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This comment on Bottaccioli & Bottaccioli’s (2024a) article critically analyzes Franz Alexander’s role in developing contemporary psychosomatics in both its innovative aspects and limitations. On the one hand, Alexander contributed to emancipating the explanation of physical symptoms from the classical approach of the early 20th century stiffened on the model of hysterical conversion and promoted the organization of the international psychosomatic movement, including the Italian one. On the other hand, his limitations mainly concern the theoretical approach typical of 20th century psychoanalysis: adopting a one-dimensional model centered on intrapsychic conflict and the indeterminacy – necessary for the time – of a biological “X” factor as mediator. Instead, in the second half of the 20th century, a deficit-centered model of explanation (e.g., alexithymia) and complexity (e.g., biopsychosocial model) emerged, in which various moderating biomedical, psychological, and socio-cultural factors assume different relative weights in the explanation of physical illnesses and the clinical management of patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sixty years after the death of Franz Alexander, it is necessary to investigate what is alive and what is dead in his thought about psychosomatics, focusing in particular on the notions of emotion and vegetative neurosis as central to his model of explanation. It is then worth noting, in the light of the developments after Alexander, the today’s difficulty in supporting psychosomatics as an autonomous discipline, to the point of questioning the legitimacy of the expression itself: Bottaccioli & Bottaccioli’s (2024a) proposal to identify it with Psycho-Neuro-EndocrineImmunology (PNEI) must be measured in this problematic context. In any case, the always valid need remains, already supported by Alexander, for a unitary, “holistic” consideration of the human being, sick and healthy. However, this is a paradigm that has to be justified and clarified conceptually in the actual role it plays as an inspirer of research and specific explanations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problems posed by Leonardo’s pathographies written by Freud are examined. The historical path of the problem of the relationship between genius and psychopathology is reconstructed, showing that psychoanalysis fits into a very active vein at the end of the 19th century, expressing different theoretical approaches with which Freud relates. The interest for the problem then continued, with alternate answers, until the current days. The distortions made by Freud in Leonardo’s pathographical description are examined; these distortions are extensively examined by several authors, which, however, is not distant from what Freud implements in his other works, nor from what other pathographists of the time did. It is a common behavior in the history of science and well known in modern epistemology that identifies in the development of theories also the importance of rhetorical tools with which scientists support them. It is emphasized that one cannot read particular psychological aspects in these Freudian behaviors, making in fact a pathography of the author of pathographies, but only lead his work to the coherence of the historical contexts in which he operates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After having tried to reconstruct the nature of Giuseppe Civitarese’s (2023a, 2023b, 2023c) proposal to found intersubjective psychoanalysis on the thought of the philosopher Husserl, and the subsequent discussions by Filippo Maria Ferro & Giuseppe Riefolo (2023) and by Mauro Fornaro (2023a, 20323b), it is proposed to try to reconstruct the history of intersubjectivity in psychoanalysis starting from its foundation by Harry Stack Sullivan who preferred to use the term “interpersonal”. Only after the introduction of the concept of projective identification by Melanie Klein in 1946 and the revisitation of the concept of countertransference by Paula Heimann in 1950, also the psychoanalytic mainstream begun moving in this direction, partly also utilizing the important contribution of those European philosophers who put the topic of intersubjectivity at the center of their work. This is how the analyst’s participation and the co-creation of the session are so important today. This is the context in which such a debate has to be placed and through which it can be further developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is proposed a fine-tuning of the definition of intersubjectivity as inferable by Giuseppe Civitarese (2023a) – especially with regard to the expression “with-being” which is included therein – in order to overcome certain ambiguities within a constructive perspective, also paying particular attention to compatibility with Bion’s notion of group (and therefore of “field”). It is urged also to stick to the most consolidated interpretations of the philosophers mentioned, if their ideas are used in non-philosophical disciplines; in this way it is further attested to Husserl’s unlikely compatibility with psychoanalysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of presentification finds an important place in clinical models of trauma. In psychotherapy, do “present moment”, focus on the “here and now” and mindfulness refer to the same semantic field? Or is it sufficient to distinguish its contents through the favorable/maladaptive polarity? Are the concepts of “defensive automatism” and of “defensive style” overlapping? Is maladaptive presentation a metahistorical fact? Does adolescence show always behaviors of maladaptive presentification? The brief critical argument presented in this intervention on Luca Degasperi’s (2023) article starts from the need to clarify the epistemological field of the construct of presentification, suggesting an alternative terminological hypothesis to the maladaptive meaning and a socio-cultural recontextualization of the clinical pictures described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In dialogue with the paper by Civitarese (2023), some reflections are suggested. Intersubjectivity shifts the focus of