Contents & abstracts



Theory and Technique
Badiali A.R. Psychoanalytic Supervisions: Between Dreaming and Knowing. Richard &
Piggle, 27, 3, 2019, 221-233.

The article tackles the subject of supervisions as the observation of the field in which therapist and patient bring themselves into play. Choosing to steer interest towards the therapist’s mental and emotional activity reveals the extent to which his/her knowledge and techniques can be used as defences. The author suggests a supervision model in which a small group assumes the function of transforming its own members by reflecting on itself and its dramatization of the case under discussion.


De Vincenzo M. Body Image and Specularity. A Psychoanalytic Study of the Instinctual Body and the Virtual Body. Richard & Piggle, 27, 3, 2019, 234-245.

The article seeks to apply a psychoanalytic reading to certain new forms of dependence that are revealing novel ways of relating to the body, mirror images and narcissism. Taking the use and abuse of the new technologies and social networks as his starting point, the author uses a study of dependence on the gaze of others to investigate the new uses of the body that are emerging on the contemporary psychopathological scene. Analysis of these “social symptoms” leads to some fundamental issues concerning every person. These include the relationship with one’s body image and the need for recognition from an alter-ego that ratifies our body and our narcissism through a desiring look. The author uses a clinical vignette to illustrate and explore the compulsive need to exhibit images of one’s own body on the Internet and he investigates the psychic dynamics underpinning the use of one’s body image online.


Clinical Reflections
Fattirolli E. Very Early Trauma and Autism. A Journey towards Representability.
Richard & Piggle, 27, 3, 2019, 246-263.

In this article, the author offers some reflections on the link between autistic withdrawal and the body’s memories of very early traumata. Tracing the therapy with a little girl diagnosed with autism, she seeks to demonstrate how, in particularly vulnerable children with a pre-disposition, certain very early traumatic events, probably experienced as life-threatening, can contribute to a psycho-physical reaction of withdrawal and shutting off from relationship.   The author demonstrates the long journey that the little patient had to make in order to arrive at a safe, reliable, shared relational space in which it was possible to allow the threat of previously unrepresented traumatic sensorial elements to emerge, signify and then be worked through. The importance of working through the counter-transference in work with autistic states is emphasised.


Marcacci T. Mummy Inside. Richard & Piggle, 27, 3, 2019, 264-284.

This article recounts the clinical case of a three-year-old boy whose development had been impeded by an intense projection of uncontained fears. This had resulted in experiences of disintegration and had prevented his very mind from forming as a reliable container able to receive a sense of self under construction. This had, in turn, led to a narcissistic fragility that made it extremely difficult for him to accept the other as an object that was desirable but separate from himself and not controllable in an omnipotent manner, thereby precluding the development of possibilities of relating and symbolizing. The author summarizes the entire journey in analysis, which took place three times a week until the successful completion of the child’s first year at primary school. He shows the slow therapeutic process (and the forms of resistance to it) from a situation of blocked development to the possibility of introjecting a sense of self solid enough to accept the mourning caused by the object’s separateness; a necessary condition for every possible encounter with an Other and for development of the mind’s functions.


Roncarati A. Talking of Dyslexia, What Importance Do Emotions Have? Richard & Piggle, 27, 3, 2019, 285-301.

Delivering on its title’s promise, the article sets out to highlight the close links between breakdowns in the proper unfolding of emotional development and difficulties in reading and writing; links that go back a long way.
The author’s impression is that, over the last few years, the profession has lost sight of the complexity involved in correctly diagnosing dyslexia, including as regards the influence that such a diagnosis can have on the child and his/her surrounding environment. She relates the two clinical cases that pressed her to investigate and systematize a subject that she regularly dealt with during the years she worked as a psychologist in a Paediatric Neuropsychiatric Unit: a subject enriched by recent theories regarding the latency period, in particular.


Terzani G. Seeking One’s Own Identity: A Journey towards Saturn. Richard & Piggle, 27, 3, 2019, 302-312.

The author presents the clinical case of a six-year-old boy with gender dysphoria. It emerges that the patient has identified with his feminine part in order to be able to re-establish a tie with the maternal object and avoid the fears of separation. The author describes the psychotherapy’s “mysterious journey” that will lead the patient from a total projective identification in the primary object to a gradual approaching of the Oedipal scenario and, finally, the fantasy of a creative couple in the therapy.


The Enchanting Screen
Falco C. It’s a Bing Thing. Richard & Piggle, 27, 3, 2019, 313-315.


Farese S. The Burning Plain Richard & Piggle, 27, 3, 2019, 316-319.


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