International Development Committee Turin Summer School Report and Co-Chairs Opening Words
The Seventh GASi Summer School was held in Turin, Italy between the 24th and 28th of July 2024, in cooperation with APRAGI, a cultural and training group analytic association affiliated with COIRAG www.apragi.it, https://coirag.org
The title of the Summer School was “TransformActions – caring for our future”.
The preparation started late in December 2023 due to war crises and continued intensely, under the leadership of Marit Joffe Milstein, Chair of the GASi International Development Committee – she was also a Co-chair of the Summer School Subcommittee – with Alice Mulasso as local Co-chair.
The GASi Summer School Subcommittee was comprised of Christine Christie (bridge person from the 2022 Summer School in Dublin), Francesca Bascialla, Sanja Janovic, Domenico Agresta, Paul Bener, Alfonso D’Auria, Marit Joffe Milstein. The Local Organising Committee (LOC) was comprised of Nadia Benedetto, Marco Chiantore, Saura Fornero, Ilaria Locati, Alice Mulasso and Manuela Serra. This combined team carefully prepared all the necessary conditions and created a holding environment during the event itself.
Location
The location chosen by the LOC was Cascina Fossata in Turin, which embraces a project of requalification of urban areas which can be described as a planning idea connecting Social Housing, a Multifunctional Centre and Urban Aggregation environment. In the main building there was a big enough conference room where it was possible to hold the Social Dreaming Matrix (SDM), the large group and the morning presentation, and close to the coffee shop there was a study room made available for one of the morning small groups. In another building there were four more rooms where the small and median groups and the supervision groups were held. Beside the main building there was the 12 Arcades Restaurant, where the catering service was provided at lunch time, as well as the welcome drink at the opening of the event. Cascina Fossata has a hotel and provided a number of rooms for participants of the event.
Participants
Over 100 people (95 students + 14 staff members) attended the event with representation from 21 countries broken down as follows: Albania (2), Austria (2), Croatia ( 1), Finland (1), Germany (5), Greece (3 + 1), India (4), Ireland ( 6+1), Israel (4 + 1), Italy (32 + 8), Russia (1), Rwanda (1), Serbia (2+1), Slovenia (4), Spain ( 1), Sweden (1), Switzerland (1), Turkey (1), UK (18), Ukrainie (1) and the USA (3).
The staff members were: Domenico Agresta (Italy), Francesca Bascialla (Greece), Nadia Benedetto (Italy), Paul Benér (Sweden), Marco Chiantore (Italy), Christine Christie (Ireland), Alfonso D’Auria (Italy), Saura Fornero (Italy), Sanja Janovic (Croatia), Marit Joffe Milstein (Israel), Ilaria Locati (Italy), Marina Mojovic (Serbia), Alice Mulasso (Italy) andManuela Serra (Italy).
Programme
The structure of the School programme was generally kept as in previous schools. We had parallel small and median groups, lectures, supervision groups and a daily large group (LG). We kept the morning Social Dreaming Matrix introduced in Dublin 2022 for the three full days, since it was attuned with the Summer School theme of TransformAction: the matrix being a generative place for transformation and an experience that opens to new thoughts. We were also aware of participants’ former feedbacks and wishes for more free time.
The School began on Wednesday afternoon with a welcome by Marit Joffe Milstein and Alice Mulasso with greetings by GASi Co–chairs Francesca Bascialla and Sanja Janovic, and with the participation of the invited Turin Vice-Mayor Michela Favaro, followed by the first lecture and discussion by Francesco De Biase: ‘TRASFORMAZIONI / TRANSFORMACTIONS scenari, visioni, strumenti e metodi / scenarios, visions, tools and methods’. Starting from Turintransformational paths, Francesco outlined “visions, methods and tools that can characterise and foster transformative processes in contemporary society contexts”. Competences, knowledge and necessary skills to activate the desired changes have been highlighted in a lively presentation introduced by the reading of Euphemia by Italo Calvino “The Invisible Cities”, reminding us all that the sharing of dreams, experiences and dialogues in groups allows for the reorganisation of our memories.
The first LG, conducted by Francesca Bascialla and Sanja Janovic, came after that. Later on there was a welcome reception at the Osteria 12 Arcate, attended by all participants. The second, third and fourth days had almost the same structure: Social Dreaming Matrix, lecture and discussion, 3 small and 3 median groups, supervision groups (2nd and 4th days) and large group.
On Thursday, Marco Chiantore and Manuela Serra, psychotherapists and group analysts, shared the Archipelago entrepreneurial group analytic experience: “Archipelago: no one is an island: An experience between the clinical, social and economic worlds”. The birth of the arcipelago group analysis clinical centre in 2008 in Turin was illustrated by focusing on the transformActions which were necessary to carry out this work over the last 16 years. Attention and reflection were brought to ways of maintaining the staff working group, with a group-analytical framework, while going through the inevitable conflicts and ambivalences. A vision emerged that entails three areas in dynamic balance: clinical, economic and social, in articulation with the work that was carried out by the group.