psychoanalytic interest from the subject to the "intersubject". Psychoanalytic interest, therefore, moves from a study of phenomena toward a continuously unstable and fluid process. Such a process identifies fields and no more tòpoi in which it can organize itself. Our reflection seeks to emphasize the suggestions of Civitarese and, above all, is oriented toward underlining the three levels of intersubjectivity as proposed by Infant Research, preliminary to the more radical positions of Stolorow's group, and then of Jessica Benjamin and of Ogden. Intersubjectivity necessarily identifies a third type of unconscious, which is not only dynamic and pre-reflexive, but above all not validated. Finally, enactments, by disengaging action from acting-out, assume a function of creative evolution in the therapeutic process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author responds to the critical remarks in the comments by Ferro & Riefolo (2023) and by Fornaro (2023). The main points are, in the first comment, the status of reality in psychoanalysis, enactment, the various conceptions of the unconscious, self-disclosure, and the dialogue between philosophy and psychoanalysis. As for the second comment, on the other hand, the issues addressed concern the interpretation of Husserl's contribution to a better definition of the concept of intersubjectivity in psychoanalysis and methodological aspects related to the use of notions derived from speculative thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mark Solms' revision of the concept of drive represents the latest in a series of his indepth reviews of the most fundamental Freudian concepts. The movement of neuropsychoanalysis begun in 2000 with the first Congress focused precisely on a neuroscientific definition of affects and emotions. In 2013, Solms proposed a substantial and profound modification of Freud's structural model, motivating his theses which argue that the instinctual id can only be conscious. In the current paper, Solms (2021a) reaffirms and re-evaluates the centrality of drive theory in psychoanalysis and neuroscience as a starting point for understanding conscious and unconscious phenomena, in normality as well in pathology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The biography of a person allows us to reconstruct his lifestyle, his personality, and this finds correspondence in his thought. The early recollections which, according to Adler, can provide valuable clues like projective tests and dreams cannot be considered a biography and, especially if taken from multiple sources, must be carefully screened and verified. If you don't do it, the Individual Psychology is banalized and discredited. Similarly, the important assessment of the position in the family constellation cannot be simplistically transferred to the fruitful contrast of ideas between Freud and Adler, especially now that there is documentary evidence of their debate and the schism of the psychoanalytic movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the mid-1980s, Sándor Ferenczi's (1873-1933) theories have stirred up a lot of interest also in Italy and motivated the publication of both his scientific papers (of psychoanalytic as well as non-psychoanalytic topics) and his letters. However, a lot of material of both theoretical and historical interest still remains to be translated. Among the many instances of important material that has not been translated into Italian we can mention the third volume of the Freud-Ferenczi letters and the correspondence between Ferenczi and Ernest Jones, and many minor but quite interesting papers. Three of these documents are translated here into Italian for the first time: two short articles and a newly discovered letter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why psychoanalysts came to conceive what Howard Levine (2021) calls a "problematic either-or extremity" between conflict theories and developmental trauma theories? It is hypothesized that at the roots of the polarity between these two different clinical attitudes there is an "originary trauma", a trauma that can never reach a full and effective figurability: a trauma that cannot be represented. Such a trauma constituted the caesura that on the one hand has produced a progress on the intellectual level (in the history of psychoanalysis, the birth of the psychoanalytic theory of unconscious fantasy), but, on the other hand, at the price of creating the lack of development of an affective capacity, not only of a cognitive capacity, of listening the traumaticity within the patient's communications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After an epistemological reflection on the necessity of a metapsychology for psychoanalysis, it is pointed out that Howard B. Levine's (2021) representational hypothesis on the problem of trauma leads to rethinking its economic dimension in particular; this is especially true in the light of Freud's last theoretical developments around the concept of trauma and of the technical difficulties of a treatment based only on historical reconstruction. To the extent that trauma is linked to processes of psychic unbinding, it is important to develop a technique apt to repair and reconstruct the symbolic capacities of the patient's ego because of the severity of its structural impairment. Such a reflection implies fundamental questions on the validity of those approaches which, whether they emphasize the representational component or the affective one, are limited to pursuing only hermeneutic or cathartic purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Freud's Papers on Technique is commonly thought to collect various essays that reflect Freud's opinions about how a proper psychoanalyst should behave. Accordingly, today's analysts ask themselves whether - or how strictly - they should "obey" the Patriarch's hundred-year-old "rules". This mistakes the overall sense of the book as a book. Freud is reporting an extended, empirical experiment on a radically new type of (psychoanalytic) phenomenon that he had chanced upon. He tries to determine the variables that either provoke or dispel the phenomenon. He is not primarily concerned with theory, efficacy or