Contents & abstracts



Theory and Technique
M. Pola. The Body’s Continuing Topicality in Psychoanalytical Work. Richard & Piggle, 26, 1, 2018, 1-11.

Referring to psychoanalytical theory and practice, the article considers the continuing topicality of the body and the body-mind relationship in contemporary psychoanalysis. The author uses a clinical example to observe the body’s role both in the mental functioning of an adolescent with an eating disorder and during the process of psychoanalysis. Particular attention is paid to the body as the vehicle for expression of conflicts emerging during the course of adolescent change.


A. M. Lanza, A. Ruvutuso, E. Pasta, L. Cocumelli, M. P. Chiavelli, R. D’Agostino, V. Ladino Corina and V. Giannotti. The Skin That Talks: Body Language or Mind Language? Journeys Made Through Silence or Shouting in Alopecia and Self-Cutting During the Age of Development. Richard e Piggle, 26, 1, 2018, 12-32.

Beginning by considering skin disorders as boundary-line disorders and, therefore, identity disorders, the authors dwell on the theorizations of D.W. Winnicott, E. Gaddini and A. Giannotti and analyse the body-mind circuit routes that result in the attribution of a “silent”, a-symbolic quality to phantasies within the body, in cases of alopecia, and a “shouted”, symbolic quality to phantasies on the body, in cases of self-cutting. Taking some clinical clues as their starting point, the authors reflect on how, in the first occurrence, an early, altered body-mind communication prevents a normal process of psyche-soma integration from establishing itself; and how, in the second, where the integration is already established, albeit with some fragile features, a splitting process is activated whereby the body gets the upper hand by way of more developed and less archaic forms of regressive pathology, thereby becoming the sole representative and symbolic depositary of the psychic pain. In both cases, a sort of “aesthetic communication” of the psychic pain is achieved. But whereas in the first solution, the pain seems to be unknown to the subject and is encrypted for the other person, in the second, the acted-out “physical pain” carries the marks of an intolerable, distorted thinking that is exhibited to the other person in the hope that it will be acknowledged.
Focus


Siblings, Twins and Only Children. Clinical Practice Questions the Theory

M. L. Algini. Introduction Richard & Piggle, 26, 1, 2018, 33-37.


F. Spacca. Fraternity in a “Recomposed” Family: Chloe, an Amazon Trapped in a Tower. Richard & Piggle, 26, 1, 2018, 38-44.

Through the clinical example of a five-year-old girl named Chloe, the article seeks to highlight some elements relating to fraternity in recomposed families. The arrival of another child in such nuclei leads to a reorganization and new adjustments, on both an interior and an exterior level.
The author shows how the arrival of her brother reactivates strong, pre-existing anxieties in Chloe but also becomes, during the course of the psychotherapy, an important resource.


A. Pietrosanto. Gaia and the Burden of Her “Only-ness”. Richard & Piggle, 26, 1, 2018, 45-51.

The work regards the phantasies of a four-year-old girl who is an only daughter born through artificial insemination. She strongly desires a little brother and has asked her parents insistently for one, without ever receiving a satisfactory answer as to why she must remain an only child.
She is the so very greatly desired child who complies with her parents’ unconscious mandate: she must be worthy of her only-ness and therefore perfect and impeccable on every occasion.
Her parents’ carefully guarded secret and the daily emotional experience of proximity with little friends who receive baby brothers and sisters creates an area of non-comprehension in the child’s mind and this generates a multiplicity of phantasies and a complex interplay of different forms of identification.


E. Di Lucia. “Falling Out of Time”. Richard & Piggle, 26, 1, 2018, 52-57.

The article tells the story of psychotherapy with Elia, whose real age was eight but whose stature and physique suggested a younger age. The author seeks to reflect on how his difficulty in growing and his deep identification with losers and “failures” can be related to the experience of losing a brother who was never born but remained very present in his parents’ minds. This loss that was so early and traumatic deprived Elia of a focussed attention capable of acknowledging his vital and subjective aspects.


L. Sateriale. As If In a Mirror. Richard & Piggle, 26, 1, 2018, 58-65.

The article recounts the experience of analysis with Livio, a male twin aged nine. At the beginning of the analysis, Livio presented with a confused sense of self and an extremely fragile psyche. Besides being a condition of brotherhood, twinship (the result of assisted reproduction) seemed, for him, to constitute a state of mind that prevented him learning from experiences. Only during a second phase of the analysis did the first signs capable of signalling similarities with and differences from the twin brother make their appearance. The article considers which mental processes were activated within the therapeutic relationship, thereby fostering the knowing of Another, outside the self.
M. V. Febbo. An Inheritance Tested by Adolescence. Richard & Piggle, 26, 1, 2018, 66-75.

The article reflects, at both a clinical and a theoretical level, on the transgenerational transmission of the fraternal complex. More specifically, the author investigates how a parental fraternal complex can determine the phantasies generated by the daughters’ fraternal complexes and to what extent these ghostly interweavings can open up new scenarios with the onset of adolescence.


M. L. Algini. Sisters, Brothers and Their Ghosts. Richard & Piggle, 26, 1, 2018, 76-88.

This work seeks to give shape to the thinking on fraternity that emerges from the totality of the articles in the “Focus” section. It further seeks to highlight the close relationship between clinical practice and theory: clinical experiences question and press for theoretical formulations, whilst the theoretical concepts produced by the authors who have been most involved with the subject illumine and put the clinical thinking “to work”, thereby generating yet more thinking. Fraternity emerges as a “dimension of the mind” continually grappling with oscillations that are now converging, towards unity, and now diverging, towards a differentiation from both real and imaginary brothers and sisters.

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