The Italian Psychoanalytic Annual 2022/16

The debate about Winnicott’s relationship to Metapsychology is raised in the margins of the research project promoted and led by Riolo (2015-2020). Moving from the consistent dialogue between Fulgencio and Girard, the author revisits Winnicott’s theory of instincts in a constant dialectics with the Freud’s one. After reviewing Winnicott’s conceptual work, the author argues that the theory of destructiveness, different from Freud’s, is crucial and remarkable for the elaboration of some of the most original  concepts, such as intermediate area and potential space.
KEY WORDS: Drive/instinctual theory, Fulgencio-Girard debate (2007-2017), metapsychology, Winnicott-Freud comparison.

In this paper, I present a portion of the analysis of a young woman, from the first meeting to the moment when conditions within the analytic field make possible the emergence of a function through which the analytic couple co-construct original narratives. From a theoretical point of view, I address a crux in the Bion-Field Theory, namely, the way in which the analyst attempts to reconcile the search for an atmosphere based on the centrality of the waking dream thought with the impact of historical reality and trauma. In addressing the theme of developing the narrative function, I also discuss the use of characters and reverie in the session and how developments in narratology may be of special interest
to the analyst.
KEY WORDS: Bion-field theory, narrative function, narratology, reality, reverie.

Starting from some theoretical contributions on Identity as a themein psychoanalysis, an attempt is made to underline the relationship existing between the Self as unique and continuous, and the Self as multiple and discontinuous. The multiplicity and discontinuity of the Self is considered in the light of recent contributions from Infant Research and neuroscience, which validate the hypothesis that development takes place within an intersubjective context through the mutual recognition of the two subjectivities in relation to each other. Moreover, it is stressed that from a relational/intersubjective perspective the Self is considered as the expression of a dialectical and creative tension between the Self as
unique and continuous and the multiple and discontinuous Self. This tension finds its synthesis in the concept of the Third, a position in which we recognise the Other as similar. Furthermore, the ways out of the ruptures of Thirdness are considered, namely both dissociation and enactment.
KEY WORDS: Dissociation, enactment, identity, intersubjectivity, mutual recognition, Self-Other

The evolution of the concept of the unconscious is described from its origin to the present days and the changes in its conception that have made it possible to abandon a static representation of it and observe its interpersonal development. A more primitive domain of the unconscious, to which Winnicott refers when speaking of formless states and non-integration, is the current frontier of our studies. Two clinical cases are discussed.
KEYWORDS: Creative unconscious, function of the unconscious, psychic functioning, receptive unconscious, unconscious.

This paper aims to highlight the journey made by psychoanalysts starting from Freud and his original topographical formulation of the unconscious up to the most recent developments which, by placing more and more emphasis on the bipersonal and group dimension of the birth of the mind, have further elaborated the Unconscious System, assigning it increasingly complex transformative roles and functions. In particular, the article identifies some «evolutionary lines» that have marked, over time, the development of models of mental functioning, and therefore also of the unconscious part of it. Lastly, it addresses the theoretical and technical implications of the pathway that starts from the idea of an
unconscious functioning primarily aimed at removing impulses, affects and desires that are incompatible with consciousness, and arrives in our own time at the conception of an unconscious that is more physiologically symbolopoietic, imaginable as a psychic organ capable of performing an osmotic-representative function in relation to internal and external reality.
KEY WORDS: Mental functioning, metapsychology, missing piece, structure, unconscious.

Psychoanalysis, as a way of listening to the other and to his or her otherness, questions the Sphinx not only with regard to the analysis of the generational conflict, but also with regard to dimensions of the psychism that are located elsewhere than in the already systematised competences. The extension of the concept of unconscious requires an «other» dimension of listening, a «polyphonic polymorphic heteromorphic listening», in which associative modalities unfold, revealing the communicative potential of the patient only after the response of the object, open to catching communications expressed in preverbal form. Another place in which to meet the Sphinx, the enigmas of psychic life, and question them, concerns the presence in the psychic not only of the traces of relations with more than one: the plural. It is also a question of listening to and making room for the emerging unconscious aspects of the need to belong to groups, in particular the unconscious narcissistic alliances that preserve the survival of the subject and the group together.
KEY WORDS: Listening, narcissistic alliances, other, polyphonic, presence of the object, preverbal, unconscious.

The current extension of the concept of the Unconscious to different levels, configurations and functioning of the mind is the result of decades of collective reflection on the clinic as well as on theory. Analysts today have a broader, more refined and complex knowledge of defensive and transformative processes, and this has also led to an evolution in technique. The paper presents a combination of psychoanalytic theory and technique through two clinical cases that present complex articulations of spurious unconscious functional areas and modalities, alternately repressed and not repressed.
KEY WORDS: Central self, experiential self, integration, removal, sharing, splitting.

Taking suggestions from microbiology and the anthropology of the person, the author proposes replacing «individual» with «codividual». Together with the concepts of being, substance and identity, individual is the expression of a typically ontological thought. On the contrary, the codividual stems from the conviction that individuals are lumps of similarities and differences that constantly change over time: codividual is not part of being, but of becoming. Codividuals, moreover, are areas of complexity that require to be de-complexified to some extent in order to gain a sufficient degree of orientation. The paper concludes with a reference to the monasticism of the first centuries of the Christian era: an anthropo-poietic experiment in which codividuals are forced into a strong de-complexification. By stripping them of their social ties, the attempt is to transform them into individuals, as similar as possible to the divinity.
KEYWORDS: Anthropo-poiesis, codividual, complexity, decomplexification, individual, monasticism.

In the psychoanalytic view identity is a complex event, neither substance nor concept, but a subjective feeling: the sense of self. Freud speaks of identity as to an obscure identity of being. The author proposes the model of two identities: the primary sense of self and the social feeling of identity. The primary identity arises from the primitive self-experience, which the subject experiences in his own body. It is the basis on which psychic life rests in the work of forming symbolic identity. The vicissitudes of identity, in the course of historical development, encounter blocks and failures. In situations of failure, the feeling of identity remains locked in a narcissistic enclave. This enclosure generates identity disorders and the rejection of otherness.
KEYWORDS: Bodily self-experience, identity hatred, mirroring, primary sense of self, social recognition.