comfort. The data are often unwelcome, and are thrust upon him. Freud's report is in the form of conditional assertions of fact, as though to say, "if you do X you will produce Y". He has found that the eliciting behaviors often run counter to normal social reflexes, so anyone wishing to reproduce the findings will need graphic alternatives as replacements. There for Freud conveys his results not so much by rules or values, as by metaphors and images that help an analyst adopt an attitude that elicits the phenomenon. Unfortunately, readers are generally unaware of the convergent aim of the book's explorations, though that is what gives those terms their sole and specific purpose. We see readers seize one or another of the papers, pull out this or that familiar cliché or metaphor, and give it whatever rationale they assume "it must have had". Since Freud provided these striking terms and images as aids in marshaling an un-definable and un-prescribable experience, uprooting them from their precise place in the inquiry turns guide-posts into loose lumber. The result is fruitless debate circling personal taste and opinion, and tragic loss of access to a delicate and unnatural experience that will never be encountered without a deliberate plan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper by Elizabeth Allison & Peter Fonagy (2016) “When is truth relevant?” (translated in issue no. 1/2020 of Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane) is discussed from the viewpoint of cognitive therapy, in particular of the recent cognitivist perspective influenced by the contributions of the Italian researchers Vittorio Guidano and Giovanni Liotti and by attachment theory. This new perspective within cognitive therapy includes a constructivist approach to knowledge and values the intersubjective dimension of mental processes, with an emphasis to the role of the therapeutic relationship in the treatment strategies. The theoretical and clinical aspects of a dialogue between the cognitivist and the psychodynamic approaches are discussed, in particular regarding the concepts of “truth” and “epistemic trust”; cognitivist and the psychodynamic approaches have specific differences, but old oppositions could be overcome and these two approaches can come closer to each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the paper "Revision of drive theory" (Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane, 2022, 56, 3: 363-422) Mark Solms (2021a) correctly argues that the basic motivational forces are affect systems, activated following the general homeostatic principles that govern biological processes that assure survival and reproduction. However, psychoanalytic object relation theory points to a specifically human, supraordinate integrative motivational system that condenses component affect systems into the affiliative and counteraffiliative motivations described by Freud with the concepts of libido and aggression. They are not "drives" in the psychobiological sense, but profoundly define unconscious intrapsychic conflict and are relevant in clinical psychoanalysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Freud’s lecture given on December 1, 1909, at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society on Leonardo da Vinci is examined. This lecture is a forerunner of his later article Leonardo da Vinci and a Memory of his Childhood (Freud, 1910b). An attempt is made to emphasize the inconsistency between Freud’s hypotheses and the historical data by then at his disposal. Avoiding entering Freud’s vulture slip that many scholars have pointed out and Freud never acknowledged, concerns are expressed about Freud’s required documentation in the field of art history and about the method he employed for the portrayal of Leonardo da Vinci’s personality. It seems that Freud willingly avoided historical data choosing almost entirely to rely on applied psychoanalysis widely employing his own phantasies in attempting to overcome the paucity of knowledge on Leonardo da Vinci’s childhood. Freud himself later acknowledged that his 1910 paper was partly a fictional story along the lines of Mereskovskij’s 1895 book on Leonardo. A crucial inconsistency of this lecture, that will not be amended in his paper of 1910, relates to the fact that Freud changed into a phantasy what Leonardo had reported as a childhood memory. Many scholars have taken for granted this shift so that they talked about Leonardo’s “phantasy” or “dream”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Viennese historian Johannes Reichmayr has edited the Collected Works of the psychoanalyst Paul Parin (1916-2009) in 19 volumes, published by the Viennese publisher Mandelbaum from 2018 to 2024. A pioneer of ethnopsychoanalysis, Parin has lived psychoanalysis as a form of social critique and political action, whose gradual and systematic articulation comes out very clearly from his Collected Works. Parin’s works are reconstructed in great detail in the context of his life, of the Zurich Psychoanalytic Seminar (PSZ) founded by him, and of his close collaboration with the journal Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane. The same is true for his successful literary activity, and for his participation in political life, documented as they are by a whole series of autobiographical papers and by various collections of letters, as it is shown also in the light of volumes 9 and 10, the latter being centered around “The burning problems of our times” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is mainly concerned with the conception of free will in Freudian theory and psychoanalytic ego psychology. There are a number of Freuds, not all consistent with each other, on the issue of free will: the Freud who views free will as an illusion, the Freud who identifies as a goal of psychoanalytic treatment the enhancement of the ego’s freedom to choose, and the Freud who locates control of motility (action) in the conscious ego. As for an ego psychology perspective, free will lies in the ego’s relative autonomy from drives, as well as in the freedom to not will and to relinquish control. In contrast to Freudian theory and ego psychology, the question of free will is not