A chi vanno raccontati i sogni? in Giornale Storico del Centro Studi di Psicologia e Letteratura, nr 3, 2006

Televisione, in Giornale Storico del Centro Studi di Psicologia e Letteratura, nr 4, 2007

The medium is the message. With television, the viewer is the screen. Television is the most spectacular extension of our central nervous system. This well-known concept of McLuhan’s is here examined in the light of religion (Genesis, orphic mythology, the Gospel according to St. John, the cabalist Luria), philosophy (Democritus, Aristotle, Al Kindi, Ibn Arabi), and psychoanalysis. The attempt here being establishing the significance of “seeing”, “medium”, and “screen”, concepts which retain something of the unforeseen, the unexpected. As regards “seeing”, reference is made to two poets fairly representative of Western tradition -- Cavalcanti and Wordsworth, and the classic work of the latter, “I wandered lonely as a cloud”, is analyzed. As regards the “medium”, attention is focused on the studies of Bergson of the Aristotelian concept of “place”. And, finally, as regards “screen”, the psychoanalytical constructions of “setting” and “dream screen” are redefined. The result of this re-visitation is the paradox of a place, the medium of television, which precedes the homo videns. And it is that paradox which constitutes the fulcrum, or heart, of this article.

Wittgenstein’s statement that philosophy attempts to discover the liberating word (das erlösende Wort) – that is, the word which permits us finally to conceive or comprehend that which has up to then weighed, ever elusive, on our consciousness – constitutes the leit motif of this article. That concept is commented on and interpreted in the light of what occurs in the analytical setting and in relation to the existing relationships between philosophy, psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. The psychotherapist, no less than the philosopher, attempts to discover the word which liberates. It is a matter of establishing what the object of that liberation is. What does the liberating word liberate? That word liberates place. But how does this occur? By transcending confines. The article then places in discussion the opacity of the term consciousness itself, both as it appears in Wittgenstein’s text, as well as its consideration in psychoanalysis. Thus, the liberating word liberates consciousness, while remaining however within consciousness. Finally, on the basis of Heidegger’s consideration, Wittgenstein’s statement contributes to liberating the sense of the choice made in Freud’s time to call the new discipline he invented “psychoanalysis”.

Mitoletteratura dell'oggetto di valore, in Giornale Storico del Centro Studi di Psicologia e Letteratura, nr 7, 2008

This article addresses the subject of image, signifier and object of value. Before money, there is value and an object which signifies it, creating a trajectory. The Anima, as Xenocrates asserts, is the number which moves autonomously and the images are its signifiers. The objects of value are here re-examined in their two-fold nature, correlated in particular in mythology and literature. Protagonists here become tripods and rings, necklaces, and golden apples, shields and veils, and embroidered handkerchiefs, crosses and angels, gardens and enchanted castles, forests and powerful cities, the Graal and ivory, Helen and Homer, Aeneas and Virgil, Jerusalem, Othello and Shakespeare, Leander and Rotrou, Kurtz and Conrad. The objects signify value following an inexorable path of trajectories not endowed with a real subject. On the one hand, the trajectories meander -- for the most part unnoticed, unrecognizable, and precisely for this reason even more disseminators of effects -- from a supposed origin not necessarily a precedence, and a dead supposition not necessarily implicit of an end. An excellent metaphor, this, of the practice of analysis, in the sense that it illuminates what occurs in the analytical setting: a défilé of numbers which move autonomously.

Intuizione, intenzione, inspirazione, insetting, in Giornale Storico del Centro Studi di Psicologia e Letteratura, nr 8, 2009

A discourse on art could be compared to a discourse on psychotherapy. Thus said, the logical conclusion would be that it is also a discourse on the intuition, inspiration and intention with which the therapeutic setting is imbued, and which invisibly guide both patient and therapist. By the term ‘insetting’ -- introduced in this discourse – is meant the superimposition of one space over another, the insetting space over the space of the setting. That superimposition, which produces the contentment of doing analysis, is placed in relation on the one hand to elements of psychoanalysis (synchronism, transcendent function), and on the other to Heidegger’s approach to art. While for the philosopher the World is based on the Earth and the Earth emerges through the World, for the psychotherapist the setting is based on the insetting and the insetting arises from the setting. Psychologists and philosophers apart, however, it is writers and -- in particular, poets -- who guide the discourse on intuition, intention, inspiration and insetting, beginning with their reflections on the creation of art.

Sanguanalisi, in Giornale Storico del Centro Studi di Psicologia e Letteratura, nr 9, 2009

The history of psychoanalysis is re-examined in this article in the context of the substance, metaphor and mythology of blood. Seven kinds of transfusion of the analytical blood from one generation to another are illustrated: first of all, initial blood, the family saga, from the dawn of analysis; second, single blood, i.e., the analysts not descended from other analysts – in other words, un-analyzed analysts; third, dual blood, the coniunctiones between analysts; fourth, quadruple blood, the maze of analytical relationships; fifth, suicide blood, analysts who take their own lives; sixth, migrant blood, analysts who go abroad; and seventh, blissful blood, the final destination – the will to create new progeny.