On Friday, Marina Mojovic, Francesca Bascialla and Ilaria Locati gave the lecture “Transform-actions with reflective citizens method and community”, illustrating what the first dreaming matrix had disclosed with a very good timing: how small communities can make small and meaningful changes. TransformActions need citizens who gather and think together, dialogue and find their voice, as happens in RC workshops.
At the end, on Saturday Domenico Agresta gave a lecture: “The neotenic experience in group analysis; transformations through the body, the group, the dreams and creativity”. In presenting his lecture Domenico gave us an opportunity to experience his spontaneity and creativity in action.
In the morning Social Dreaming Matrix, the very first two dreams of the first matrix brought the theme of transformActions and the destructive and creative potential that it contains: a process of Kafkian metamorphosis, dehumanisation, with the loss and the shrinking of part of the body and angst of death, but also the possibility of a creative process of reassembling the beads of a broken chain in a new configuration. The LG struggled and oscillated between these two possibilities, shifting from strong conflicts not only told but also enacted in the here-and-now, sharing beads of personal history, of own roots or absence of roots, sharing, until saturation, the conflicts experienced in GASi in the last year, to allow for the first time participants to find their voice in the music of their own language and experience of translation.
Given that the venue was very close to the town center and that Turin is a town with a lot of history and a lively night life, participants had ample possibilities of restaurants, places of interests, museums, etc., so that they could choose what to see and how to spend their free time in town. On Friday it was possible to book a guided walking tour in town, whereas on Saturday the Social Dinner took place in the restaurant of a rowing center, Armida, on the river Po bank, with a DJ and a ball room to dance and to let it go!
The staff team, convened by Marit Joffe Milstein and Alice Mulasso, met every day after the programme. There was also a staff meeting opportunity during lunch time, in a dedicated room of the restaurant. These meetings gave us an opportunity to discuss our experiences, to release tensions and preoccupations, and to feel supported and contained in our thinking together in the very exhausting and deep work.
Sunday, the fifth day, was without a lecture. There were small and median group sessions and a large group, and we had a closing session during which gratitude was expressed to each other.Resonating with our Summer School Pop up choir was held every day before the LG and brought music and spontaneous dancing to the floor: we ended up watching together the social music project with the hope that “One day”… https://youtu.be/XqvKDCP5-xE
After the School, all participants were invited to send their lectures and free-style contributions to GASi Context special edition.
Finance
The School had two types of fees as in previous GASi Summer Schools. The distribution of fee types was 40 Lower Fee places and 60 Higher Fee places.
The GASIF Committee approved 2,000 Euro for bursaries which is to be repaid if the event will have profit. An additional 2,000 Euro was given from GASi surplus. Bursaries were given to 6applicants from 3 countries.
The income from registration fees should cover all expenses. Still in process.
Overview
This Summer school was held in Italy when the world was busy in very destructive war dynamics in which many thousands of citizens were murdered, displaced, lost their homes, loved ones and communities:
Nevertheless, The School was a nourishing experience. There were many local participants among whom a significant number were young group analysts still in training or group analysts who have just graduated, and most of them were not GASi members. In this respect the Summer School was a meaningful opportunity to meet GASi and bits of its history, conflicts and challenges and to contribute to GASi’s internationalisation efforts. It was also a precious opportunity to meet the world in Turin, to sit together in the different group settings and to listen to each other’s dreams, histories, wars, trauma, roots, lack of roots, engagements, losses, fears, worries and hopes. And like in ‘Euphemia’, (by Italo Calvino, which was read in the first lecture) to reorganise and modify our own memories.
It seems that the Summer School has become a regular GASi event with its own continuous life, in which we can understand again the meaning of this ongoing process and we can recognise the growing value of what the Summer School offers during the process of becoming (and being) a group analyst. It keeps providing an opportunity for continuous learning through experience, formaintaining our curiosity and for tolerating our blind spots with tenderness.
It also provided an experience in which participants found themselves challenged to continue thinking in the face of painful and complex material, reflective of the multiple and often traumatic social unconscious strands in both the foundation and dynamic matrices of the school. Inevitably, within the necessary limitations of the time frame, there was much that could not be made explicit, but participants were able to communicate on a deep level during the School, and not only within each person’s own institute or national subgroup.
An important emerging theme was the challenge that GASi faces in its wish to be international,and how this entails the domination of English language when meeting in a non-anglophoneculture. The community’s ability to slowly develop its bi-lingual communication without assisting professionals was inspiring. It was also very clear that conscious and unconscious processes, anxieties and trauma are spread beyond the “location of disturbance”.
We ended with many thoughts about our future responsibilities and the possible different ways of understanding what it means to care for our future.
