ESSENTIAL DIALOG NETWORKS - APPLIED PSYCHOANALYSIS AS APPROACHATIVE CARE

A collage of the origins and the development of essential dialog netwo rks in ten cities in Germany, Austria, Italy, and Switzerland illustra tes one example of an approachative application of psychoanalysis and group analysis. Special attention is given to the invisible roots of t his initiative as a mainly cryptomnestic way of handing down fundament al scientific ideas. Looking back to the psychoanalytic community at t he former Gie ss en Psychosomatic University Hospital Unit, a matrix o f predominantly unconscious and intricate relationships can be seen th at was essentially - though of course not exclusively - shaped by HORS T-EBERHARD RIGHTER. In retrospect, this matrix shows amazing links bet ween points of view and projects that appear to be original. Their pre sumably autonomous bearing can be derived from complex origins due to preceding informal and close relationships. From this vantage point, t he three main roots of networks for essential dialogs family-oriented couple dynamics, the importance of autonomous development without expe rt intervention, and vacating the psychoanalytic locale behind the cou ch - would have been unthinkable without HORST-EBERHARD RIGHTER'S inte rest in couples and families, his encouragement to trust in self-devel opment, and his social involvement. Another aspect of this orientation that centers on twosome relationships and identity-building conversat ions (dialogs) concerns its embedding in a larger historical context w hich ranges from the ideas of Romanticism representing a specific Germ an contribution to European culture, on to the talking cure and the ps ychoanalytic dyad as well as the dialog philosophy following World War I, all the way to the development of group analysis, HENRY DICK'S (19 63) and JORG WILLI's (1975) ideas on collusion, JAMES LYNCH's (1979) c ouple medicine, and the opening-up research of PENNEBAKER (1980).