Luigi Antonello Armando | Istituto Universitario Orientale, Napoli, Italy (original) (raw)

Papers by Luigi Antonello Armando

PSICOTERAPIA E SCIENZE UMANE, 2013

A L’interpretazione dei sogni di Freud (1899) viene attribuito il merito di avere ridestato l’int... more A L’interpretazione dei sogni di Freud (1899) viene attribuito il merito di avere ridestato l’interesse per i sogni in quanto espressioni della realta psichica e via regia alla sua conoscenza. Piu di cento anni dopo, un romanziere giapponese (Haruki Murakami) prospetta il rischio di una scomparsa dei sogni che porta con se quella della realta psichica e del mondo umano. In questo articolo l’Autore si interroga sulla realta di tale rischio. A tal fine rilegge il testo di Freud del 1899 - che sembra offrire la maggior garanzia contro di esso - storicizzandolo, ovvero cercando di definire il posto che occupa nella storia dell’interesse per i sogni e nella storia personale di Freud. Conclude che, contrariamente all’apparenza, proprio quel testo avvicina il rischio prospettato dal romanziere giapponese; lo porta anche a sostenere che la responsabilita di evitarlo dalla quale e investito l’interprete assume oggi la forma di una separazione da quel testo e in generale dal riconoscimento della realta storica di Freud e dallo stabilimento di un esatto rapporto con essa.

Ricerca psicoanalitica, Apr 10, 2024

Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane, 2015

Immediately after the International Congress of Psychoanalysis held in Rome in 1969, a heated deb... more Immediately after the International Congress of Psychoanalysis held in Rome in 1969, a heated debate opened in the Institute of Psychoanalysis in Rome regarding the problem of training psychoanalysts and the relationship of psychoanalysis to society. The essay reconstructs the unfolding of this debate up to its outcome, including in relation to the better-known events of the "Counter-Congress" organized by Fachinelli and others.

Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane, 2023

«And Brutus is an honorable man» (Shakespeare [1599], Giulio Cesare) * Per recensioni, segnalazio... more «And Brutus is an honorable man» (Shakespeare [1599], Giulio Cesare) * Per recensioni, segnalazioni e libri da inviare: Andrea Castiello d'Antonio, Viale Pinturicchio 58, 00196 Roma, e-mail <casti.a@tiscali.it>. Istruzioni per i collaboratori della rubrica "Recensioni": pagina Internet www.psicoterapiaescienzeumane.it/recensioni.htm.

cahiers du Cinéma, 2023

Publié le 14 avril 2023 par La rédactionde Cahiers du Cinéma Nous avons reçu ce texte inédit cons... more Publié le 14 avril 2023 par La rédactionde Cahiers du Cinéma Nous avons reçu ce texte inédit consacré à Marco Bellocchio, et plus particulièrement à sa série Esterno notte. Il est signé Luigi Antonello Armando, philosophe et psychothérapeute, proche du cinéaste. Il a été membre de la Société italienne de psychanalyse, avant d'en être exclu en 1976 pour les critiques qu'il a formulées à l'encontre de la théorie de Freud et de la formation institutionnelle des psychanalystes. Il a ensuite fréquenté Massimo Fagioli, le psychiatre mentionné dans cet article, dont il s'est ensuite dissocié. Ses deux ouvrages les plus récent sont : Storicizzare Freud (Franco Angeli, Milan, 2019) et Un principe 'al tutto nuovo'. Il principe di Machiavelli e il suo segreto (Armando Editore, Roma, 2022)-indirectement liés à ces commentaires sur Esterno notte. Cette singulière étude part des rapport complexes de Bellocchio à la religion, à la psychanalyse et à la psychiatrie (notamment toute la période où il a lui-même suivi Massimo Fagioli, qui exerça pendant quelques années une grande influence sur ses films) pour proposer une lecture politicopsychanalytique d'Esterno notte, mais aussi du précédent film de Bellocchio, Marx peut attendre, très beau documentaire sur le suicide de son frère dont nous espérons qu'il connaitra bientôt une diffusion en France.

A prince «of a completely new type». On the «subject» of Machiavelli's treatise. The author maint... more A prince «of a completely new type». On the «subject» of Machiavelli's treatise. The author maintains that the subject of the treatise is the specific ideal form of a prince «totally new (al tutto nuovo)» which appears in the sixth chapter. The paper highlights the logical development thanks to which the treatise identifies that form in that chapter, distinguishes it from the existing forms of prince in chapters VII-XI, describes the process of formation of his mind, and culminates the last chapter pointing out the possibility of its realization in history.

