02 frontespizio

Richard e Piggle
Studi psicoanalitici del bambino e dell’adolescente
Four-monthly Journal ofPsychoanalytic Studies of the Child and the Adolescent Contents & abstracts
Focus
Between soma and psyche: the passage from the latency period to the puberty
G. Bruno and L. Tabanelli, Introduction. Richard & Piggle, 16, 1, 2008, 1-3.
M. Sapio, Between the “Not any more” and the “Not yet”: the Enigmatic Unfolding
between the Latency Period and Adolescence. Richard & Piggle, 16, 1, 2008, 4-20.
The scarcity of publications covering the passage from the late latency period to the peripu-bertal and preadolescent phase is surprising, given the frequency of requests for consultationand psychotherapy and the fact that it is a crucial passage, as is revealed après coup duringthe psychotherapy of older patients. After a theoretical exposition of recent contributions byFrench psychoanalysts who have grasped the interrelation between the latency period and theprocess of adolescence (Green, Gutton and Marty) as well as a specific mental functioninglabelled “silly” (Denis et al.), the author turns to consider the passage’s clinical expressions:recourse to perception and what is bodily and changes in the transference/counter-transfer-ence relationship. Lastly, she emphasises specific qualities and tasks that are required of thetherapist in the service of this delicate passage and how his/her functions as silent witnessand supporter of self experiences (and thus guarantor of a potential psychic meaning) becomepre-eminent.
D. Lucarelli, Before the Storm? Prepuberty: Psychical Problems and a Clinical
Approach. Richard & Piggle, 16, 1, 2008, 21-39.
The author proposes a reading of the first three Harry Potter novels by J.K. Rowling as arich metaphor for the phantasies, anxieties and desires that animate preadolescence.
Occurring between puberty and adolescence without clear delimitations, this developmentalphase is characterised by the widespread anxiety linked to the psychic adjustment thataccompanies the first transformations of puberty. The world of Harry Potter and his com-panions accurately represents the complex psychological and developmental facets of thechronological period encompassing the years preceding puberty. The article ends by consid-ering the clinical approach with boys and girls during this phase, since it poses specific prob-lems of technique.
L. Baldassarre, Emerging Puberty in a Fragile Self: the Short Clinical History of an
Eleven-year-old Patient. Richard & Piggle, 16, 1, 2008, 40-52.
The author reports the prematurely interrupted psychotherapy of an eleven-year-old patientsuffering from a serious stammer. The clinical material highlights his difficulties in integrat-ing his aggressive and libidinal impulses (brought back into play by the onset of puberty) butalso the disappearance of the symptoms despite the brevity of the therapy. The author linksthe symptomatology also present in the patient both during infancy and the latency periodand connects them to the emerging processes of impending puberty.
C. Cirnigliaro and G. Terziani, The Use of Day-dreaming as a Defensive Form of
Behaviour during the Passage from the Latency period to Puberty. Richard & Piggle,
16, 1, 2008, 53-65.
Adopting both a theoretical and a clinical perspective, the authors explore the use of day-dreaming as a defensive form of behaviour aimed at affording protection against the specificanxieties arising during pubertal development. Indeed, whilst already active during the laten-cy period, day-dreaming can acquire a different value during puberty, undergoing a variationin its use in order to avoid the psychic work proper to this (pubertal) phase of development.
After a brief theoretical definition of day-dreaming as understood by Winnicott, the authorsconsider its defensive use in a developmental light through the presentation of two clinicalcases.
G. Valvo, Nolan: from Survivor to Footballer. Richard & Piggle, 16, 1, 2008, 66-73.
The author relates the clinical material regarding an adopted child’s psychotherapy, showinghow the failure to work through very early traumata can make entry into the latency periodand the emergence of puberty-related themes more difficult for a patient. The latency period’stask of reorganizing relations with the internal and external world seems, at times, to riskheightening vulnerability in the Self: being unable to count on a real, emotional and affectivematurity, the latter is not fully equipped for the activation of new ways of functioning. Theauthor emphasises how, during some phases of the therapeutic relationship, the reawakeningof basic integration processes may induce an exaggerated regression but also how the experi-ence of facing new developmental tasks can hinder the blossoming of new representations ofthe Self. The need for recognition of skill in play as an attempt to recover narcissistic invest-ment but also as the search for a life-giving object seems to have provided a new possibilityfor building up the therapeutic relationship, thereby allowing other themes to be tackled.
L. Usai, From the Physical Boundary-line to the Psychic One: Corporeity and
Transformative Potential in the Therapeutic Relationship. Richard & Piggle, 16, 1,
2008, 74-81.
The article is the clinical account of the first phase in the analysis of a ten-year-old girlreferred for psychotherapy for a form of intellectual inhibition. During treatment, the youngpatient gradually becomes capable of perceiving that she has both a real body (with an insideable to hold and protect its own contents) and a psychic world, equipped with boundaries andable to block the incursions of an external world perceived as being highly threatening. In thisprocess, the analyst’s pregnancy during the third year of therapy provides the patient with the possibility of finding a concrete anchorage both for phantasies about her budding femininityand for those about adult sexuality (which were already active although mainly unconscious).
Her bodily changes and the great quantity of energy mobilised (characteristic of this develop-mental phase and initially experienced with anxiety) are thus placed at the service of growthand an ever-increasing activation of her cognitive and self-reflective capacities.
Clinical reflections
C. Migliori and R. Roseghini, Winnicott’s Setting with Adolescents. Richard & Piggle, 16,
1, 2008, 82-99.
The authors reflect on masculine and feminine elements of the Winnicottian meaning of beingand doing: the integration of these elements is essential to the construction of personal iden-tity and gender identity in adolescents. Through analysis of a case treated by Winnicott, theauthors concentrate, in particular, on his modulation of these two elements in the therapeu-tic relationship for the purposes of highlighting and then integrating them. His way of work-ing oscillates between presenting himself as a subjective object and an objective one, the basesof being and doing.
Book Reviews
Contents & abstracts
Direttore responsabile: Dott. Francesco De Fiore Iscritto al Registro del Tribunale di Roma, n. 650/92 del 12.12.92 Stampato dalla Tipolitografia Quattroventi snc - Via A. del Castagno, 196 - Roma

Source: http://www.richardepiggle.it/allegati/00351_2008_01/fulltext/10_abstracts.pdf