Authors: Doriana Dipaola, Silvia Letizia, Valentina Triscio, Gabriella Gandino. From Self boundaries to Couple boundaries
Our research work aims to investigate, through a systemic perspective, how personal boundaries combine and remodel in the couple’s boundaries co-construction.
The purpose of our study is to understand how breast cancer and the consecutive mastectomy could affect a woman, her partner and the couple perception of both physical and psychical boundaries. The group is composed of 10 couples – married or common-law partners – in which the women underwent mastectomy, some more, some less invasive.
We administered the individual Rorschach test to each subject and RoC test to each couple. The scores have been classified according to the French school method and have been interpreted according to a constructivist perspective (Valente Torre, Freilone, 1996; Gandino, 2014).
The RoC interpretation has been integrated with the analysis of the behaviour variables which have risen from the interaction between the partners (Willi, 1973, Italian translation 1978). Further to the individual and couple protocols we applied two more tools which are complementary to the traditional approach and which are able to detect the integration and the fragmentation of the self-representation both in individuals and in couples: Grid of Self-Representation (Valente Torre, Freilone, 1996) and Barrier and Penetration Scale (Ruggeri, Saraceni, 1980).
The results reveal how the couple could be a resource able to reinforce individual resources or, on the other hand, it could be a limit which amplifies the partner’s difficulties.