Index. International Survey of Roman Law, 2020

Key words: machiavelli, The Prince ch.xxvi, civil equality, beginning of the human world, memory,... more Key words: machiavelli, The Prince ch.xxvi, civil equality, beginning of the human world, memory, politics of oblivion, actuality of Machiavelli

From "Storicizzare Freud", 2019

The particularity of Dora's case history doesn't only lie in her escape from what Freud presented... more The particularity of Dora's case history doesn't only lie in her escape from what Freud presented to her. It also lies in Freud's escape not only from his transfert onto her, but also from what she presented to him when she recounted to have been enchanted by Raphael's The Sistine Madonna, and when he interpreted that what she had liked of that painting was the image of a frigid woman becoming a mother by to avoid a relation with the "other". The Author maintains that Freud gave that interpretation to escape from Dora's enchantment in the same way that he had escaped from having been enchanted by other works of art of the Italian Renaissance which he encountered in his journeys to Italy. The Author also suggests that another way to understand Dora's enchantment can open new paths to psychoanalysis. [

Rivista di Psicoterapia e Psichiatria culturale, 2020

This paper approaches Machiavelli's works with respect to his correspondence and to his relations... more This paper approaches Machiavelli's works with respect to his correspondence and to his relationships with friends and women. In doing so, Machiavelli is presented in a perspective that can stimulate a critical reflection about some crucial concepts of psychoanalysis and psychiatry such as autonomy of the Ego, desire, recognition, astonishment. Cultural psychology could be understood as a discipline focused on how philosophical theories and religious doctrines shape the mind of a group of subjects and are understood by them. In this sense, to trace the development of Machiavelli's thought can be relevant to cultural psychology in so far as it enables us to assess how the author's ideas have shaped or can shape the mind of the subjects in the Western world as well as how they were and are received by them.

Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane, 2018

In 1916 Freud published an essay he wrote in 1915 (On Transience), in which he reported his attem... more In 1916 Freud published an essay he wrote in 1915 (On Transience), in which he reported his attempt to alleviate the turmoil of a young poet, commonly recognized as Rainer Maria Rilke, for his feared impending "end of all things", that is, for the disappearance of all the beauty of nature and art. It is argued that Freud's attempt failed because it was founded on a misunderstanding of the meaning of poet's turmoil, and suggested that its recognition can be of advantage to psychoanalytic research. [

pongono l'inizio del delirio in genere in un distacco dalla realtà e ricordano i criteri fissati ... more pongono l'inizio del delirio in genere in un distacco dalla realtà e ricordano i criteri fissati dalla psichiatria classica per riconoscerlo: falsità, certezza, immodificabilità e privatezza. Ricordano poi come la psichiatria culturale sia pervenuta a riconoscere un delirio che ha quelle tre prime caratteristiche ma non la quarta essendo condiviso da un gruppo più o meno ampio di persone e lo abbia denominato " delirio culturale " ; ricordano infine come quella psichiatria si sia inizialmente volta a riconoscere tale deliro in culture diverse e distanti dalla sua per poi passare in anni recenti a riconoscerne la presenza anche nella propria cultura. Su queste premesse i due autori compiono un ulteriore coraggioso passo: in modo più deciso ed esplicito di quanto abbiano fatto altri includono nel concetto di delirio culturale le idee religiose, comprese appunto quelle attive nella loro cultura. In questo scritto presenterò un caso che conferma e illustra il loro discorso, ne evidenzia il potenziale ermeneutico e può favorirne uno sviluppo. Abstract. John Dewey's concept of democracy: an example of cultural delusion? According to Classical Psychiatry, delusions are characterized by falsity, certainty, unreliability and privacy. According to Cultural Psychiatry there exist delusions which present those first three characters, but non the fourth one in so much they are shared by a less or large number of individuals. That Psychiatry has given to these delusions the name of " cultural delusions ". It has advanced the hypothesis that they are present not only in other cultures but also in our one, and that they include some asserts of the monotheistic religions. This paper deals with a case which confirms this hypothesis, shows its hermeneutic potential and can favor its development.

