Contents & abstracts


Theory and Technique
A. Ferro. Which Charter for Child Psychoanalysis? Richard e Piggle, 21, 1, 2013, 1-17.

The author asserts that there is no difference between analysing children, adolescents or adults if we consider the purpose of analysis to be that of fostering the development of mental functions that are necessary for thinking and containing emotions and thoughts.
The work presents a theory of the mind that is profoundly inspired by Bion, in which the work of the alpha function plays a central role. Valued for its highly relational connotation, this function is continually transforming sensoriality and proto-emotions into images that are “alphabetisations”. Bion’s concept of “waking dream thought” is extended, showing its central importance in the analytical relationship. The presentation of three clinical cases concerning children emphasizes how there exists a continual “coupling” between instances of projective identification and states of reverie, between the little patient’s mind and that of the analyst. In the analytical field generated by patient and analyst, every communication can be understood as a “narrative derivative” of waking dream thought, taking shape in that given moment.


B. Golse. The Roots of Communication, Play and Language. Richard & Piggle, 21, 1, 2013, 18-34.

After recalling the human species’ two types of communication (analogic communication and digital communication) and how, at the heart of verbal language, they are interwoven, the author goes on to describe the origins of verbal language acquisition and their connection with differentiation and intersubjectivity.
The second part of the article tackles the question of how babies approach play. It examines the various kinds of game that can be described as such during that first phase of life, considering them in terms of communication development.
Lastly, the author raises the issue of the importance of the mother’s voice for the foetus and newborn. He adds some considerations on the music of language, lullabies and phrasing rhythms.

Focus
S. Ferenczi: The Person and the Psychoanalyst.

C. Candelori. When M. Klein met S. Ferenczi. Richard & Piggle, 21, 1, 2013, 35-41.

This work focuses on the years during which Melanie Klein stayed in Budapest. It refers to her initial condition of psychic malaise and her subsequent restorative meeting with Ferenczi, with whom she began her own analysis and by whom she felt encouraged to undertake her journey in child analysis. Reference is made to the theoretico-clinical works that Ferenczi wrote during that period as these contributed significantly to developments in work with children and also to Klein’s first essays. Essentially observational and descriptive at first, these works of Ferenczi’s then developed into an in-depth study of the dynamics of a child’s unconscious.


F. Borgogno. S. Ferenczi as a Person and as a Psychoanalyst: an “unfinished” Fresco. Richard & Piggle, 21, 1, 2013, 42-55.

In these notes, the Author introduces Ferenczi as a person and as a psychoanalyst. First he demolishes some commonplaces regarding Ferenczi as a person. He then goes on to present some of Ferenczi’s first ideas and to connect them with subsequent developments in his thinking.


S. Oliva. Notes on some of S. Ferenczi’s lesser known Writings. Richard & Piggle, 21, 1, 2013, 56-64.

The article describes well-known and less well-known aspects of Ferenczi’s work that have influenced psychoanalysis. These include the interest developed by the Budapest School of Psychoanalysis in the mother/child relationship, Ferenczi’s interest in the influence social factors have on the development of neuroses, his anti-authoritarian vision for pedagogy, the salvaging of criminal personalities and, lastly, his interest in psychic determinants in scientific thinking.

Clinical Reflections
M. Peluso. Caesura and Cleavage as Assessment Indices in Psychoanalytical Practice. Richard & Piggle, 21, 1, 2013, 65-83.

In this work on assessment in “clinical” and “operational” psychoanalytical practice, the author builds on Bion’s concept of “caesura” and Bleger’s concept of “cleavage” and highlights the elements of interest in the areas and moments of passage from one state of mind to another and from primary modes of functioning to more developed ones.


M. G. Fusacchia. Developmental Breakdown and Dissociated Traumatic Memories. Richard & Piggle, 21, 1, 2013, 84-97.

The Author reflects in this work on the impact traumatic memories have in developmental breakdowns during adolescence. She poses some questions about the prospects for forms of therapy that promote the integration of these dissociated pathological nuclei. Clinical experience working with adolescents suffering from borderline or psychotic disorders provides the starting point for considering a sexual trauma during puberty to be one of the aetiological factors in psychic breakdowns. Pubertal sexualisation has the effect of strengthening that agglomerate of unthinkable affects and emotions, as well as fantasies and thoughts linked to the sexual trauma, of which the body has become the silent custodian. The psychic disorganisation caused by the developmental breakdown could, therefore, constitute a defence mechanism that interferes with the sexed body’s integration processes. The latter, in their turn, constitute a threat of cumulative traumatic re-enactment.

In Honour of S. Grimaldi
S. Grimaldi. The Women in Via dei Sabelli. Richard & Piggle, 21, 1, 2013, 98-101.

Book reviews