salient in post-Freudian theories, where the greater emphasis is on issues having to do with meeting needs rather than on gratification of wishes. Finally, free will is not only a matter of freedom from inner compulsion, but also of freedom from external coercion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The observations contained in Riccardo Marco Scognamiglio’s (2023a) paper “De tempore aut more” are an opportunity to give further considerations around the phenomenon described in “Presentification as maladaptive automatism in adolescence: possible correlated psychological manifestations” (Degasperi, 2023), and support questions and arguments of absolute relevance. At the same time, a prudent comparativism allows us to integrate the concept of presentification to highlight its possible maladaptive derivations. The latter can then be rigidly and pervasively expressed in individual behavior, to the point of giving shape to a possible lifestyle. The recovery of further descriptive models belonging to the past also suggests a broader consideration compared to current socio-cultural data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After an introduction to this 1964 talk, some considerations on the logic of interpretation in psychoanalysis and in clinical work are made. Among other things, the role of intuition and the ability of making predictions in terms of probability are discussed, as well as the relationship between clinical and empirical research. (This paper is the transcription of the audiorecording of a talk given at the Fourth training course of the "Milan Group for the Advancement of Psychotherapy" - which since the 1970s took the name of Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane - entitled "Theoretical problems and clinical cases", held in Milan on May 1-4, 1964; after the paper the discussion that followed this talk is published, with interventions by Silvano Arieti, Enzo Codignola, Franco Fornari, Luigi Frighi, Pier Francesco Galli, Mario Moreno, Diego Napolitani, and Enzo Spaltro). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some reflections are made on the meaning of measurement in psychotherapy and on the relationship between the roles of technique and of the therapist's person. Parts of previous papers are also republished, namely some excerpts of the 1992 book La persona e la tecnica ["The Person and the Technique"] (reprinted in 2022 by the publisher FrancoAngeli of Milan) and of the preface, written in 1960, to the Italian edition of Harry Stack Sullivan's 1953 book The Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry (La teoria interpersonale della psichiatria. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1961). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Also on the basis of autobiographical memories regarding fascism and the Second World War, some reflections are made on the ideology and propaganda of the war, especially in reference to the education of children. Among others, the following concepts are discussed: the "«as if» personality" of Helene Deutsch; the "authoritarian personality" of Theodor Adorno and collaborators, and the "fascist character" described by Wilhelm Reich. Also other contributions are mentioned, such as Sigmund Freud's study on mass psychology, Erich Fromm's reflections on "escape from freedom", Ernst Kris' considerations on the "danger" of propaganda, and so on. After an Introduction, this paper consists of the following paragraphs: Questions of method; The construction of a soul; By way of reason; The "as if" personality; Authoritarian Personality: "F" Personality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transcription of a paper given at the meeting "Psychological therapies for anxiety and depression: New forms of clinical and organizational integration" (Island of San Servolo, Venice, Italy, October 26, 2022) is published. After the description of the main characteristics of the English program Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT), the importance of some aspects of the IAPT program are discussed, such as the following, among others: the reliability of guidelines; a national training program in evidence-based psychological therapies where also the therapists' competence is carefully evaluated; the collection and publication of all outcome data, that allowed the understanding and the solution of many problems (e.g., the differences in outcome among ethnic groups, the improvement of services located in socially deprived areas, etc.); the wellbeing and the level of motivation of the psychological therapists (about 10,000) employed in the IAPT services, where there should be leadership figures who do not give importance solely to treatments outcomes but are also able to create a stimulating and innovative environment characterized by the pleasure of working together, improving and learning new things. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pier Francesco Galli's introduction to the book Preconscio e creatività [Preconscious and Creativity] (Turin: Einaudi, 1999) is reprinted. This book contains seven contributions written between 1939 and 1979, namely: a paper read by David Rapaport on June 10, 1942, at the Menninger Foundation (later included in The Collected Papers of David Rapaport, edited by Merton M. Gill in 1967 and translated into Italian in 1977 with an introduction by Enzo Codignola and Pier Francesco Galli), three papers by Ernst Kris (two of 1939 and 1949, respectively, later included in his 1952 book Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art, translated into Italian by Elvio Fachinelli in 1967 with a preface by Ernst H. Gombrich, and one of 1956, included in his Selected Papers of 1975, translated into Italian in 1977), and three papers by Peter B. Neubauer, Harold P. Blum e Pinchas Noy of 1978, 1979, and 1976, respectively. Among other things, the complexity of the concept of insight, that may have multiple meanings, is emphasized. This concept has been investigated by various authors, also outside psychoanalysis, who have contributed to the construction of psychoanalytic knowledge, that in itself is an interminable process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After