ABSTRACT
Comments on an article by Clarisse Vollon and Guy Gimenez (see record 2023-30637-009). This article by Vollon and Gimenez is excellent, well written and highly interesting. Its theoretical perspective is clearly more psychoanalytical than group analytical, in accordance with Didier Anzieu's and Rene Kaes's conception of the 'psychoanalytic work with groups'. However the subject of the authors' analysis and research cannot fail to attract the attention of the readers, since it not only deals with a traumatic experience that all of us have suffered-the unavoidable isolation generated by the COVID-19 pandemic-but also with the major accommodations and technical changes that all analysts-psychoanalysts and group analysts alike-have had to implement in order to face this new and unprecedented situation, and still continue their work. Its main argument is that an abrupt rupture of an interpersonal and transpersonal container-thought in terms of Anzieu's and Kaes's concept of 'psychic envelopes'-unleashes traumatic experiences that have to be worked-through by means of creativity. In this, they rely on Winnicott's concepts on creativity and the 'intermediate area'. This phenomenon and process is not only personal, but also interpersonal and transpersonal-i.e., collective (group). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)