Contents & abstracts

Theory and technique

Accetti L. Adolescence and transition: how has our way of thinking about gender changed?
An introduction to Alessandra Lemma’s article: The Seductions of Identity. Thinking about identity and transgender. Richard & Piggle, 32, 2, 2024, 107-112.

In light of the changes that we are experiencing, our way of thinking about the body is also undergoing a significant transformation. In our current, technologically advanced culture, the body has become part of a “subjective” world, of a “personal project” that involves a right to modify it and construct realities that are different from what we are and do not want to be (Lemma, 2005) and in which its identities can be continually reformulated according to one’s desires. A psychoanalytical reflection on these changes introduces Alessandra Lemma’s article, The Seductions of Identity. Thinking about Identity and Transgender.

Lemma A. The Seductions of Identity. Thinking about identity and transgender. Richard & Piggle, 32, 2, 2024, 113-130.

The author begins her article by outlining a conceptual compass for thinking about identity in general, before then going on to tackle the question of transgender identity more specifically. To such end, she refers to Gilles Deleuze’s concepts of “rhizome” and “fold”. She then argues that the body has always been and is increasingly becoming the place of the Self’s figuration, of the quest for and affirmation of identity. For this reason, the unconscious mental investments that we have in our bodies are fundamental for any kind of theorization about identity. The author suggests that this focus may provide a more productive and generative starting point for thinking specifically about transgender identity than any of the theories on individual development, because it accommodates the heterogeneity underpinning the umbrella term “transgender”.

Focus

Geneviève Haag

Maiello S. Geneviève Haag and the body ego. Richard & Piggle, 32, 2, 2024, 131-143.

The article pays homage to Geneviève Haag, the French child psychoanalyst who died in 2022. Haag was a pioneer in the area of psychoanalytical psychotherapy for children with autism. Her vast clinical experience led her to formulate original hypotheses around young children’s very early corporeal experiences and first instances of sensory integration: experiences that are missing in autistic conditions. Haag has to her credit a great number of publications in which she formulates important theoretical proposals inspired by observations gathered during the course of her years in clinical practice. Furthermore, she was actively involved in spreading information about the efficacy of psychoanalytical psychotherapy for autistic children. This thanks to her formulation of a grid for assessing changes in autistic patients’ mental functioning during the course of therapy.

Haag G. The nature of certain forms of identification present in body image - A hypothesis. Richard & Piggle, 32, 2, 2024, 144-158.

The author sets out to explore how the body ego is constructed upon the foundations of primary identification. She illustrates how, through the coming and going of the gaze between child and mother and the containing function experienced at both a mental and a corporeal level, the child can construct a first corporeal boundary: one from which three-dimensionality and the ability to contain then gradually develop. Some clinical examples taken from psychotherapeutic work with autistic children allow the reader to understand the complex processes of introjection and projective identification, as well as some of the profound fears that characterise their experience.

Houzel D. Geneviève Haag: architect of the psyche. Richard & Piggle, 32, 2, 2024, 159-170.

This article outlines Geneviève Haag’s professional and psychoanalytic journey. It focuses on the fundamental discoveries she made through her exploration of autistic and psychotic disorders in children. Her description of “intracorporeal identification” marked a genuine turning-point in the understanding of body ego development. Her thinking is connected to the empirical tradition of Anglo-Saxon philosophy, postulating as it does the psyche’s rootedness in bodily experiences, but it also has its place within a dynamic perspective through its linking of the very earliest sensory experiences to the relationship that is established between child and mother. It is also in a relational context that, according to her hypothesis, the child constructs its representations of space and time.

Maiello S (made by). Geneviève Haag: a bibliographical selection. Richard & Piggle, 32, 2, 2024, 171-172.

Clinical reflections

Gentile A. Some reflections regarding contemporary culture’s impact on children’s subjectivization processes. Richard & Piggle, 32, 2, 2024, 173-181.

The author offers some reflections on contemporary culture’s impact on children’s subjectivization processes, from infancy onwards. Infancy is the time during which language is absent and the little human being is totally dependent on the care provided by adults, but it is also the time of a care that sometimes takes inappropriate forms. It is, therefore, a time handed over to the attention and considerateness of others: it is not only a stage of development but also an originary period of existence during which the event of subjectivity is preceded by the primacy of the Other. During the current historical period, in the face of growing cultural malaise, the child’s “No” has an unbinding effect that allows his/her ego to regulate its relationship with drives coming from his/her own instinct and those of the object. This is all the more so in cases where the relationship with the Other is hindered by threats of intrusion or abandonment.

D’amato GM, Pascale Langer F, Auriemma E, Micillo E, Spera N, Varischio L. Short-term interventions with war refugees. Giving catastrophic experiences a meaning. Richard & Piggle, 32, 2, 2024, 182-198.

The article describes consultation work with war refugees. It illustrates the difficulties linked to cultural and linguistic differences and the anguished emotions that cause the processes of projection and identification to yield to the pressure of a catastrophic external environment that attacks the ability to think. Customary working practices needed to be adapted to some extent in order to be able to accommodate a pain that violently impacts the professional’s inner world: indeed, the transformative process forcefully involves both the refugee and the person caring for him/her. Even in these situations, however, it appears possible to hold the external reality and the mental reality together when the professional is supported both by a theoretical model and by a work group that act as a containment for his/her difficult function as a container.

The enchanting screen

Auriemma E, Di Guida A. Encanto (2021). Directed by Byron Howard and Jared Bush
Richard & Piggle, 32, 2, 2024, 199-202.

Fossati F, Pugliese F. My Life as a Courgette (2016). Directed by Claude Barras. Richard & Piggle, 32, 2, 2024, 203-207.

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Contents & abstracts