an introduction by Pier Francesco Galli, the paper presented at a meeting entitled “Ten years of groups in Italy”, organized by Enzo Spaltro (1929-2021) in Milan in May 1970, is published. These are the themes that are discussed, among others: the role of the intellectual, and in particular of the psychoanalyst, in a society in transformation and which is modernizing; the function of group psychological and psychotherapeutic techniques and their possible use in a manipulative way; the importation of theories and techniques and the problem of possible cultural “colonization” by other countries; industrial and organizational psychology and the role of the psychologist in companies; and so on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The psychoanalyst and pioneer of psychosomatics Georg Groddeck (1866-1934) gave talks in three international psychoanalytic congresses, the last one in Bad Homburg in 1925. Here he gave not only a paper but also a speech at the end of the social dinner which brings together all the participants of the congress. And he did not miss the opportunity to return, with his typical wit and impetuosity, to the thorny question of wild analysis and psychoanalytic training, two sides of a coin that was very dear to him. The text of this speech, published here for the first time in Italian, gives us the opportunity to enter, through the eyes of one of the direct participants, into the life of events that helped to orient and shape the training system of psychoanalysis that later evolved to the present day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The difficult pursuit of a comparison between anthropology and psychology, undertaken by Ernesto de Martino, raised many perplexities in the Italian cultural landscape of the 1960s. In this paper, first the obstacles he encountered during his research project on cultural apocalypses and end-of-the-world delusions are discussed. Subsequently, the new cultural setting of the 1980s, witnessing the emergence of new paradigms of thought favourable to rethinking the relationship between the individual psyche and the cultural sphere, is described. In this perspective, de Martino's pioneering thought, aimed at understanding how the human presence is intrinsically linked to cultural institutions, paved the way to the development of a complex psychology. The specific contribution of de Martino was to usher, with no prejudice whatsoever, and actually with stringent rigor and in-depth intuition, in an area in which methods of investigation and different types of knowledge about human existence are often undefined, contaminated, and undifferentiated. This is an area that today we can better approach through the various complexity theories, but at that time it was pioneered in Italy by de Martino. This led him to develop an unconventional and original intellectual trajectory, totally unlinked to the prevailing culture, a trajectory that in fact some authors have compared to that of Michel Foucault. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three papers are published. In the first paper Pier Francesco Galli, in a brief introduction, emphasizes the importance of the historical role played by Swiss psychoanalysis in the training of many Italian colleagues. In the second paper Berthold Rothschild describes, also with the reproduction of a correspondence, the vicissitudes that brought to the cancellation of his invitation to a meeting titled “Psychoanalysis, culture, and politics” that was planned for June 6, 2020, in Geneva, sponsored by the Centre Psychanalytique Raymond de Saussure (CPRS) of the Swiss Psychoanalyic Society (Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Psychoanalyse [SGPsa]); this cancellation was due to the protest of some German speaking psychoanalysts of the Swiss Psychoanalyic Society who still remember the split that occurred in 1977 between the “Zurich Psychoanalytic Seminar” (Psychoanalytisches Seminar Zürich [PSZ]), of which Rothschild is a member, and the Swiss Psychoanalyic Society; this split followed the controversies that ended up with the cancellation of a meeting that was planned in 1974 in Interlaken (this is the reason why the words “second episode” appear in the title). In the third paper, the material of the “Interlaken affaire”, which originally appeared in issues nos. 4/1975 and 3/2015 di Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane, is reprinted; this material, that contains also the reproduction of several letters exchanged in 1973 and 1974, has been published only in Italian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Freud's 1919 paper The Uncanny, written during troubled times after First World War and often considered problematic and confused, is discussed. This paper deals with the interpretation of E.T.A. Hoffmann's 1815 novel Der Sandmann, where the recurrent reference to the eyes is brought back by Freud to the castration complex. Discussing Kohon's (2016) paper on aesthetic experiences where he states that (whether for the writer-artist or the reader-spectator) these experiences will always be autobiographical, and Rand & Torok (1994) for whom Hoffmann's novel has no reference to castration but to a family secret, it is argued that Freud's concern with this novel could be unconsciously rooted in some family secrets related to his childhood that the little Sigmund was not able to uncover. Freud must have read the novel Der Sandmann autobiographically according to Kohon's theory. In reference to Jentsch's (1906) paper "On the Psychology of the Uncanny", where the source of the uncanny is seen in the intellectual uncertainty whether an object is alive or not, it is argued that this statement could have brought back unconscious memories of the brother Julius' death, from whom Freud would have protected himself moving to the castration topic. Some scholars found in Hoffmann's novel a hidden reference to the primal scene, that is another uncanny background in Freud's childhood. Another uncanny episode occurred to the little Sigmund when he lost his beloved nanny. It is argued that these three topics where the unconscious factors that compelled Freud to write about the uncanny choosing Hoffmann's