Massive Trauma in A Community Exposed to Asbestos: Thinking and Dissociation among the Inhabitants of Casale Monferrato

Borgogno, Francesca V.; Franzoi, Isabella Giulia; Barbasio, Chiara Paola; Guglielmucci, Fanny; Granieri, Antonella

doi:10.1111/bjp.12170

Cited by 12 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…The silencing and distancing community reactions to MM make some patients feel like some sort of “plague spreaders”: only few of them firmly oppose this attitude, claiming they do not have leper, they are not untouchable, and they are not contagious. These words reveal, at the same time, the patients' need for human contact and the citizens' fear of an “aerial contagion,” which seems to impair social relationships and give rise to rage and unconscious death anxieties within the community (Granieri and Borgogno, 2014 ; Borgogno et al, 2015 ; Granieri, 2017 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The MM diagnosis does not undermine only the affective life of patients and of those who take care of them, but it also deeply compromises social cohesion and the quality of their external relationships, leading to perceptions of marginalization and withdrawal (Bottomley et al, 2006 ; Granieri, 2008 , 2013 ; Hughes and Arber, 2008 ; Borgogno et al, 2015 ; Zhang et al, 2015 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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“The Less I Think About It, the Better I Feel”: A Thematic Analysis of the Subjective Experience of Malignant Mesothelioma Patients and Their Caregivers

et al. 2018

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Aim: A cancer diagnosis—and in particular a Malignant Mesothelioma (MM) one—breaks the somatopsychic balance of the individual, compromising the quality of residual life and giving rise to many negative emotions difficult to integrate and to elaborate (such as depression, fears, anxieties, hopelessness, guilt, shame, and rage). Several national and international guidelines acknowledged the importance of evaluating psychological and socio-relational features in MM patients and their caregiver. However, only few studies have investigated the subjective experience of MM patients and even less research has focused on the caregivers' experience. Thus, the aim of the present study is to investigate the lived experience of both MM patients and their caregivers, providing an in-depth comprehension of the psychological sequelae of the disease.Materials and Methods: Within a psychoanalytically-informed conceptual framework, open-ended interviews were conducted with 10 MM patients and 9 caregivers. Thematic analysis was employed: interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and coded in order to identify the main recurring themes across the narratives.Results: We detected four different themes: (1) bodily symptoms and embodied emotions; (2) living in or near a National Priority Contaminated Site (NCPS); (3) “nothing is like it was” (that is, the impact of the diagnosis on everyday life, the changes it causes in the family relationships, the things that are still possible to do, the mourning process); (4) “what will become of us?” (that is, worries about the impact of the diagnosis on the beloved ones, death and legacy).Discussion: MM patients and caregivers seem to be stuck in a concrete mental functioning focused on symptoms and they find it difficult to openly think and talk about the affective and emotional consequences of the diagnosis. Alongside this, they express the need to find new and less conflictual ways to stay together and talk to each other during the period of active treatments for the illness (i.e., chemotherapy, radiotherapy, etc) and the end-of-life. The results of this study have important implications for the clinical management of MM and can help develop multi-professional specialist interventions addressed to both patients and caregivers.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“The Less I Think About It, the Better I Feel”: A Thematic Analysis of the Subjective Experience of Malignant Mesothelioma Patients and Their Caregivers

et al. 2018

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“…In my clinical experience in polluted areas (Borgogno F. V., Franzoi, Barbasio, Guglielmucci, & Granieri, 2015;Granieri, 2008aGranieri et al, 2013;Guglielmucci, Franzoi, Barbasio, Borgogno F. V., & Granieri, 2014;Guglielmucci, Franzoi, Zuffranieri, & Granieri, 2015), I have observed that geographical proximity to a permananent environmental disaster due to the emission of asbestos results in a traumatic situation experienced by the entire local community, often leading to cancer and death. This is the case of Casale Monferrato, a city in northwestern Italy, in which exposure to asbestos has resulted in the local Health Services reaching an impasse because of the exponential increase in healthcare demand.…”

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confidence: 98%

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

Granieri¹

2016

International Forum of Psychoanalysis

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In the community of Casale Monferrato, exposure to asbestos has been an extremely traumatic event that has caused cancer and death and that has affected a variety of social and environmental aspects of the people and 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 non-mentalized emotional aggregates. Making reference to clinical material, I will show how the possibility of sharing, with other minds, the meaning of the trauma has also brought into the field the vital aspects of each participant, which are 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, where painful and deadly experiences connected to the trauma could be faced.

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“…a Banerjee and Rai 2020 somatization, and enactment entailing many somatopsychic features (Borgogno et al, 2015;Granieri, 2016a;Colizzi et al, 2020). People living in NPCSs have had to find a balance between immunitas (isolation and enclosure within one's own identity boundaries to protect oneself from contamination by others) and communitas (opening up one's life to others and facing the fear of contagion in the encounter with the other's specificity) (Granieri, 2013(Granieri, , 2016bGuglielmucci et al, 2015).…”

Section: Asbestos Exposurementioning

confidence: 99%

SARS-CoV-2 and Asbestos Exposure: Can Our Experience With Mesothelioma Patients Help Us Understand the Psychological Consequences of COVID-19 and Develop Interventions?

et al. 2020

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Since its emergence, the novel coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) has had enormous physical, social, and psychological impacts worldwide. The aim of this article was to identify elements of our knowledge on asbestos exposure and malignant mesothelioma (MM) that can provide insight into the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and be used to develop adequate interventions. Although the etiology of Covid-19 and MM differs, their psychological impacts have common characteristics: in both diseases, there is a feeling of being exposed through aerial contagion to an “invisible killer” without boundaries that can strike even the strongest individuals. In both cases, affected persons can experience personality dysfunction, anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic symptoms; helplessness, hopelessness, and projection of destructive thoughts onto external forces often emerge, while defense mechanisms such as denial, splitting, repression, and reduced emotional expression are used by individuals to contain their overwhelming anxieties. We believe that in both diseases, an integrated multidimensional intervention offered by hospitals and other public health services is the most effective approach to alleviating patients’ and caregivers’ psychological distress. In particular, we emphasize that in the context of both MM and COVID-19, Brief Psychoanalytic Group therapy can help patients and caregivers attribute meaning to the significant changes in their lives related to the experience of the disease and identify adaptive strategies and more realistic relational modalities to deal with what has happened to them. We also highlight the importance of developing a surveillance system that includes individual anamnestic evaluation of occupational risk factors for COVID-19 disease.

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Massive Trauma in A Community Exposed to Asbestos: Thinking and Dissociation among the Inhabitants of Casale Monferrato

Abstract: Si richiede di derogare a quanto previsto dall'art. 4.1.b del Regolamento di Ateneo sull'accesso aperto per il prodotto a causa di:

Cited by 12 publications

References 26 publications

“The Less I Think About It, the Better I Feel”: A Thematic Analysis of the Subjective Experience of Malignant Mesothelioma Patients and Their Caregivers

“The Less I Think About It, the Better I Feel”: A Thematic Analysis of the Subjective Experience of Malignant Mesothelioma Patients and Their Caregivers

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

SARS-CoV-2 and Asbestos Exposure: Can Our Experience With Mesothelioma Patients Help Us Understand the Psychological Consequences of COVID-19 and Develop Interventions?

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