Semantic polarities model

Theory of change

The person changes when the semantic field that organises their relational identity stops operating as a rigid opposition and allows new, habitable positions of the self.

Core ideas

1. Personality is organised in intersubjective contexts of meaning

   Ugazio's model holds that personality cannot be understood as the sum of isolated individual traits, because it is configured in conversational contexts in which people define one another through significant differences. Each family member occupies a position within polarities that organise the conversation and delimit which identities are recognisable. Identity is therefore an intersubjective construction sustained by the shared narrative fabric. (Ugazio, 1998, 2013).

2. Families are organised by differences that become semantically necessary

   One of the model's central insights is that a family is composed of individuals united by their differences: someone can be situated as strong because another occupies the position of the fragile one, someone appears as free because another embodies dependence, and someone can sustain a moral identity because another becomes associated with guilt or transgression. These differences are not mere descriptions but conditions for maintaining identity and belonging. (Ugazio, 1998, 2012, 2013).

3. The symptom functions as a position within a family semantics

   The symptom is understood as a semantic-relational solution that makes it possible to sustain a viable position within the family field of meaning. It may preserve belonging, avoid a forbidden story, prevent an identity change that is too threatening or stabilise an opposition that organises the system. This reading makes it possible to understand the logic of the symptom without reducing it to individual deficit or turning it into simple relational manipulation. (Ugazio, 2013).

4. Different psychopathologies are associated with different family semantics

   Ugazio proposes that phobic, obsessive-compulsive, eating-related and depressive organisations usually develop in conversational contexts dominated by different semantics. The semantics of freedom organise the phobic world; those of goodness, the obsessive world; those of power, many eating problems; and those of belonging, some forms of depression. Clinical diagnosis is enriched by asking which meanings dominate the conversation in which the symptom appears. (Ugazio, 1998, 2013; Ugazio, Negri & Fellin, 2011).

5. Change requires modifying the conversational grammar, not only the individual account

   Therapy is not confined to the patient thinking differently about themselves, because their identity is tied to how they are recognised and positioned by others. Change requires modifying the conversational grammar that defines what can be said, what can be felt, what position each person can occupy and which stories are acceptable. That is why therapeutic work is at once narrative, semantic and relational. (Ugazio, 2013).

6. Forbidden stories indicate the clinical boundary of the semantic field

   Forbidden stories are accounts, desires, emotions or identity positions that the system cannot accommodate without activating guilt, threat, exclusion or disorganisation. Wherever a forbidden story appears, the therapeutic edge of the case is often to be found: what needs to be said for the symptom to lose its function, but which cannot yet circulate without relational risk. Therapy creates the conditions for narrating those stories in a viable way. (Ugazio, 1998, 2012, 2013).

7. Depolarising means creating semantic complexity

   The clinical aim is neither to choose the opposite pole nor to seek a superficial balance between extremes, but to transform the binary logic that obliges the patient to live one position as destiny. Depolarisation introduces nuances, exceptions and third positions that make it possible to be autonomous and connected, vulnerable and worthy, free and responsible, belonging and differentiated. Psychological health is expressed as greater semantic complexity and freedom of positioning. (Ugazio, 2013).

8. The therapeutic relationship is also a semantic field

   The bond with the therapist does not lie outside the model: it too may be organised by meanings, positions and polarities that reproduce or transform the patient's fabric. Therapy observes which positions emerge in the therapeutic relationship, which stories are authorised or inhibited, and which meanings dominate the clinical conversation. This approach makes it possible to use the alliance as a context of semantic transformation and not only as emotional support. (Ugazio, 2013; Ugazio, Guarnieri, Anselmi, Castelli & Pandolfi, 2020).

9. Clinical formulation must be specific to the dominant semantics

   The model calls for a fine-grained formulation of the case: it is not enough to say that a family maintains the symptom, because it is necessary to specify which polarity organises the maintenance and which position each member occupies. In a phobic case, the question may turn on freedom and protection; in an obsessive case, on goodness and guilt; in an eating-disorder case, on power and submission; in a depressive case, on belonging and exclusion. Semantic precision prevents generic interventions. (Ugazio, 2013; Ugazio, Negri & Fellin, 2017).

10. The therapist intervenes on positions, differences and recognition

    The therapeutic intervention is directed at how people situate themselves in relation to one another, how they differentiate themselves, what recognition they receive and which alternatives of identity can become conversationally possible. The therapist formulates hypotheses, asks circular questions, names polarities, legitimises silenced stories and rehearses repositionings that allow the patient to exist within their bonds without needing the symptom as the only guarantee of coherence. (Ugazio, 2013; Ugazio & Fellin, 2016).

Influences

• Milan Systemic Family Therapy
• Italian systemic-relational therapy
• Social constructionism
• Second-order cybernetics
• Positioning theory
• Personal construct theory
• Post-rationalist cognitive psychotherapy
• Constructivism (developmental cognitivism)
• Narrative psychology
• Phenomenology / Hermeneutics

Key references

• Ugazio, V. (1998). Storie permesse, storie proibite: Polarità semantiche familiari e psicopatologie. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri.
• Ugazio, V. (2001). Historias permitidas, historias prohibidas: Polaridades semánticas familiares y psicopatología. Barcelona: Paidós.
• Ugazio, V. (2012). Storie permesse, storie proibite: Polarità semantiche familiari e psicopatologie (edizione riveduta e ampliata). Torino: Bollati Boringhieri.
• Ugazio, V. (2013). Semantic Polarities and Psychopathologies in the Family: Permitted and Forbidden Stories. New York/London: Routledge.
• Ugazio, V., Negri, A., & Fellin, L. (2011). Significato e psicopatologia: La semantica dei disturbi fobici, ossessivi, alimentari e depressivi. Quaderni di Psicologia Clinica, 2, 69-100.
• Ugazio, V., & Fellin, L. (2016). Family Semantic Polarities and Positionings: A Semantic Analysis. En P. Rober & M. Borcsa (Eds.), Research Perspectives in Couple Therapy: Discursive Qualitative Methods (pp. 125-148). Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23306-2_9
• Ugazio, V., Negri, A., & Fellin, L. (2017). Libertà, bontà, potere e appartenenza: Le semantiche dei disturbi fobici, ossessivo-compulsivi, alimentari e dell'umore. Rivista Italiana di Costruttivismo, 5(1), 4-27.
• Ugazio, V., Guarnieri, S., Anselmi, P., Castelli, D., & Pandolfi, M. (2020). The therapeutic relationship with clients with phobic, obsessive-compulsive, eating and depressive disorders: Which meanings prevail? Journal of Constructivist Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1080/10720537.2020.1828203
• Selvini Palazzoli, M., Boscolo, L., Cecchin, G., & Prata, G. (1980). Hypothesizing—circularity—neutrality: Three guidelines for the conductor of the session. Family Process, 19(1), 3-12.