APRAGI, the local association, is very grateful to GASi for this unique possibility of collaboration. The organization of the Summer School contributed to strengthen the cohesion within the local committee, we deeply felt that we were preparing our home to welcome GASi as an organization, its members and many colleagues from different foundation matrices.
Summer School 2025. A few ideas are being discussed in the management committee.
Good afternoon and Welcome to the 7th GASi Summer school. I want to introduce you to my Co chair, Alice Mulasso, psychotherapist and group analyst, APRAGI chair, GASi membership secretary, with a deep passion for groups in the clinic and in the community.
And I want to introduce you to Marit Joffe Milstein, Psychodramatist and Group Analyst, former chair of the IIGA(Israel), Former GASi Co -Chair, Chair of GASi International development committee under which she chairs the summer school committee, now for the second time, after Dublin summer school 2022. Coming from Theater and music, Marit has a deep passion for groups combining exploration of creativity in the healing process.
We now want to invite the current GASi co-chairs Francesca Bascialla and Sanja Janovic to welcome everybody……
We would like to invite Turin Vice-mayor, Michela Favaro, who accepted our invitation to bring Turin welcome to all of us, in this meaningful international with 110 participants from 22 countries.
(We will be assisted by Paola Merlin group analyst and professional translator)…….
Marit: We welcome you all who Made the effort and journey to reach Summer School in Turin. We can see here a group of people who become regular participants in this special event, but also a large group of new comers all united by their passion to learn more about themselves their communities and society through group Analysis.
Along with the joy of being here, we want to keep with us in our minds and in our dialogues the colleagues who didn’t manage to be here.
Some had to cancel in the last few weeks due to family problems , a colleague from India and a colleague from Rwanda were unable to get a visa to be here because, as we all know, we don’t all have the same rights in this world. We also want to keep in mind colleagues from war zones that couldn’t mentally engage with our invitation and to be with us.
Alice: How did we get here today?
Well, Marit, In her role as Chair of International Development Committee encouraged me to host a Summer School in Italy. I thought it was a great idea! Except that when it came to start being operative, during the preparation to Belgrade SY and our Group Keynote initiative, I told her that I would engage but for 2025, but Marit supported me with trust and friendship, we could make it together for July 2024.
Next step was to involve my local learning community, APRAGI, since in order to organize such an event a sound and collaborative local group is necessary. The answer was of enthusiasm, motivated by a wish to meet the world in Turin and in particular to have our hope meet the hope of the other.
Marit: We than started planning the process while I also enter a role of GASi Co – Chair, then came October 7th and a long and devastated war… that affected our ability to dream and still is affecting it …
Then, we shift roles, you Alice became my support and encouragement and together with GASi MC support we initiate late start of the international summer school committee – at December 2023, meeting each other every other week, daring to dream and taking care of it. This international Organizing Committee Creativity and engagement became a constructive psychosocial shelter for me in times of war.
The language: thinking of a summer school in Italy means to think about inclusion beyond language boundaries, since it happens here that not everyone speaks fluent English, we did not want interested colleagues to give up just because the official language of Summer School is English, so we thought the groups would be conducted by co-conductors mastering the two languages. The staff than was composed by large subgroup of Italian Group analysts – Ilaria, Nadia, Saura, Marco, Manuela, Alfonso, Mimmo, Francesca, and Alice with International staff from – Christine from Ireland, Paul from Sweden, Francesca also from Grece, Marit from Israel and Sanja from Croatia. One of our tasks will be to explore together how it will develop!
Learning always from experience.
Alice: Why here, why Cascina Fossata? Because it is a social project of re-development of the neighborhood, a space for meeting, working, studying. There is a congress center, a Hotel, a Restaurant, social temporary housing for people in need. Handcraft, art atelier, and a urban park and playground open to citizens. It is a project promoting koinonia, the gathering of citizens. You will have the opportunity to meet with people who live here, playing cards in the coffee shop, walking around, taking kids to the playground. Summer School does not happen in a bubble.
And now we want to thank the APRAGI colleagues who helped locally to organize this Summer School: Piera Mondo, Luisella Pianosa, Alma Gentinetta, Alessandra Simonetto, Laura Neirotti, Sabrina Ramonda, Paola Golzio, Anna Cronibono, and those who give contribution during the event: Ceclia Paracchino, Martina Russo, Susanna Veglia, Desiree Nocchiero, they wear a blue scar and a blue name tag!
We now want to thank and invite our Summer school staff to stage:
Our SG conductors:
Manuela Serra, Paul Bener, Ilaria Locati, Domenico Agresta
Our median group conductors:
Marco Chiantore and Marina Mojovic, Nadia Benedetto and Christine Christie, Alfonso D’Auria and Saura Fornero.
Our Large group conductors:
Francesca Bascialla and Sanja Janovic
Social dreaming Matrix hosts: Alice Mulasso and Marit Joffe Milstein
From now on, we are all together in this journey and we will take care together with you for the process and the experience for our fledging Summer School.