Contents & abstracts




Focus

Adolescents and Cannabis: The Function of Psychoanalytic Listening



Giannotti V. Introduction. Richard & Piggle, 29, 4, 2021, 353-358.



Rocchetto F. Adolescents, the “stress” of growing, cannabis and psychoanalysis. Richard & Piggle, 29, 4, 2021, 359-366.


Although cannabis is a banned substance, its use during adolescence is widespread.  Psychotherapeutic clinical practice has highlighted that whilst this drug is less harmful than alcohol from a medical point of view, this is not the case from a mental one. Paradoxically, its harmfulness derives from its not being very harmful. This is because its consumption, albeit not producing particularly significant effects, nevertheless does influence mood tone and balance. The article emphasizes the usefulness of the neuro-psychoanalytical perspective, which considers both the bodily level and the unconscious emotional dynamics in the treatment of adolescent cannabis users.




La Rosa C. The adolescent brain and cannabis: neurobiological and psychopathological implications. Richard & Piggle, 29, 4, 2021, 367-374.


The adolescent brain and mind constitute a sophisticated laboratory continually effecting transformations or a worksite with works in progress that will shape the structure of an adult’s identity, with its emotional, cognitive and behavioural functional correlates. The article considers the implications of using cannabis during adolescence. According to the neuroscientific research data, this increasingly widespread practice (which often begins early) may constitute a risk factor since it can interfere with the brain’s neurobiological development and the process of maturation towards its adult conformation. This with potential consequences for the future integrity of mental and cognitive functioning or even regarding the possible onset of forms of psychopathology.

Tranquilli F. Smoking and the suspension of time. Losing one’s self somewhere between nostalgia for childhood and straining towards an unknown future. Richard & Piggle, 29, 4, 2021, 375-385.


The progressively growing complexity of civilization reveals its malaise. In a parallel manner, the psychic apparatus’ evolution threatens human beings with suffering in relationships. Adolescents make the effort to pass from individual isolation to the world of relationships in a passage that involves pain and disorientation. In the tension between regression and the drive to affirm a new Self, the adolescent experiences “loss”. The act of smoking appears to be an exogenous way of relieving the pain, like some sort of self-treatment and, at the same time, a means to association with others. Through gaze and listening to music and words, therapy can guarantee a form of constancy that goes beyond the substance.




Gristina V. and Trombacco V. From depending on cannabis to depending on therapy. Richard & Piggle, 29, 4, 2021, 386-393.


Using two clinical vignettes by way of illustration, the article centres on the pivotal issues of building setting and a therapeutic alliance, and the transformations, adaptations or distortions encountered in the specific case of psychotherapy with adolescent patients who use cannabis. These areas of enquiry are interwoven with a reflection on the quality of the bond with the maternal and the feminine: the substance seems to be used in an omnipotence-seeking attempt to maintain the tie of dependence, thereby denying separation. Just like some “surrogate ‘maternal’”, it does not facilitate access to the new object (the therapeutic bond) and obstructs the transformative potential of the transitional space.




Gozzi N. How to play dependence in the therapeutic relationship. Richard & Piggle, 29, 4, 2021, 394-401.


Through a patient’s first-person narrative, the article seeks to show some of the emotional difficulties encountered by adolescents when taking possession of certain aspects of their own inner world: aspects with themes linked to cannabis addiction. These include how smoking may block the possibility of arriving at a certain register of thought and play and how these two dimensions may become accessible thanks to transference work, making it possible to get round the smoke of a joint that fogs thinking in the analysis room.


Clinical Reflections

Biondo D. Dreams and subjectivization during adolescence. Richard & Piggle, 29, 4, 2021,

402-416.


The author presents the clinical case of a seventeen-year-old adolescent suffering from a serious form of withdrawal, imprisoned as he was in his autoerotic activities and daydreaming, yet unable to dream. Such inability seemed to derive from the absence of an oneiric space; an absence that was associated with a blocked process of subjectivization. According to the author, one of the essential tasks for analysts working with adolescents is to foster the ability to have good dreams, understood as the possibility of discovering the workings of the unconscious and the ability to transform pre-symbolic experiences into symbolic ones. As regards the inner therapeutic journey, the author focuses on the role that the boy’s early dreams played by helping to give substance to his unconscious communicative exchange with the analyst and thus benefit from the intermediate area.




De Vita C. From hallucinations to dreams. Working on images during adolescent creation. Richard & Piggle, 29, 4, 2021, 417-432.


Images and the figurative processes are hugely important in therapeutic work with adolescents. They perform containment and transference-mediation functions and also support transitory sketches of the Self as it is being created. Working as a twosome on images supplied by an adolescent permits the figuration of early traumas. In the illustrative case provided, the figurative processes’ development from the form of hallucinations to the production of dreams permitted “the unthought known” to be worked through imaginatively. “Visual rêverie” aided the integration of the patient’s sexed body into his adolescent Self.




Tauriello A. and Severino P. The secret companion. The secrecy dimension in therapy. Richard & Piggle, 29, 4, 2021, 433-447.


The authors discuss secrecy’s functions during both childhood and adolescent processes of development and its value during analysis. Apart from secrecy’s importance for development whilst growing and as a factor in individuation, the article also examines its protective function, primarily in relation to traumatic experiences, and how it creates a mental space bringing about new experiences that will then have to be accepted or rejected. The authors propose Conrad’s tale, “The Secret Sharer”, as a metaphor to illustrate secrecy’s functions in the analytic relationship. Lastly, highlighting some points of harmony with the literary narrative, the authors present an adolescent’s analytic therapy as a clinical illustration of the themes addressed.


The Enchanting Screen

Tiseo G. Boyhood (2014). Richard & Piggle, 29, 4, 2021, 448-450.



D’Angelo V. Sex Education (2019-2021). Richard & Piggle, 29, 4, 2021, 451-454.


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Contents & Abstract