6. IMPLICATIONS FOR THERAPY AND TREANING (2) Aims of training process  To avoid that the trainee enters into collusion with patients and families who are carriers of anxieties and fears, that come from this rapidly changing world, to which the same trainee participates  To allow to the trainee to grasp the ambivalence, to see that in uncertainty and in unpredictable can hide complexity  To encourage in the trainee a greater flexibility, the ability to tolerate the unpredictable, the willingness to be open to the future

7. THE PERSONAL WORK ON THE TRAINEE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE GROUP(1) The experience in the group of a process open to unpredictable Each group member, in turn, brings an object significant for him/her: a book, a poem, a drawing, a piece of music, or whatever, and tells why that object is important to him/her. Around the object, that immediately acquires a symbolic value, and since the initial story, all the others involve their emotions, their resonances, the fragments of their experiences and of their memories. This builds, from time to time, a narrative plot and an emotional atmosphere, characterized by developments and outcomes always indefinite and non-programmable.

8. THE PERSONAL WORK ON THE TRAINEE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE GROUP (2) The work on the future of the trainee: the “sculpture of the future” At the end of the genogram and of the family story narration, we usually propose to the trainee to represent, through the use of sculpture, an episode of his/her present or past story, that is considered relevant to the trainee psychological and relational happenings. The change of narrative register is a strong element of “unpredictability”. It allows the unexpected emergence of experiences and emotions more difficultly accessible to the direct speech.

9. The work on the future of the trainee: the “sculpture of the future” Moreover, to this first sculpture, in our current model, we make follow a "sculpture of the future", proposing to the trainee to represent him/herself and his/her family as he/she images they will be in a future story (after about 10 years). The analogical language of sculpture brings out unresolved relations, individuation difficulties, fears of failure that make painful and uncertain the future. But on these issues that now have emerged, the trainee can discuss with the trainer and with the group, allowing a more conscious self- reflection.

10. THE PERSONAL WORK ON THE TRAINEE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE GROUP (3) The revision of the family story: the metaphorical tale with the “open-ended” In the later stages of training the trainee is invited to resubmit his/her family story, but this time in a different form: that of a metaphorical story, a sort of fairy tale in which the end is open and undefined. Only at the time of presentation, each member of the group, beginning by the narrator trainee can give a conclusion to the tale, always in a metaphorical way. The multiplicity of possible conclusions of the tale that the group returns to the trainee gives to him/her the image of a future in progress in which the unpredictability of developments is not only a source of uncertainty and anxiety, but also of many resources and potentials.

11. TOWARD AN ETHIC OF UNPREDICTABILITY  In general, the therapeutic process, every therapeutic process is, by its nature, "unpredictable".  Learning to accept the unexpected, being open to the unpredictability, is an essential constitutive part of “being psychotherapists”.

12. CONCLUSIONS Heinz Von Foester: the function of the psychotherapist essentially consists in allowing the patient and family to “increase their possibilities of choice”. Gregory Bateson: all human systems have a “self- healing tautology”, a self-healing capacity in such forms and manners never pre-determined.