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In the first part of this paper, the Author describes the complexity of the virtual treatments in which telephones and other IT tools or platforms are used to simulate the analytical work which until recently took place almost exclusively in a corporeal co-presence in the analytical study. He also hypothesizes the loss of differentiation between the different psychodynamic therapies as the effect of an imitative defense. In the second clinical part he highlights how psychoanalytic treatment in presence is essential to grasp the unconscious communications of early levels of the mind which are expressed, within the transference/countertransference relationship, through unconscious bodily communications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on one idea and built around one clinical experience that helped me to broaden my comprehension of it. The idea, underlying the work of several authors is that when the analytic field is saturated with primitive and unintegrated mental contents, the analyst's somatic countertransference is a precious indicator of a deep, dissociated form of communication. The clinical experience concerns the difficult elaboration of a complex, multifaceted countertransference that took place during the early stages of the analysis of a sensitive patient who used to communicate in a very dissociated way and that I found hard to contain. This experience, closely descripted in the article, led me to formulate the clinical idea that the transference field may be made of distinct layers (psychoid, affective, verbal), and that each one of them may potentially convey dissociated, even contrasting bits of information. The corollary of this is that the analyst should be ready to accept contrasting sensations, feelings, and thoughts at the same time, as they might be the basic ingredients of a complex reverie. The analyst could find himself/herself in front of his/her own internal unelaborated multiplicity before a symbolic image may emerge to link between them the scattered pieces of the experience. Nevertheless, the heart of this paper is not about suggesting an idea, but in the sharing of a complex working through, which fostered the birth of a new, more human relational perspective: the capacity of being together in time, in a transitional space where there is neither total separation nor fusion. [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]

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]

This article presents the experience of Infant Observation as central for analytical training, because capable of developing the therapist's ability to "observe to see" and his contact with his inner child. It also predisposes him to listening to his own countertransference in the relationship with every other-than-himself within a relational game full of meanings. It emerges from the paper how the concept of training-transformation connotes the entire experience, transversally covering all the minds involved. The feeling of the observer, with his own internal setting, the observed child and the parental functions, involved within the observation field, are modified. The colleagues' group mind is also transformed and it takes in the observer's experience in order to reread it and to ascribe new and broader meanings to it. It is clear how observing and feeling the child in the context allows to become aware of his development path, by experiencing it live. The proximity to Valeria during her first year of life allowed the observer to witness the passage from the original experience of fragility and dependence from her mother, even with the contribution of her own acting, to the slow and progressive structuring of an Ego at the beginning, guaranteed by I-you relations hand in hand with the surfacing of archaic defences. During the Infant Observation the function of the child's skin and the progressive integration between soma, psyche and affectivity were central, even in the appearance of symptoms of discomfort within primary relationships. It was possible to witness Valeria's sensory and motor-praxic development, parallel to the verbal one and the maturation of cognitive abilities, of the imitative skill and of what appeared to be a rising theory of mind. Routines and social development have also appeared. The reflection on the construct of attachment was crucial throughout all the path. Taken as a whole, the article shows how the Infant Observation involves a constant inner work within the observer, a reading and rereading of the countless elements of the field of observation such as sensations, emotions, thoughts, doubts, fears looking for a plot and a sense. A cardinal aspect regards how to portray the "after" and the greetings, the possibility to part with the other keeping good thoughts, with confidence in him and his resources. A phase of mourning is necessary, being a source of profound teachings and internal metamorphosis. [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]