88

In transcultural clinical settings such as the Métissages or Cultural mixing group, the co-therapists are asked to “provide an image” by drawing on their countertransference experiences and their cultural affiliations. What intrapsychic and intersubjective processes are at work in the (co)construction of these mental images? To answer these questions, the authors present a sequence of five sessions with a traumatized migrant patient, through the countertransference analysis of one of the group’s co-therapists. Group containment is at the heart of the processes of symbolization and figurability, particularly through the articulation of the phoric, semaphoric and metaphoric functions. The thinking in images that unfolds within the group can then be understood as the result of a certain balance between movements of retrogression and progression. On the basis of these theoretical and clinical considerations, the authors examine the nature of the figurative matrix at work in the therapist who is faced with the patient’s traumatic narrative in transcultural situations.