Meaningful Relationships: Co-constructing Stories for Liberty to Emerge

Abstract: Starting from the postmodern, constructionist hypothesis of the intersubjective and cultural construction of reality, this article provides a brief review of findings of existential therapy, terror management theory, group therapy according to Irvin Yalom, relational psychoanalytic therapy as developed by the Institute for Relational and Group Psychotherapy (IRGP), and attachment theory. These concern manifestation aspects of existential anxiety, emerging from the transition from an early to a more mature stage of therapy under pressure of the absence of one therapist in combined individual and group therapy. The narrative dialectical analysis of material was chosen, material which resulted from my individual and group sessions during a five-month absence of my cotherapist due to pregnancy and delivery and immediately after the return of the new mother-therapist to the group. The secure bond with the institution that is co-constructed through multiobjective relationships in personal therapy and the supervision of therapists at the IRGP and the co-construction of a consistently supportive cotherapeutic relationship created the safe space to reflect on and engage with my existential anxiety and helped me in turn, initially alone and later with the return of my cotherapist, to contain and limit the aggression of the group members. To that end, the group as a whole moves into a more depressive position, and the existential anxieties of death, aging, abandonment, loneliness, freedom, and members’ meaning are communicated and connected with their personal stories and the stories of their families of origin as they intertwine with the wider narratives of Greek reality. Thus new stories that heal are co-constructed.