Reflections on Our Changing Field with Stefano Bolognini, MD (Bologna)
Psychoanalysis On and Off the Couch
Reflections on Personal Care and Relational Investment
This chapter explores the shift towards individual-focused personal care practices and their implications for relationships. Through a personal experience at a car wash, it critiques society's growing emphasis on narcissism while emphasizing the value of interpersonal connections.
“When we reconstruct [in a patient] a possible lacking object or role or function, we see that if the analyst himself has been able and the patient allowing him to be able to enter to a deep level the objective reality of the internal world of the patient, it can happen that some new function or position can be achieved. This is something that could be rare but it happens. This is one more reason for not blaming the length of some analytic treatments, because time is needed for entering that internal deep area where the analytic relation can create something new. Transformation is also one of the words that in our analytic world became more and more common and utilized because we have achieved the certainty that there can be a transformation. Not only an understanding or a clarification, but also a transformation of the quality of the objective world and of the relation with it.”
Episode Description: We begin by describing the differences in psychoanalytic approaches today as compared to past generations. This shift has occurred alongside changes in patients' concerns; currently, individuals are disproportionately preoccupied with how they perceive themselves through others' eyes, rather than grappling with internal conflicts related to guilt. Stefano posits that this increased narcissistic investment stems from alterations in family structures and premature disruptions in "the physiological fusionality" with the early maternal caretaker. We discuss how this sense of distrust in the availability and reliability of caretakers affects the manner in which one introduces a patient into analysis, as well as the broader cultural emphasis on superficial bodily care - what he terms the aperitif experience. We consider the fundamental importance of the depth of object relations in understanding sexual diversities. Stefano concludes by reading the final paragraph from his book, which acknowledges the invaluable lessons learned from his analyst. We reflect on the enduring presence within him of this profoundly personal connection.
Linked Episodes: Episode 140: Are Patients Different Today? with Stefano Bolognini, MD (Bologna)
https://youtu.be/rjzpA8QZrWk?si=Srf_Tuxt0zTpsKNK
Our Guest: Stefano Bolognini, MD, is a psychiatrist and training and supervising analyst of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society (SPI), where he served as president (2009-2013). He also was an IPA Board member (2002-2012) and was IPA president from 2013-2017. He was a member of the European Editorial Board of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis and a founder of the IPA Inter-Regional Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychoanalysis. He has published over 280 psychoanalytic papers, and his books on empathy and on the inter-psychic dimension have been translated into several languages.
Recommended Readings:
Bolognini, Stefano -
Secret Passages. The Theory and Technique of the Interpsychic Relations. IPA New Library, Routledge, London, 2010
https://www.amazon.com/Vital-Between-Non-Self-Library-Psychoanalysis/dp/1032132973, Routledge, London, 2022
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21387998/ Psychoanal. Quart., vol. LXXX, 1, 33-54, 2012.
Enchantments and disenchantments in the formation and use of psychoanalytic theories about psychic reality. The Italian Psychoanalytic Annual, 13, 11-24, July 2019.
New forms of psychopathology in a changing world: a challenge for psychoanalysis in the twenty-first century. The Italian Psychoanalytic Annual, 2020.
Reflections on the institutional Family of the Analyst and proposing a “fourth Pillar” for Education. Opportunities and problems of transferal dynamics in the training pathway“. In Living and containing Psychoanalysis in Institutions. Psychoanalysts Working Together, edited by Gabriele Junkers, 89-104, Taylor & Francis, 2022.
From What to How : A Conversational with Stefano Bolognini on Emotional Attunement by Luca Nicoli & Stefano Bolognini. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 91 : 3, 443-477, 2022.
The Interpsychic, the Interpersonal, and the Intersubjective: Response to Steven H. Goldberg’s Discussion. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 91:3, 489-494, 2022.
Hidden unconscious, buried unconscious, implicit unconscious. The Italian Psychoanalytic Annual, 16, 87-102, 2022.
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