Reading Italian Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis in Italy is a particularly diverse and vibrant profession, embracing a number of influences and schools of thought, connecting together new thinking, and producing theorists and clinicians of global renown.Reading Italian Psychoanalysis provides a comprehensive guide to the most important Italian psychoanalytic thinking of recent years, including work by major names such as Weiss, E.Gaddini, Matte Blanco, Nissim Momigliano, Canestri, Amati Mehler, and Ferro. It covers the most important theoretical developments and clinical advances, with special emphasis on contemporary topics such as transference, trauma and primitive states of mind where Italian work has been particular influential.

In this volume, Franco Borgogno, Alberto Luchetti and Luisa Marino Coe of the Italian Psychoanalytical Society provide an overview of how Italian psychoanalysis has developed from the 1920’s to the present day, tracing its early influences and highlighting contemporary developments. Forty-six seminal and representative papers of psychoanalysts belonging to the two Italian psychoanalytical societies (the Italian Psychoanalytical Society and the Italian Association of Psychoanalysis) have been chosen to illuminate what is special about Italian theoretical and clinical thinking, and what is demonstrative of the specificity of its psychoanalytic discourse. The selected papers are preceded by a first introductory section about the history of psychoanalysis in Italy and followed by a "swift glance at Italian psychoanalysis from abroad". They are grouped into sections which represent the areas particularly explored by Italian psychoanalysis. Each section is accompanied by introductory comments which summarize the main ideas and concepts and also their historical and cultural background, so as to offer to the reader either an orientation and stimulus for the debate and to indicate their connections to other papers included in the present volume and to the international psychoanalytic world.

The book is divided into six parts including:

History of psychoanalysis in Italy

Metapsychology

Clinical practice, theory of technique, therapeutic factors

The person of the analyst, countertransference and the analytic relationship/field

Trauma, psychic pain, mourning and working-through

Preverbal, precocious, fusional, primitive states of the mind

This volume offers an excellent and detailed "fresco" of Italian psychoanalytic debate, shining a light on thinking that has evolved differently in France, England, North and Latin America. It is an ideal book for beginners and advanced students of clinical theory as well as experienced psychoanalysts wanting to know more about Italian psychoanalytic theory and technique, and how they have developed.

Franco Borgogno is Full Professor of Clinical Psychology (Turin University), Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst of the Italian Psychoanalytical Society, member of the Board of many international psychoanalytic journals and book series. His main books are Psychoanalysis as a journey and The girl who committed hara-kiri and other clinical and historical essays. In 2010 he received the Mary S. Sigourney Award.

Alberto Luchetti is Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst of the Italian Psychoanalytical Society. Past Editor of theRivista di Psicoanalisi, he is Member of the Scientific Board of the ‘Jean Laplanche’s Foundation ‘New Foundations for Psychoanalysis’’ of the Institut de France. He edits and introduces a new paperback edition of Freud’s works by BUR-Rizzoli Publisher.

Luisa Marino Coe is a member of the Italian Psychoanalytical Society and a guest member of the British Psychoanalytic Society. She is former President of the International Psychoanalytic Studies Organization (IPSO) and Chair of the IPA IPSO Relations Committee. She was Editor of the Italian Psychoanalytic Annual. In addition to various psychoanalytical publications, she wrote a poetry book, Angolo di stanza.