novel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After an editorial note, the critical literature addressing the problems of the training analysis system is reviewed, followed by an overview of recent conflicts within the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA) provoked by efforts to reform or abolish it. Among the critical issues addressed in this review are conflicts about the long-standing requirement that training analysts be certified by the Board of Professional Standards (BoPS), a major conflict between BoPS and APsaA's Board of Directors that gave rise to a major lawsuit, the "six-point plan" advanced by the Board of Directors, a survey of APsaA members designed to assess members attitude toward the training analysis system, and three proposals to reform the Standards Document of APsaA's Institute Requirements and Review Committee (IRRC). These proposals, reproduced in this paper, include the so-called "PPP proposal" (shorthand for the names of its three authors, Fredric T. Perlman, Warren R. Procci, and Robert L. Pyles), the proposal of Mark F. Poster and Michael Robbins, and the proposal of Luba Kessler, Kerry Kelly Novick, and Lance M. Dodes. All three proposals cite the need for democratic governance within APsaA and its approved institutes. The last portion of this document features comments offered by important participants in this history of debate, including Richard Almond, Emanuel Berman, Lance M. Dodes, Ralph E. Fishkin, Henry J. Friedman, Robert M. Galatzer-Levy, Jane S. Hall, Otto F. Kernberg, Luba Kessler, Douglas Kirsner, Henry Zvi Lothane, Paul W. Mosher, Kerry Kelly Novick, Frederic T. Perlman, Mark F. Poster, Warren R. Procci, Robert L. Pyles, Arnold D. Richards, Michael Robbins, Mitchell Wilson. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Otto Fenichel in Europe published several papers in which he was advocating a meeting between Marxism and psychoanalysis. Using Marxist concepts, he founded psychoanalysis on rationality and science, and wanted to use psychoanalysis in order to explain the subjective aspects of historical phenomena. On the theoretical level, both Fenichel and Wilhelm Reich were suggesting ideas that had been already proposed by Russian psychologists and psychoanalysts, particularly by Lev S. Vygotskij and especially Alexandr R. Lurija. Fenichel was fearing the influence of irrationalist and anti-Elightenment ideas on psychoanalysis, ideas that persist today. He criticized Melanie Klein, Karen Horney, Erich Fromm, and ego psychology. When Fenichel moved to the USA, similarly to other émigrés of the same ideological background he was not well accepted by the American psychoanalytic community. While he maintained his cultural interests, in his critical dialogue with ego psychologists and other American colleagues he became known mostly for his clinical and technical contributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through a re-reading of Freud’s Rat Man’s case of 1909, two theses are advanced. The first one asserts that, when drawing up this clinical case, Freud was influenced not only by Jung, according to Mannoni (1969), but also by claims Adler maintained in two lectures he read at the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society: in the first one he presented an ereutophobic patient whose childhood had many similarities with that of Freud’s patient; the second one concerned the aggressive drive in life and in neurosis. Some aspects of these lectures are surfacing in Freud’s writing. The second thesis argues that Freud was not able to keep the promise he had put forward in his Introduction to the clinical case to develop his first observations on the subject, published in 1896 (the paper Further Remarks on the Neuro-Psychoses of Defence), because in the meantime he had given up his traumatic theory that was the kernel of his sexual etiology of neuroses. Hence sexual trauma lost his relevance in the Rat Man’s neurosis, and childhood sexual experiences became irrelevant in the case history like the many sexual infantile experiences of Adler’s patient were meaningless for his neurosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Griffin Hansbury’s (2017a) paper “The masculine Vaginal: Working with queer men’s embodiment at the transgender edge” is seen as an original contribution, able to stimulate psychoanalysis to reflect and to produce a language at the gender’s borders of male identities. The proposal of a “masculine Vaginal” – as an “embodied” reinvention of concepts that were already known to psychoanalysis (in authors such as Judith Butler, Jessica Benjamin, or Ken Corbett) – may widen the available symbolizations in the clinical work with male patients (cisgender and transgender, homosexuals and heterosexuals). Such widening field of symbolizations may also be a useful tool in the clinical and cultural work both on the “fluid”/queer side and on the “rigid” side (in the sense of a masculinity that today some define as “toxic”) of male identifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turning away from the conspicuous phenomena of transgender experience, with an eye toward locating and illuminating the transgender edge in cisgender, this paper explores the relationship between men and the Vaginal, both material and fantasized. Positing the Vaginal as a counterpart to the Phallic allows a delinkage of vaginal psychic and embodied states from the strictly female so that, like the Phallic, they can be accessed by people of all genders and sexes. This concept goes beyond the conceptual to the fleshy, embodied experience of many transgender men, who live in whole, partial, and/or temporary “female” bodies. It can also be applied to the physio-psychic reality of many cisgender men. Included is a discussion of a case in which a gay cisgender male patient experiences and fantasizes his anus as a vagina. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

