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Purpose: Consistent with current literature, which highlights the role of narration as a key tool for exploring the processes by which people construct the meaning of their critical experiences the authors propose a theoretical and methodological model to analyse the narratives of illness and identify any innovative aspects. The generative model of mind presented refers to a semiotic, narrative and socio-constructivist perspective according to which narration constitutes one of the possible processes by which the affective and pre-verbal sense of experience is transformed into a meaning that can be symbolized and shared. Design/methodology/approach: The onset of an illness represents a critical event which interrupts a person's life narrative, shattering his/her biographical continuity and undermining any assumptions of him/herself and the world. In particular, the model proposes a method of analysis, currently absent in literature, of the narrative interview Narrative Function Coding System (NFC) in order to grasp the ways by which four main narrative functions, namely psychic functions, are classified: the search for meaning, the expression of emotions, the temporal organization and the orientation to action. Findings: NFC appears to be able to capture the complexity of the narrative process of construction of illness' sense-meaning making process, identifying both representative modalities of good functioning, which express a gradual process of connection with the variability of the experience, and modalities that express moments of disorganization and rigidity, which can persist throughout the time of treatment. The NFC represents not only a method for analysing illness narratives but also a method for tracking and monitoring the process of clinical intervention and change. Originality/value: The sense-meaning making process perspective within the narrative socio-constructivist and semiotic framework of analysis proposed by NFC is currently absent in the literature. NFC can be a device for analysing the narrative process of sense-meaning making both for its use for clinical and preventive purposes. In addition we believe that this method, which focuses on the "form" and "way" of narratively constructing the subjective experience, rather than on the specific thematic content, can be used with all types of illness narratives, in particular the longitudinal one to explore the changes in sense-meaning making process.

In this study, we propose to analyse students' drawings using the Semiotic Cultural Psychological Theory (SCPT), a socio-cultural psychological model that integrates semiotics with dynamic systems theory. According to the SCPT framework, students-generated drawings can be analysed in terms of generalised meanings, i.e., implicit assumptions about the represented content. We applied SCPT to identify a set of generalised meanings about seasonal changes and to investigate whether they depend on students' grade level. We used a draw-and-explain task to collect drawings and written explanations about seasonal changes produced by 495 Italian 8th grade (N = 196) and 9th grade (N = 299) students. The analysis was based on Multiple Correspondence Analysis and Cluster Analysis. Five generalised meanings about seasonal changes were identified: (1) Climate; (2) Static Earth -- Sun; (3) Moving Earth -- Sun; (4) Rays -- Earth; and (5) Moving Earth--Orbit-- Sun. The emerging generalised meanings were significantly associated with students' written explanations and grade level. Moreover, generalised meanings were informed by the cultural conventions adopted in textbook representations about seasonal changes. Findings suggest that the SCPT framework can be productively used to analyse students-generated drawings about natural phenomena and to detect specific features of textbook representations that can impair the development of appropriate scientific knowledge.

The purpose of this study was to analyse Italian high school and university students' attitudes towards physics using the Semiotic Cultural Psychological Theory (SCPT). In the SCPT framework, attitudes represent how individuals interpret their experience through the mediation of "generalized meaning" with which they are identified. A view-of-physics questionnaire was used as an instrument to collect data with 1603 high school and university students. Data were analysed through multiple correspondence analysis and cluster analysis. We identified four "generalized meanings" of physics: (a) interesting and important for society; (b) a quite interesting, but badly taught subject at school and not completely useful for society; (c) difficult to study and irrelevant for society; and (d) a fascinating and protective niche from society. The identified generalized meanings are significantly correlated to the choice to study physics at undergraduate level and to the choice of attending physics-related activities in high school. Implications for research are discussed.

The authors discuss the relevance of aesthetic and affective experience at the heart of the human being’s capability to relate to the world and to found relations of sense. Faced with anguish that the world can be meaningless and with fear of uncertainty/ chaos, trust and hope are needed for the world to be a hospitable place for existence. Such experience is aesthetic, sensitive and affective before being rational, reflective and deliberative. Through a dialogue between Kant, Winnicott and Bion, it is shown how foundation of trust is based on two essential aspects: (1) The illusion that reality was created to allow us to live in it (namely, the fictionality is a prerequisite for each possible development of psyche) and (2) this illusion is not generated by a solipsistic activity of the human mind; rather, it is made possible starting from the primordial relationship with the other, by containing anguish, nourishing trust and hope, and supporting psychic development and elaboration of progressive forms of symbolisation. The authors discuss how these points have a profound aesthetic implication through deepening the reflection on the ontogenetic development of the psyche, the complex intertwining between primary and secondary processes, and clinical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The liminal function of rituals is an expression of the transformative power of collective processes and subjective developments. Rites, transitional activities (playing, dramas, music, literature, arts, etc.) work as vector, catalyzer, mediator and symbolic container of experiences of transformative processes. In terms of unconscious psychosocial process, liminality becomes particularly evident in all situations in which the human condition goes through crisis of identity and everyday organization of borders is at risk. On several occasions (including clearly in the book “Civilization and its Discontents”, 1930), Freud proposed that there are pathological states in which the delimitation and borders of the Ego in relation to the external world become uncertain and painful. Authors take in consideration two specific conditions of sufferance, which although are different yet show an intriguing affinity in their difficult relationship with experience of borders and in living in liminal areas: obsessive neurosis and borderline condition. In the case of obsessive neurosis, the subject, morbidly repeating a specific ceremonial ritual, shuns the border, starting over each time in the anguished search for perfection and rigid division, without ever realizing the transition to a new state. In the case of borderline sufferance, on the contrary, the impulsiveness, the lack of integration of the Self leads the subject to live perpetually on the threshold, always oscillating from one extreme to the other, without being able to move from the margin and find an integration of opposites and polarities. This paper, through contributions ranging from anthropology to psychoanalysis, figures as a seminal work in the introduction of the concept of liminality into psychodynamic theory and clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we examine the concept of borderline personality organization as it was conceptualized by Otto F. Kernberg. We highlight the diagnostic criteria so that it is possible to recognize a borderline organization, namely primitive defensive mechanisms associated with an examination of reality generally uncompromised. We point out that, for Kernberg, dysfunctional management of the primitive feelings of anger would prevent the psychic integration, in early childhood of the borderline subject, of the 'good' and 'bad' dyads in which Self and object are related. The patient, growing up, would then discover herself as dominated by tearing and opposing experiential and affective 'states'. Kernberg describes borderline personality organization as a pathological condition of internalized object relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]