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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]

The authors argue that there are good reasons for seriously considering the dynamics of the peer group when discussing psychoanalytical case material. The setting and procedure have to protect and facilitate for the presenter and the group members to work together. The aim of this paper is to discuss the problems connected with presenting and discussing clinical psychoanalytical material in a peer group and to describe one such specific method, which the authors call the Weaving Thoughts method. The design is primarily inspired by Bion's formulation thoughts in search of a thinker. The group participants reflect on the presented clinical material in a way that the authors metaphorically describe as creating a weave of thoughts that emerges from the material. The aim of the method is to facilitate a work-group climate that allows thoughts to wander about, and to avert group members from debating and compromising the integrity of its members by letting basic assumptions come into power. The method is described from theoretical and practical points of view, with two illustrations of seminars according to this design and finally a discussion of the advantages and drawbacks of the method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The political dimension finds various expressions in the sessions, from the most implicit to the most explicit. Yet as psychoanalysts we are less accustomed to listening to the conscious and unconscious social register. There is a certain tendency to theoretically include the individual and society but in clinical practice to separate the private from the public. To which extent can we evade the weight of external reality as the cause of psychic distress in an age of perpetual crisis? This paper aims to analyze some political and social aspects related to the analytic role by discussing opportunities and problems that arise when organizational forms of being with others become the object of dialogue with patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper attempts to reflect on the value and meaning of psychoanalysis as well as the very fact of what to be a psychoanalyst means. Psychoanalysis is seen as a path towards the possibility of obtaining greater degrees of freedom in life, within the limits of what is possible, by facing the desires, difficulties and fears that growing up entails, such as the need and the fear of needing other, or the very fantasy of being able to find ourselves deprived of the protection that our chains offer us. We don’t grow up alone, but benefiting from our family, as well as from friends and colleagues, from our own analysts and masters who have supported us in our training, searching for our own personal identity in which past experiences can be given new meaning in a new authenticity. A fragment of a clinical experience is presented in which analyst and patient meet, with their mutual personal histories, motivations, and desires, as people with different roles who decide to have a common intention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Freud considered it a matter in need of investigation: until recently, however, Islam has been noticeably absent from the psychoanalytic arena. This paper aims, on one hand, to review current and rare psychoanalytic contemplations regarding Islam as a potential subject; and on the other hand to provide an analysis of Islam as the modern erotic of our times, looking at new forms of jihadists and extreme islamic groups. From this perspective, Islam is interpreted through the lens of a psychoanalytic discourse of the unconscious, one that must remain subversive and, at times, untranslatable and inaccessible, to allow the emergence of the autonomous subject. As the paper will demonstrate, for such a possibility to emerge, it is also necessary to consider the challenges of a Western liberal discourse imposed on Islam from various fronts, and particularly within the spirit of our times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to contribute to the reflection on clinical psychological intervention with a psychoanalytic orientation capable of intervening within the most different contexts, while maintaining its specificity. The goal of this contribution is to develop a thought on the psychoanalytic function within the juvenile court and in particular with respect to the role of the juvenile honorary judge. Through an exploration of the context of the juvenile court and the role of the juvenile honorary judge, we intend to build a hypothesis on the possibility, in a context crossed by an individualistic, prescriptive and factual culture, to reintegrate elements of subjectivity, relationship and context; the goal is to deal with the competence of families to manage the events of coexistence and to contain violence, which risks becoming exasperated within the culture of prescriptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper proposes the exploration of the theme of change as regards the idea of death, customs and practices relative to the processes of mourning in various cultural contexts, and in the analysis of psychic processes, considering diverse positions in the many psychoanalytical models. Beginning from some historical and philosophical reflections, the paper puts at the centre of the examination, the relationship between the anguish of death and the psychic and cultural strategies with which these problems are faced on a psychoanalytical and anthropological level, to then evaluate how the rituals and the forms of mourning have changed in the world of today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper uses reporting methodology to discuss the psychological function in Mental Health Centers (MHC). It is proposed that psychology works to promote organizational competence, in order to develop the service towards sustainable and functional directions. The discussed subject takes place within an internship experience through which the context of the MHC and the primary issues that it encounter in relation to the demand of citizens are known. The social mandate of the Mental Health Centers and the structuring of psychology within them are reconstructed, to contextualize the objectives pursued in a psychotherapeutic intervention with a person diagnosed in the frame of mood disorder. The difference between a methodology that aims at the cure-correction of the deficit and one that aims to a methodological learning for the development of the individual-context relationship is deepened. The proposal is that intervening in the relationship between the individual and the context can treat problematic aspects that can be overlooked, especially if we look at psychotherapy as an acontextual technique that intervenes to cure the individual. [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]

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]

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 describes the Tavistock Clinic's use of psychoanalytic therapy groups for the treatment of traumatised refugees and asylum-seekers. A three-stage treatment is outlined: 2 or 3 preliminary individual interviews are followed -- for those who have little or no English -- by Specialist Refugees'Group, in which the traumas of life can be addressed in simple language, for a limited period of time (not more than one year). Translators are not used, in order to foster language-development. The third stage arrives when the refugee can move to a heterogeneous out-patient group which, in London, often includes a variety of nationalities, religions, cultures and psychological difficulties. Groups foster in their members the crucial element of "emotional capital", implying the capacity for sentient relationships; it thus complements the sociological and anthropological concept of "social capital", which involves belonging to an established and available social and cultural grouping. Clinical material illustrates the shift from a desperate and persecuted state to a more workable stance towards life, work, and the new society that constitutes the refugees' new home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychoanalysis leaves open many methodological questions. One of these is the relationship between theory and clinical practice. In order to discuss such a problem, we propose to conceptualise the Freudian theory as a multifacet paradigm. We argue that psychoanalysis can be defined as the meeting of two souls: metapsychology and the clinical practice. They differ from each other: in fact, the former seems to follow the methodology of natural sciences, whereas the latter the methodology of social sciences. In the context of justification, Freud gives more weight to the clinical data interpreted by the light of the metapsychological assumptions than to the therapeutic successes. In this sense, he seems to suggest a disjunction between theory and practice. Such a point deals with the following problems: what is the nature of the clinical data and what is their validity? What is the relationship between these data and the metapsychological assumptions? How to translate these assumptions in sound and reliable clinical procedures? In this paper we point out that Freudian theory suffers from a vicious circularity between theory and the clinical datum. In fact, according to our analysis, the theoretical assumptions to be justified are the same that Freud uses to interpret his data. In other words, psychoanalysis seems to lack of the requirement of independent evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]