Abstract

ARRUDA, Eliana da Silva Ramos. Narrative cognitive therapy in therapeutic groups of elderly womem: a social-clinical perspective. Rev. bras.ter. cogn. [online]. 2005, vol.1, n.1, pp. 35-44. ISSN 1808-5687.

This article stems from a master thesis in which the identities of elderly women were studied through the contents of the narratives from a support group, which resulted from fieldwork with a group of elderly women that are going through a complete process of narrative cognitive therapy. This article focuses therapeutic performance as a strategy for the expansion of our clinical resources, linked to the social-communitarian practice. The goal is to reflect on the relation between clinical and social psychology, by presenting an acting pattern characteristic to this interface. In this sense, the suggested methodology suits the narrative focus adapted to therapeutic groups formed according to common problems, which demands checking matters linked to identity in a psychosocial vision. The method applied was that of Narrative Cognitive Psychotherapy, taking into account the following attitudes in the elderly women group: Recollection, Description (or Objectification), Subjectivation, Metaphors and Projection. As a result, besides the pleasure experienced in narrating and rebuilding meanings, the sense of life and individual projects are dimensioned, which means the recovery of citizenship, mental health and quality of life. To sum up, the triad: narrative, identity and life, the main focus in the project of human existence, reveals the Carpe Diem (enjoy the moment), that is, living in a narrative way, adapting oneself and exchanging with the world in a perpetual “going to be”.

Keywords : Narratives; Psychosocial; Support groups; Narrative therapy; Psychosocial processes; Elderly; Women.