Search

A reflection on one of Kernberg's last articles, which deals with the transference characteristics of various pathologies, and on some of the most important aspects of his Kleinian relational thought, on the theory of the mind and on the technique, particulary of the borderline and psychotic patients. After emphasizing the significant differences between the Kleinian theory of development and the one by the British independents, which A.S.P. - Associazione di Studi Psicoanalitici and the School1 refer to, with particular regard to Balint's concept of primary love and mutuality between mother and infant, the author proposes a model of the Self not with a representational character but with an organizational and systemic one. This model tends to integrate the first Freudian topic with the structural theory, taking into account Bucci's, Panksepp's and Biven's contributions to the theme. Finally, the article deals with the difference between Kernberg's approach to severe patients, which, contrary to Searles' symbiotic view, tries to distinguish early the patient's feelings from the therapist's, and the intersubjective approach which integrates the mutual share of affection between the two partners with the employment, as soon as possible, of the preinterpretative and interpretative activity on the resistances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes the relationship between interpretation and construction, underlining the conjectural value of constructions. The author traces the Freudian conceptualization of interpretation and construction in relation to dreams, transference and resistance, which must be taken into consideration as a priority. The vision of the Kleinian school is also critically explored, specifically regarding the emphasis on the need to provide systematic transference interpretations, which tends to excessively personalize the transference, overriding its value of repetition of the past. Starting from the vision of the French school and Winnicott, it is underlined how the main task of the analytical work is to facilitate the transformation of instinctual impulses into representations to subsequently make them accessible to interpretation. Starting from the difference between interpretation and construction, emphasis is also placed on their different use in neurotic and non-neurotic structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Silence is a mysterious psychic experience: what is there in silence? Words have mysterious character because they carries multi-faceted meanings with evocative and symbolic power. But silence maintains an additional aura of darkness: while with words it is possible to start an evocative activity through images, thoughts, ideas, considerations that arise in the therapeutic encounter, in silence everyone remains trapped in their own world. What is expressed and what is satisfied in a person who is simultaneously silent and in relationship with the analyst? Another way to articulate this question is to ask what is the drive (libidinal-aggressive) that fuels silence and what kind of defense is at work. Many considerations arise from the experience of silence during a psychotherapy with a young man. [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]

This paper aims to represent the synthesis of the clinical experience of Dr. Antonino Lo Cascio, a pupil of Bernhardt and co-founder of AIPA, with respect to the analytical clinic technique. The text is built on an interview structure, in which the authors? Antonino Lo Cascio and Cristina Brunialti? define the stages of the analytic path. Unexplored aspects of the technique are deepened, according to a particular perspective that the Authors define autodafè. The reader will find food for thought between the reference to the technique and Lo Cascio's biographical narrative. The interviewer Cristina Brunialti, a pupil and friend of Lo Cascio, "has fun" with him to give shape to a conversational and spontaneous dialogue that deals with complex issues still debated in the psychoanalytic field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this interview, Andreina Navone talks about herself and retraces the long road that led her to be a Jungian analyst, starting from her first steps as a teacher, discovering, through her work with children, the power of the image and its therapeutic value. During the conversation, Navone also dwells on some important theoretical principles, such as transference and countertransference, in particular in the Sandplay method, on spirituality and on the work with adopted children, which she has long dealt with. In the story we find also the encounter with various analysts and with Dora Kalff, whose student and friend she was. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the authors continue their journey through clinical research on individual psychotherapy in time of complexity, from the perspective of integration of: systemic model, psycho-dynamic construct, and attachment theory. Specifically, the discussion revolves around the themes of tranference, countertransference and resonances, their use in building the first clinical hypotheses and in activating of the cooperative motivational system with the aim of consolidating the therapeutic combination. The patient's individual and family history, his/her internal working models, and his/her relational strategies meet with the corresponding dimensions of the therapist, shaping agreements and disagreements that can only necessarily influence their relation. The therapeutic process analysis is exacerbated with patients suffering from personality disorders, and it requires special attention from the therapist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper considers a "befallment" that occurred in the course of analysis at a time when the focus of work was too much at a conscious level, dissociated from the patient's embodied and visceral depths. A rigidly held attitude of focal attention is considered as potentially a defence against embodied experiences of overwhelm and vulnerability that may haunt shadowy realms which remain unlit by the narrow beam of conscious awareness. Rather as a dream drifts in from the unconscious, an enactment by the analyst brought neglected aspects of the transference and countertransference relationship into the room. Later, the patient's own dreaming mind offered images that suggested an underlying dynamic. These subtle communications, alongside the patient's attitude toward the analyst's lapse, are considered as factors in the achievement of greater embodied integration. The analyst's difficulty in arriving at a formulation of such events is discussed, along with the necessity of holding such "befallments" in mind over long periods of time before any explanation can be adumbrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, the Author reviews the main papers written by Andreas Giannakoulas, reconstructing his training work within the British Psychoanalytic Society, also referring to his teachers within the Independent Group. Moreover, the Author discusses some of his main scientific works for the knowledge of his psychoanalytic thought especially in respect with the difficult patients, recalling the importance of his figure as a non-dogmatic teacher within Aipsi and also in the psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapeutic institutions for children and adolescents, of which he was a member founder in Milan and Rome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seeing the light is an expression that usually connotes a conceptual grasp of meaning in all its complexity, while the perception of light is not the issue. In this paper, the authors present a patient with an exquisite light sensitivity that disturbs her sleep; she is "seeing the light" in a symptomatic, concrete way. Light itself has become a compliant and collusive element onto which an aspect of conflict is displaced in the service of self-deception. Ironically, the analysis and deconstruction of the symptom eventually led to the kind of insight that the expression seeing the light conveys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A vision of the "total situation" in the analytical relationship includes patient's verbal, para and preverbal communication, together with the repercussions in the analyst, that is to say his countertransference. All this leads to a greater consideration of the "here and now" of the interaction between patient and analyst. A characteristic of this situation is intimacy, although with specific nuances: asymmetry, limitation of physical intimacy and a balance of interaction to avoid both the fusion and the distancing between patient and analyst. Through the detailed study of an analytic session, some of these aspects will be illustrated. Finally, there is the proposal that the analytical situation would be better defined in terms of the "here and now" than the transference, which is included in the former. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the case of a young patient with a severe dissociative pathology, in the care of a Public Mental Health Center and describes the specific characteristics of the setting during the treatment. The patient was both attending the Day Care Center daily and following and individual psychotherapy, that doubled in two distinct settings. Starting from this peculiar form of multiple setting, some reflection are proposed, on the presence, in the professional practice, of “ancestral" forms of multiple settings and on the possibility that these conditions could be, in some cases, opportunities to let some blind areas to emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]