I am pleased to accept the invitation of being the editor of an Area
in PSYCHOMEDIA concerned with psychotherapy. When I started
thinking at the material I could publish in this area, soon I realized
that any attempt at selecting the documents was not easy at all. Some
pages of Robert Musil's book The Man without Qualities (1930)
came immediately to my mind. In those pages Musil, with an extraordinary
irony, makes fun of some attempts aimed at systematization of knowledge.
Musil tells us how General Stumm von Bordwehr (by no coincidence,
a military) comes up with his incredible project of writing down a
catalogue of ideas:
a sort of "big real-estate register of modern culture",
with a detailed list of every thinker and his ideas, "an attempt at
identifying the warehouses and arsenals where ideas are supplied",
starting from the idea "that is, so to speak, the highest, the first
one among all other ideas of the modern world"; everything should
be "divided into square boxes with horizontal and vertical lines,
like a flow chart or a military registry", also considering that "for
a special gift of fate every idea has its own counter-idea", because
"if someone says something, someone else says the opposite" (Robert
Musil, The Man without Qualities [1930], Vol. 1, Part II ["The
same things come back"], ch. 85 ["The efforts of General Stumm to
put some order in the brains of the bourgeoisie"], pp. 359-363
- see these pages, that I have published in this area).
Musil's acute irony was directed against the naive and grandiose
expectations of a kind of science that at the beginning of the XXth
century was rapidly expanding. But it could be very well suited also
today, particularly to the complexity of psychotherapy, a very young
"science" where many colleagues come up and say that they "finally
understand how it works", and propose general schemas, graphics, and
models.
I have chosen then a modest and open title, "Problems of psychotherapy",
in order to refer to an area in which documents of various orientations
are be published, at times even in a random order, possibly ready
to stimulate discussions. Since the different positions become clearer
if they are published together with critical comments, the documents,
whenever possible, are followed by discussions written by authors
who hold different opinions, as according to the format I had used
in the "Psychotherapy"
section of POL.it,
a journal where previously I was editing a similar area. In order
to maintain a continuity with the work previously done in that journal,
the first documents listed in this area are made of links to the documents
previously published in POL.it (these are the first ten). Then
there are the documents published in PSYCHOMEDIA, links to
debates that have taken place in discussion lists (mostly in the "Psychotherapy"
list [PM-PT], of which I am national co-owner), and links to some
of my publications that are on the Internet.
The title "Problems of psychotherapy" (with the subtitle "In search
for the 'true mechanism of action' of psychotherapy"), incidentally,
is the same title I gave to a regular column I was asked to write
since 1987 in the journal Il
Ruolo Terapeutico of Milan. I thought that it could be a good
idea to publish in this area also all my articles that appeared in
that journal, so that they could be easily available to all interested
readers. These articles cover various topics, those that all along
these years have attracted my curiosity:
Many of these articles also appear, in longer versions, in my book
Terapia psicoanalitica
(Milan: Franco Angeli, 1995). I thank Il
Ruolo Terapeutico, publisher of the journal until 1997,
and Franco Angeli
of Milan, who publishes it since 1998, for having kindly given the
permissions to reproduce this material in PSYCHOMEDIA.
Piero Porcelli (2002) - (PM, 4 February
2004)
