Edizioni FrancoAngeli - Last issue of RIVISTA SPERIMENTALE DI FRENIATRIA (1/2013)

Editoriale

Sat, 15 Mar 2013 8:00:00 GMT

Human sciences and the practice of democracy. From Maria Montessori to Franco Basaglia

Sat, 15 Mar 2013 8:00:00 GMT

Valeria P. Babini
This paper reflects on the life-giving quality of freedom and underlines it’s critical role in covertly connecting diverse yet significant chapters of the history of human sciences, e.g. the "remote relationship" existing between Maria Montessori and Franco Basaglia. These two intellectuals live and work in different historical periods, nonetheless they are close in content and spirit. Both represent milestones in the comprehension of the human being as an epistemological and revolutionary potential, driving force towards humanistic and democratic practices. Montessori and Basaglia follow diverse cultural and scientific itineraries but present similar thoughts. Both start from a standpoint of radical critique of the ground principles of their field of study. As a result they revisit the roots of human sciences: the concern for humanity. Their itinerary can thus be regarded as emblematic of the approach in human sciences that focuses on the crucial moment of crisis: example of an anti-reductionist and anti-absolute knowledge, constantly re-constructed and retransformed.

Georges Devereux’s epistemological approach: anxiety and method

Sat, 15 Mar 2013 8:00:00 GMT

Alessandra Cerea
Research on human behaviour, when observing an individual, observes also the observer. This research setting is the source of the observer’s main intellectual anxiety, and constitutes, according to Georges Devereux, the specificity of human sciences and the problematic core of this field of study. Due to this perspective, Devereux’s theoretical contribution goes beyond the boundaries of ethnopsychiatry. In the dialogue between quantum epistemology and Freudian epistemology, Devereux proposes a new approach, i.e. to change the focus of research from the observed to the observer. The Freudian concept of countertransference subsequently becomes the methodological criteria by which the observer’s anxiety acquires a scientific status. The observer’s anxiety, in the traditional approach, constitutes an obstacle

Giulio Alfredo Maccacaro: methodological issues. The renewal of medicine in Italy

Sat, 15 Mar 2013 8:00:00 GMT

Georges Devereux
This paper describes Giulio Alfredo Maccacaro’s involvement (from the end of World War II to the 1970’s) in the renewal of medical epistemology, and of institutional and medical practice in Italy. Maccacaro develops a critical approach to the contemporary dominant medical paradigm - rooted in internal medicine - and puts forward an alternative social and epidemiological model, based on a scientific systemic approach, open to "contamination" with other disciplines such as "the new biology", statistics, sociology and politics. His interest in psychiatry - and specifically in Franco Basaglia’s work - is in line with his prime objective: the renewal of medicine. Maccacaro promotes a scientific shift from medicine as "science of disease" to medicine as "science of life and of the human being".

The critical question of dangerousness involving psychiatry and law in Italy

Sat, 15 Mar 2013 8:00:00 GMT

Elisa Montanari
The history of Italian psychiatry is also the history of the relationship between psychiatry, law and penal jurisprudence, when dealing with criminal proceedings and detention of deviant, dangerous or delinquent individuals. The author traces the history of the relationship between these fields of study and highlights the key historical and theoretical periods in which the alleged ‘dangerousness of the mentally ill person’ appears a constant problematic element in the relationship between these disciplines. ‘Dangerousness’, until the end of World War II, constitutes a basic concept and plays a critical role in psychiatric practices. Thereafter, the new constitution of the Italian Republic (1948) introduces the concepts of dignity, freedom and democracy that inspire the renewal of Italian psychiatry and Law 180 (1978). In recent times, the concept of ‘dangerousness’ has reappeared. Law courts now consider psychiatrists responsible for controlling the dangerousness of mentally ill persons. In Italy that means controlling without the utilization of closed institutions and using exclusively treatment practices and techniques, sole competence of the medical profession. The author questions this recent development and wonders if such an evolution is congruent with the key principle of the Italian psychiatric renewal, i.e. any approach to human needs should implement the values of freedom and respect to be considered scientific and therapeutically effective.

The pedagogy of Malaguzzi. The Reggio Emilia approach

Sat, 15 Mar 2013 8:00:00 GMT

Francesco Paolella
The author describes the birth and development of infant-toddler centers in the town of Reggio Emilia (from the 1960’s to the 1970’s). This influential and complex experience flourishes thanks to the unremitting commitment of Loris Malaguzzi (1920-1994) and of the local authorities. From the start this experience concentrates on the experimental approach involving all stakeholders - teachers and other staff, families and community representatives - in the planning of the activities. The second part of the paper focuses on Malaguzzi’s training and career, and in particular on his work in the medical psycho-pedagogical center in Reggio Emilia.

Il nostro "ieri", l’"altro presente" della psichiatria italiana

Sat, 15 Mar 2013 8:00:00 GMT

Ferruccio Giacanelli

The mind as an emerging phenomenon of intentionality. The psychopathology of schizophrenia in a systemic model. Beyond the dichotomy between phenomenology and neuroscience

Sat, 15 Mar 2013 8:00:00 GMT

Pier Luca Bandinelli, Anna Maria Fiocchi, Giuseppe Ducci
The aim of this paper is to find out if the mind can be considered an emerging phenomenon of the intrinsic properties of the brain structure, product of our intentional acts, as the philosophers J. Searle and C. Dennett and phenomenological psychiatry suggested. The authors, from this perspective, examine some psychopathological aspects of nuclear schizophrenia described by Mundt and Blankenburg, including recent contributions of neuroscience, psychoanalysis and phenomenology. Finally, the authors describe an integrated systemic model that goes beyond the hiatus between natural sciences (present in neuroscience and psychoanalysis) and the science of the ‘spirit’ described by the phenomenological method, and outruns the dichotomy between "explaining" and "understanding".

Recensioni

Sat, 15 Mar 2013 8:00:00 GMT

Pietro Pascarelli