ABSTRACT
The metaphors of a group's free-floating discussion can lead to metamorphosis as they generate a language of change. This chapter considers how the metaphors involved in allegory can help group psychotherapy with two populations whose unhappiness might look similar but who pose different therapeutic challenges. It explores work undertaken with those injured in adult life and overwhelmed by massive psychic trauma, and those who carry the stigmata of early and hidden violations in the compulsive repetitions of depressive or borderline life. The chapter also explores symbolic references shared by these two populations by identifying distinctive mnemic objects angels who are a recurrent feature in the four vignettes. In therapy the dynamic interface between the relational and semantic fields generates its own mnemic objects out of the repertoire that each person brings to the process. These become the driving forces of change that make transformation possible.