Death before Death, Death where Love reigns

Morire prima di morire, morire dove regna Amore, in Giornale Storico del Cenro Studi di Psicologia e Letteratura, nr 10, 2010

The experience of death will have a sense if it is comprehended during life, and not only at its conclusion. For the tragic hero, that comprehension coincides with the final exit, and examples of this can be found in the works of Shakespeare and in Conrad’s character, Kurtz, who at the end of his existence – initially, an idealist, and finally a cruel profiteer and possibly a cannibal – would appear to have comprehended the significance of (or lack of) his own life and that of western colonialism when he cries out: “the horror, the horror!” A similar reaction occurs when the Ego is confronted with death. The Ego is horrified by that confrontation and attempts to avoid it at any cost. It attempts to avoid it because the nature of death is perceived as final, and that finality is unbearable. The Ego is, by nature, unable to understand that death in itself does not know finality. It is not however with tragic heroes that this article deals. Rather, it is a search for a time or a state in which death can occur during life. Love is one of these times or states; although there are others. The point here is to understand that death is not anchored to one terminal point in life, but can be experienced in many forms during it. It is, in other words, a question of other forms of dying before death.

L’astuzia dell’Anima: peccare per non sapere, in Giornale Storico del Cenro Studi di Psicologia e Letteratura, nr 11, 2010

What could be considered sin par excellence? According to traditional Christian theology, it would be that of agnosìa, a term often used by the Gnostics, meaning an unconscious or unwitting state. During the early Christian era, the Gnostics stigmatized that condition in the Christians. Jung later took up the Gnostic view in electing consciousness as the aim of each human being. However, it is precisely in the process of achieving this aim that the seeds of a lethal paradox ripen. During that process of becoming conscious there is a masked, malign intent of subtraction of the world, and if that subtraction is not fully realized it will be due to an astuteness of the Anima.

What is new about the Liber Novus?

Cos’è nuovo nel Liber Novus?, in Giornale Storico del Cenro Studi di Psicologia e Letteratura, nr 12, 2011

The term new is recurrent in the opus of the Gnostic master Marcione, as we are reminded by Harnack in relation to the revolution of Luther. Against Marcione, against his and others’ gnosticism, Christians protested and prevailed with their New Testament. Nietzsche, in his turn, speaks of new praxis, new men (the extraordinary men for whom everything is a game), of new beings, of the necessity of forming a new class, of the tree which is perennially new and also a new psychologist. Who is the new psychologist thought of by Nietzsche? The psychoanalyst, we are led to think, even though Nietzsche could not be aware of this. In fact, Ferenczi called psychoanalysis new psychology. Also, while on the heels of the long-lived influence of Gioacchino da Fiore the advent of a new age of the spirit was possible, Neumann conceived of a new ethic corresponding to this new age. However, in the end, exactly what did the Gnostics, Christians, Nietzsche, the psychoanalysts and Jung actually intend by new? And, above all: what is new in the Liber Novus?

The Pleroma and the Anima

Il Pleroma e l'Anima, in Giornale Storico del Cenro Studi di Psicologia e Letteratura, nr 13, 2011

The pleroma is a world made up of gods and at the same time a projection of the Anima. Access to that world is through visions and dreams, a process familiar to the great founders of religions, Paul, Valentinus, Mani. There are appointed spaces for the encounter with divine beings, appointed spaces for visions. What occurs there is that the world of the Anima, the world suspended from imaginary forms, superimposes the terrestrial world. During that overlapping, albeit instantaneous, the Ego is contracted, the consciousness unfolds and the encounter takes place. It is not, however, so much a spiritual experience, as an experience desired by the Anima; the encounter with the gods, angels and demons is a gift of the Anima.

Men Who Kill Women

Uomini che uccidono donne, in Giornale Storico del Cenro Studi di Psicologia e Letteratura, nr 14, 2012

Men who kill women are borne of women. Consequently, the killing of women would appear to be a circular celebration of a female mystery – a mystery quite similar to the myth of Genesis in which Eve, the first woman, was produced from a rib of Adam, the first man. Rank, in his time, had already reversed that myth by sustaining that it is a case of a mother (Eve) and a son (Adam) and consequently also of incest at the origin of the history of humanity. This article deals with the process through which the above progressed to the male killing of women. Here, the question is an excess of female desire in contrast to the constitutional incapacity of the male to embrace it. Killing women can signify the extreme act which, if only imaginarily, permits a male to resolve the unbearable nature of that excess.

Hermes and Hillmanalysis

Hermes e l'hillmanalisi, in Giornale Storico del Cenro Studi di Psicologia e Letteratura, nr 15, 2012

Hillman did not write a manual on the technique of psychoanalysis. Nor did Freud, Adler, Jung or Lacan. Does this then mean that they avoided discussing it? Can anyone writing on psychoanalysis avoid a discourse on analytical technique? That technique is a well-kept secret – a knowledge not to be shared with just anyone. How then does one acquire an “ars analytica”? How is it possible to acquire an “ars” from the writings of Hillman if he does not mention it? The answer to this is simple: it is acquired in the shadow of the god Hermes, the god of the occult arts, but also the thief god. And it is learned also from the other, the assumed custodian of the secret, despite the other; that is, as Lacan tells us, doing without the other in order to learn from the same.

Trans

Trans, in Giornale Storico del Cenro Studi di Psicologia e Letteratura, nr 16, 2013

A paradox is at the basis of this article. On the one hand, the global crisis is related to an inherent incapacity of human beings to accept the concept of death, which results in their becoming absolutely incapacitated when confronted with their own death. Conversely, however, should this ars moriendi eventually be mastered, the world would lose consistence, become liquid and would in short end up being liquidated. Consequently, as that ars moriendi is precisely what is ideally mastered in analysis, it only follows that analysis should move through crisis and in the direction of an end. In conclusion, the art of dying which is learned in analysis is the ars which its possessors do not carry out into the world. The world exists precisely in virtue of that crisis which is consubstantial. The crisis is overcome by its being experienced, and only thus, and therefore only fostering subsequent crises.