- Un caso di vaginismo: il caso
Anna (in two parts, with comments by P. Moderato, F. Rovetto,
P. Migone et al.)
Dibattito sulla Psicoterapia
integrata
(PM-PT, Genuary-March 1998 - PM, 5 May 1999) Editing by Antonio M. Favero Discussions: Adriano Alloisio, Andrea Angelozzi, Salvo
Capodieci, Tullio Carere, Davide Cavagna, Diego Chianese, Gennaro
Esposito, Licia Filingeri, Gianmaria Galeazzi, Wilfredo Galliano,
Marco Longo, Paolo Migone, Federico Paolino, Marina Ricci, Albertina
Seta, Ileana Taddei, Emilio Vercillo, Gabriele Zanieri
Dibattito sull'articolo di M. M. Gill
"Psicoanalisi
e psicoterapia: una revisione"
(PM-PT, February-June 1999 - PM, 6 September 1999)
- Prima parte
- Seconda parte
- Terza parte Editing by Antonio M. Favero
& Paolo Migone Discussions: Adriano Alloisio, Andrea Angelozzi, Tullio
Carere, Gaetano Dell'Anna, Licia Filingeri, Wilfredo Galliano,
Tullio Garau, Gaetano Giordano, Renzo Giraldi, Marco Longo, Salvatore
Manai, Fabrizio Marcolongo, Paolo Migone, Luca Panseri, Piero
Porcelli, Ermete Ronchi, Gian Paolo Scano, Daniele Toffoletto
Dibattito su Farmaci
e psicoterapia
(PM-PT, March-April 1999 - PM, 16 September 1999; Addendum
of April-May 2000) Editing by Paolo Migone, co-owner
of PM-PT list Discussions: Fabio Canegalli, Tullio Carere, Gaetano Dell'Anna,
Gennaro Esposito, Gaetano Giordano, Giobatta Guasto, Paolo Migone,
Luca Panseri, Carlo Pasino, Piero Porcelli, Paolo Roccato, Emilio
Vercillo
Dibattito sulle Psicoterapie
brevi
(PM-PT - April 1999 - PM, 4 October 1999) Editing by Paolo Migone, co-owner
of PM-PT Discussions: Andrea Angelozzi, Daniele Cacchioni, Tullio
Carere, Gaetano Dell'Anna, Wilfredo Galliano, Gaetano Giordano,
Paolo Migone, Emilio Mordini, Fausto Radaelli, Antonio Augusto
Rizzoli, Sandro Rosseti, Gian Paolo Scano, Bruno Spinetoli
Dibattito sulla Metacognizione
(PM-PT, December 1999-February 2000 - PM, 10 May 2000) Editing by Paolo Migone, co-owner
of PM-PT Discussions: Andrea Angelozzi, Tullio Carere, Davide Cavagna,
Angelo Compare, Mario Galzigna, Anna Grazia, Fabrizio Marcolongo,
Andrea Mazzeo, Paolo Migone, Luca Panseri, Giovanni M. Ruggiero,
Gian Paolo Scano, Ileana Taddei
Dibattito sulla EMDR
(PM-PT & IPSICO, November-December 2000 - PM, 15 March 2001) Editing by Paolo Migone,
co-owner of PM-PT list Discussions: Tullio Carere, Isabel Fernandez, Marco Longo,
Gabriele Melli, Paolo Migone, Luca Panseri, Luca Pezzullo
Dibattito sul
Film di Nanni Moretti
La stanza del figlio
(PM-SMC, March-May 2001 - PM, 26 May 2001) Editing by Paolo Migone Discussions: A. Abbiate Fubini, G. Arnò, N. Artico,
S. Benvenuto, S. Capodieci, T. Carere, M. Chiola, S. Di Marco,
A. Giovannoni, P.R. Goisis, A. Grazia, A.G. Maone, M. Marchesi,
F. Marcolongo, L. Mecacci, P. Migone, D. Moro, L. Panseri, C.
Patrignani, R. Rizzitelli, G. Rossi, G.M. Ruggiero, G.P. Scano,
A. Seta, R. Valdrè
Dibattito sul Concetto
di holding (contenimento) in psicoterapia
(PM-PT, February-March 2001- PM, 15 September 2001) Editing by Luca Panseri &
Paolo Migone Discussions: Tullio Carere, Anna Ferruta, Licia Filingeri,
Gaetano Giordano, Roberto Goisis, Gianni Guasto, Marco Longo,
Paolo Migone, Luca Panseri, Maria Ponsi, Piero Porcelli
Dibattito su Come
usiamo le (quattro) psicologie? Considerazioni sull'integrazione
psicoterapeutica
(PM-PT, November 2001-January 2002 - PM, 13 March 2002) Editing by Luca Panseri &
Paolo Migone Discussions: Tullio Carere, Davide Cavagna, Paolo Cozzaglio,
Licia Filingeri, G. Giacomo Giacomini, Paolo Migone, Piero Porcelli,
Gian Paolo Scano, Pietro Spagnulo
Debate on Psychotherapy Integration:
pre-congress (2
parts: May 2001 to March 2002) and post-congress
(4 parts: March 2002 to January 2003) debates of the First SEPI-Italy
Meeting 'Integrità
e integrazione in psicoterapia', Milan, 16 March 2002
(Private List of SEPI-Italy, May 2001-July 2002 - PM, 1
March 2002 and 16 July 2002) Editing by Tullio Carere e
Paolo Migone Discussions: Giorgio G. Alberti, Sergio Benvenuto, Tullio
Carere, Giovanni Liotti, Paolo Migone, Diego Napolitani, Mario
Rossi Monti
See also the
pre-congress (Jan. to March 2006) e
post-congress (March to April 2006)
debates of the Second
SEPI-Italy
Meeting 'La pratica dell'integrazione in psicoterapia' (Florence,
March 24-26, 2006). Editing by
Tullio Carere.
