Setting up a Writing Mediation Group with Patients Suffering from Severe Dementia: Foundations, Objectives and Empirical Results

The aim of this article is to share reflections on the setting up of a writing mediation group within a geronto-psychiatric institution specialised in caring for patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and severe dementia who present major behavioural disorders. The mediation group, which is part of a global project of a non-drug approach, was a response to an indication for calming behavioural disorders. Combining the virtues of writing and of the group, the mediation group sessions enabled us to observe empirically a considerable reduction in disturbing forms of behaviour. On the basis of clinical sequences elaborated in the transference, I will identify the processual issues involved in the work of writing within a group of demented patients, notably in terms of the capacity for containing. I will show that writing is particularly effective in displacing the drive investment that parasites the body towards the written text.