That conservative and authoritarian psychoanalytic institutions open to innovation in theory and pluralism in the management of power is Arnold Richards' strong commitment. According to the Author, however, substantial innovations are unlikely as long as psychoanalysts linger on embroidering on the Master's thought and struggling in internal feuds, rather than seriously confronting research methods alternative to the clinical one, as well as the results of neighboring disciplines (which have made important progress since Freud's time). With regard to the adhesion to Marxism and Communism of many North American psychoanalysts, the Author shows - working on four topoi that we can see in the background of Richards' paper - how mild is the influence of this adhesion on their conceptions of mental processes; furthermore, the correlation of the same adhesion with the authoritarian practice, once those psychoanalysts reach power, is questionable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper "A country psychiatrist", that anticipates some excerpts of a forthcoming book by Margherita Galeotti, is introduced. The period in which Margherita Galeotti was trained in psychiatry by Alberto Merini in the 1970s and 1980s, when he was the Director of the Service of Community Psychiatry of the Department of Psychiatry of the University of Bologna (Italy), is remembered. Those years were characterized by great enthusiasm because the community mental health movement was just beginning in Italy, and psychiatric hospitals were gradually closed down due to the Italian Law no. 180/1978. Italian psychiatry of the 1970s and 1980s, mostly based on careful attention to the patient/therapist relationship, on team work and on supervisions, is contrasted with the psychiatry practiced today, based mostly on medication; this change is seen also within the social and political transformations of the last fifty years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The practice of ethnopsychoanalysis means also, as ethnopsychoanalysts such as Paul Parin and Mario Erdheim have emphasized, the freedom to follow our own curiosity (Erdheim for example did field research also on high school students). A book by Paul Parin on hunting (Die Jagd. Licence for Sex and Crime. Erzählungen und Essays. Wien: Mandelbaum Verlag, 2018) is discussed not simply as an appreciation of Parin’s literary work, but as contribution to ethnopsychoanalysis and its methodology. Paul Parin (1916-2009) had often talked about the project of writing a book on the issue of power, but he believed he could not write it. However, in 2003 he wrote this collection of tales on hunting which is in effect also a book on power. It is an important study on power fantasies and processes, to the point that it can be somehow associated to Elias Canetti’s 1960 book Crowds and Power and also to Sigmund Freud’s 1910 essay Psycho-analytic notes on an autobiographical account of a case of paranoia (dementia paranoides) (Case history of Schreber). A version of this paper was presented at a meeting for the 100th anniversary of Paul Parin’s birth at the Sigmund Freud University (SFU) of Vienna, September 1-4, 2016. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from an investigation into the faces of fear within the psychoanalytic session, it is legitimate to think that even the analyst could be the source of important emotional inputs to the patient. Such stimuli may act as microtraumas and derange the analytic work and relationship. In order to explore such a context, two reading devices are used: Sándor Ferenczi's "confusion of tongues" and Jean Laplanche's "generalized seduction theory". The parallelism of infant/caregiver and patient/therapist is based on a common feature: the asymmetry of the relationship and the traumatism when this asymmetry is misunderstood and violated. The shapes of this specific psychoanalytic traumatism are explored, and two basic emotions are analyzed: violence and fear. In the consulting room this combination refers to the patient's fear of the "violence" of analytic interpretations. It is an emotional context where a "violent" analyst and a fearful patient can have symmetrical roles and give origin to "victim/perpetrator" scripts. In the second part of the paper some "safety measures" and thoughts to limit these risks are suggested. The deterrent effects are based on a more complex look and on a more extensive relational use of interpretative "devices". The importance of interpretation as a password to enter into unconscious implicit configurations and semantic networks of the patient's narratives is discussed. Nevertheless it is essential to contextualize the interpretation to the patient's characteristics and to the therapeutic situation and process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between inner and outer worlds is explored. A wide range of experiences, including realistic perception and aesthetic experiences, can be understood as transitional phenomena as described by Donald W. Winnicott, in the sense that they are characterized by resonance between inner structures and external inputs. Winnicott suggested that one should refrain from insisting on a one-sided answer to the question of whether one has created the experience or finds it present in external reality. It is also argued that both certain forms of psychopathology as well as certain philosophical positions entail a one-sided "solution" to the tension between inner and outer worlds. Finally, it is suggested that psychoanalytic theories need to resist the temptation to offer a one-sided answer, and to this regard the approaches of Roy Schafer, Donald Spence, and Richard Geha, that are based on the construction of narratives, are critically discussed. Psychoanalytic theories need to live with the tension, and try to find ways to integrate these two realms of existence. (This paper was read on May 6, 1994, as Erikson Lecture at the Austen Riggs Center of Stockbridge, Massachusetts). