Group intervention with children
This article aims at reflecting, in the style of a story and not as a scientific or scholarly article, on a group therapy intervention with children of urban slums of Lima, populated by migrants from Andean highlands, many of them are ‘internally displaced persons’ or other victims of the political violence that hit Peru mainly between 1980 and 2000.
The intervention in question was conducted by the Centro de Atencion Psicosocial (Center for Psychosocial Care) and is the first extramural work experience of this institution. The paper shows the difficulties that a group of psychodynamically oriented psychotherapists face as they apply techniques and theories learned with people coming from a different social and cultural background, with particular gaps and needs, and also the difficulty of framing action at Community level, to move from the isolated work in a therapeutic setting to one involving different factors in a broader context. The story moves back and forth between the views of psychotherapists and the local people on various aspects of the intervention. Finally, it provides reflection on lessons learned.
