The Adventures of the Unconscious: A Cultural History of Psychoanalysis in Italy, 1920-1940s Open Access
Pasqualini, Mauro (2012)
Published
Abstract
The thesis studies the history of psychoanalysis in Italy during the interwar period (c.1920-1940s). The first part (chapters one and two) focuses on the psychoanalytic movement (chapter one) and the professions of psychiatry and psychology (chapter two). The second part (chapters three and four) focuses on the circulation of psychoanalytic notions as well as responses to psychoanalysis in literature and culture more broadly.
Chapter one contends that ideas of a strong dichotomy or antagonism between Fascism and the psychoanalytic movement are exaggerated and simplistic. While showing how some psychoanalysts were sympathetic toward Fascism or willing to shape psychoanalytic ideas in forms that could make them interesting for the regime, it points to the anti-Semitic legislation of the late 1930s as the main reason why Fascism destroyed the psychoanalytic initiatives that had emerged during the previous years.
Chapter two focuses on the professions of psychology and psychiatry. The chapter shows important profession builders within the world of psychiatry and psychology sought to integrate psychoanalysis. By so doing, it contends that Italian psychiatry and psychology could not incorporate psychoanalysis more intimately because they were institutionally weak. They could not get the resources and confidence from society that a psychoanalytic orientation of any such profession requires.
Chapter three focuses on debates around the modern novel among Italian writers and critics. These debates were crucial for shaping the reception and perception of psychoanalysis as a cultural current in interwar Italy. Some writers' reflections on psychoanalysis, in fact, were intimately linked to their ideas about the narrative genre. The chapter also shows that literary realism and perceptions of generational change emerging in the early 1930s were central for promoting psychoanalysis as a cultural contemporary trend.
In chapter four I focus on the Triestine writer Italo Svevo (1861-1928) and his appropriation of psychoanalysis. I show that Svevo's ideas on the issue were significantly shaped by his perception of the main political changes impacting Trieste in the post-war period. Through a close reading of Svevo's fiction pieces - among other documents - I show the specific concerns that guided his reading of Freud.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Introduction...1
Chapter One: Psychoanalysis Before and During Fascism, 1900-1938...20
Chapter Two: Integrating, Filtering, and Sanitizing: Psychoanalysis and the "Psy" disciplines, 1914-1945...70
Chapter Three: Psychoanalysis, the Novel, and the Politics of Realism...127
Chapter Four: "Why Cure our Disease?" Psychoanalysis and the Nation in Italo Svevo's Life and Writings...186
Conclusion...293
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