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After an Introductory Note by Pier Francesco Galli, a plenary lecture he gave at the meeting "The Dictatorship of the Present. The Individual Uneasiness Related to the Changing Parameters in Orienting Ourselves in Current Realty", organized by the "Italian Center for Analytical Psychology" (CIPA) of Milan, Italy, on March 21-22, 2009, is published. Within this lecture, some excerpts of other essays are quoted. In particular, extended quotations from a paper presented on July 11, 2007, within the series of seminars titled "Pathways of Research, Promotion and Maintenance of Mental Health Today" organized in Rome by the Italian Ministry of Health, are reported. Some aspects of the history of the Jungian approach in Italy are described, and various considerations on the problem of psychiatric practice in mental health services are made. Among other things, the following topics are discussed: the transformation of Italian Community Mental Health Centers' management into institutions operated under the principles of a private company; interaction of the therapist's person with his/her technique; the issue of procedures and the difficulty decision making within a situation of uncertainty; leadership in community mental health centers; the crisis of critical thinking; the therapist's personality factors in psychiatric work; and so on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The acronym LGBT is used to indicate a very wide range of individuals - lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender - who, despite intuitive differences related to diverse sexual orientations and gender identities, may be considered a homogeneous group due to the specific needs and peculiarities of development pathways, often marked by experiences of stigmatization and discrimination. In recent years, the request for psychological help from people belonging to this population has significantly increased, and this makes the definition of objectives and intervention strategies necessary. This paper aims at highlighting specific aspects, critical issues, and operational contexts related to clinical intervention with LGBT people, with particular reference to psychological counseling. After a brief historical and cultural overview on the relationship between the psychological sciences and the phenomena related to groups belonging to sexual and gender minorities, two of the most prevalent theoretical perspectives in the scientific and professional system on LGBT issues are described: the minority stress theory (a perspective used in scientific research as a key to understanding the high levels of stress usually encountered in such a population) and the affirmative paradigm (a perspective currently privileged in clinical practice with LGBT clients). Thus, the contribution is focused on the development of the LGBT dimensions within the counseling context, retracing various historical stages that led the Association for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Issues in Counseling (ALGBTIC) to propose a set of guidelines which are briefly discussed, as they represent a fundamental tool for professionals involved in helping relationships. In conclusion, the current research perspectives highlighting an unsatisfactory scenario regarding the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of counseling interventions addressed to LGBT clients are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unabridged proceedings of the morning of the first day of the International Meeting "An Italian 'Madness': The 40th Anniversary of the 'Basaglia Law'" ("Una 'follia' italiana: la Legge Basaglia compie 40 anni") are published. This meeting was organized by the "Italian Association for the Coordination of Helping Professions" (Coordinamento Italiano Professionisti della Relazione d'Aiuto [CIPRA] - www.cipraweb.it) in the Main Hall of Milano-Bicocca University of Milan, Italy, on November 16-17, 2018. At the beginning there is the opening paper ("Origins and meaning of the Law no. 180/1978") by Bruno Orsini, the Senator who drafted the Italian Law no. 180 of 1978 (the so-called "Basaglia Law", after the name of Franco Basaglia [1924-1980] who was a leader of the deinstitutionalization movement in Italy in the 1960-70s), followed by a round table chaired by Paolo Migone and titled "The Italian Law no. 180/1978. The different souls of deinstitutionalization movement in Italy: A reassessment" ("La Legge 180. Le diverse anime del movimento anti-istituzionale: un bilancio"). Among the invited participants of this round table there were also some of the closest collaborators and friends of Basaglia: beside Bruno Orsini himself, the participants of the round table were Maria Grazia Giannichedda, Stefano Mistura, Leo Nahon, and Pier Luigi Scapicchio (also Luigi Cancrini, Franco Rotelli and Paolo Tranchina had been invited, but they could not participate because of other commitments). In order to give a full report of the discussion, all interventions are here published, also those from the audience. The following colleagues intervened, in alphabetical order: Giorgio G. Alberti, Tommaso Biccardi, Massimo Clerici, Antonello D'Elia, Donatella De Marinis, Cécile Edelstein, Maria Grazia Giannichedda, Santi Laganà, Pier Luigi Lattuada, Fabio Madeddu, Andrea Salvatore Meluso, Paolo Migone, Stefano Mistura, Leo Nahon, Bruno Orsini, Giuseppe Pozzi, Antonio Restori, Pier Luigi Scapicchio, and Riccardo Zerbetto. The video-recording of this morning session is on the YouTube channel of the journal Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane (www.youtube.com/user/PsicoterScienzeUmane/playlists), and the program of the meeting is on the web page www.cipraweb.it/cms/29-eventi/convegni/67-convegno-internazionale-2018. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decades, the study of the Masculine has entered in the field of social sciences as a central research topic. In particular, Critical Studies on Men & Masculinities (CSMM) provide insightful tools to understand both the role of masculinity in sustaining asymmetric power dynamics in gender relations, and the heterogeneous ways in which subjects get to define themselves as men. Nevertheless, there are still numerous theoretical aporias open to debate. This paper aims both at summarizing the focal points of the debates on masculinities, and at assessing the contribution of a dialogue between CSMM and psychoanalytic language in the study of men's subjectivities. A promising point of contact to make this dialogue possible is Judith Butler's post-structuralist rearticulation of Freud's and Lacan's works about the development of sexual identity [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]