Discussions: Patrizia Adami Rook, Giorgio G. Alberti,
David Allen, Mark Dworkin, Mike Basseches, Ken Benau, Sergio
Benvenuto, Tullio Carere, Tyler Carpenter, Paolo Franchini,
Zoltan Gross, Giuseppe Lago, Giovanni Liotti, Daniela Maggioni,
Andre Marquis, Paolo Migone, John Norcross, Luca Panseri, Hilde
Rapp, George Stricker, Stephan Tobin, Paul Wachtel, Chris
Wagner, Barry Wolfe, Alberto Zucconi, Allan Zuckoff
See also the "SEPI on
Science" debate held in the
SEPI
International list in March-April 2009
Migone P. & Liotti G. (1998). Psychoanalysis and cognitive-evolutionary
psychology: an attempt at integration. International Journal of
Psychoanalysis, 79, 6: 1071-1095 [with the discussion and the
review by Paul Williams published in the International Journal
of Psychoanalysis, 1999, 80, 2: 415-423] [see a review
in Spanish].
Migone P. (1999). Cenni
storici e nosografia dei disturbi psichiatrici dell'infanzia e dell'adolescenza.
In: Pancheri P. & Pfanner P., editors, Psicofarmacoterapia
dei disturbi psichiatrici dell'infanzia e dell'adolescenza. Firenze:
Scientific Press, pp. 39-73 (a version, titled "Introduzione
alla psichiatria dell'età evolutiva", appeared also in:
Pancheri P., Cassano G.B. et al., editors, Trattato Italiano
di Psichiatria, Seconda Edizione. Milano: Masson, 1999, Vol. III,
ch. 69, pp. 2680-2691).
Migone P. & Carere T., editors (2004). On
"Psychotherapy Research". Society of the Exploration of Psychotherapy
Integration (SEPI)
Forum, March-April 2004.
Migone P. (2004). La
psicoanalisi, la legge, il pubblico (Intervention at the Round
Table "Psychoanalysis and the law" held on March 14,
2004, by the Journal of European Psychoanalysis at the Società
Gruppo-Analitica Italiana (SGAI) of Milan [participants: Bice
Benvenuto, Sergio Benvenuto, Sergio Contardi, Giacomo Contri, Marco
Focchi, Giorgio Landoni, Valeria La Via, Paolo Migone, Diego Napolitani,
Paola Ronchetti, Paolo Tucci], and published in the Journal of
European Psychoanalysis, 18: 49-85; go to the Italian
edition of the Round Table)
Migone P. (2005). Discussion with Umberto Galimberti
on his book La casa di psiche. Dalla psicoanalisi alla pratica
filosofica (Milan: Feltrinelli, 2005). Program
Sumo, RAI Radio 2, Saturday Dec. 17, 2005, 6 p.m.-7.30
p.m.
Migone P. (2006). Preface
to the book by Gianni Lanari, Barbara Rossi, Pietro Adorni & Vittorio
Cei, Panico: istruzioni per l'uso. Come utilizzare "l'opportunitˆ
panico" per migliorare la propria qualitˆ di vita. Rome: Armando,
2006, pp. 11-12.