Abstract. The author points out the presence in Freud’s itinerary of a trauma which is not that o... more Abstract. The author points out the presence in Freud’s itinerary of a trauma which is not that one of his
seduction theory, neither that one of his repression theory; it is that one he lived when he met with what he
called the “absolute beauty” of some works of art of the Italian Renaissance. The author points out also the strict
consequentiality between this trauma and the formulation of the Oedipus complex paradigm. On this ground,
the author suggests that the formulation of this paradigm and its declinations in Freud’s self-analysis constitute
a defensive construction which Freud carried out against the trauma which he lived when he met with that
beauty. It is also suggested that this defensive construction is a moment of the history of the rejecting reaction
against that beauty which began immediately after its appearance. The author finally hints at a definition of the
concept of trauma in general and of the ontological and historical meaning of psychotherapy. [KEY WORDS:
trauma, art, beauty, Oedipus complex, auto-analysis]

Abstract. The author points out the presence in Freud’s itinerary of a trauma which is not that o... more Abstract. The author points out the presence in Freud’s itinerary of a trauma which is not that
one of his seduction theory, neither that one of his repression theory; it is that one he lived
when he met with what he called the “absolute beauty” of some works of art of the Italian Renaissance.
The author points out also the strict consequentiality between this trauma and the
formulation of the Oedipus complex paradigm. On this ground, the author suggests that the formulation
of this paradigm and its declinations in Freud’s self-analysis constitute a defensive
construction which Freud carried out against the trauma which he lived when he met with that
beauty. It is also suggested that this defensive construction is a moment of the history of the
rejecting reaction against that beauty which began immediately after its appearance. The author
finally hints at a definition of the concept of trauma in general and of the ontological and historical
meaning of psychotherapy. [KEY WORDS: trauma, art, beauty, Oedipus complex, selfanalysis]

Key Words: Drury, Kojéve, Strauss, Freud, Machiavelli, Natural Law, Methaphysics of Terror, Chris... more Key Words: Drury, Kojéve, Strauss, Freud, Machiavelli, Natural Law, Methaphysics of Terror, Christianity, Islam

Summary. DREAM AS DAILY TRAUMA, AND THE INTERPRETER’S RESPONSIBILITY. A REREADING OF FREUD’S THE... more Summary. DREAM AS DAILY TRAUMA, AND THE INTERPRETER’S RESPONSIBILITY.
A REREADING OF FREUD’S THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS. Freud’s The Interpretation
of Dreams (1900) has been considered the book that has reawaken the interest for
dreams as manifestations of psychic reality and as the royal road to its knowledge. One hundred
years later, a Japanese writer (Haruki Murakami) points out the risk that dreams disappear together
with the disappearance of psychic reality and of human world as well. The Author of this
paper reflects on the actuality of this risk. To this purpose, he rereads Freud’s 1900 book –
which seems to warrant against this risk – historicizing it, i.e., trying to understand its place in
the history of the interest toward dreams and in Freud’s personal history. The Author concludes
that, against the appearance, Freud’s 1900 book draws nearer the risk pointed out by the Japanese
writer. He also concludes that, in order to avoid that risk, the interpreter’s responsibility
must assume today the form of a separation from that book, of a recognition of Freud’s historical
reality, and of a correct relation with this reality. [KEY WORDS: dream, novelty, psychic
reality, Freud’s historical reality, interpreter’s responsibility]

Summary. «AN EXTREME DESIRE OF MINE»: THE THEME OF RECOGNITION IN THE LETTERS, WORKS AND LIFE OF... more Summary. «AN EXTREME DESIRE OF MINE»: THE THEME OF RECOGNITION IN THE
LETTERS, WORKS AND LIFE OF NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI. Psychology, psychoanalysis,
and psychiatry have shown interest in many personalities of the past, but no one in Niccolò Machiavelli
(1469-1527), notwithstanding the richness of his anthropology. This paper tries to fill
this gap. It approaches Machiavelli’s works in strict connection with his correspondence and
with the development of his relationships with friends and women. In so doing, it delineates an
image of Machiavelli which is somewhat different from the current one. This image can suggest
a critical reflection about some crucial concepts of the above mentioned disciplines of psychology,
psychoanalysis, and psychiatry. [KEY WORDS: Machiavelli, autonomy of the ego, desire,
recognition, “vague beauty” and history, terror versus astonishment]

Leo Strauss’s political philosophy is an attempt to alleviate the anxiety about the end of the wo... more Leo Strauss’s political philosophy is an attempt to alleviate the anxiety about the end of the world, which arose during World War I and increased with World War II. The core of his political philosophy is the critic of Machiavelli which he proposes in his 1958 book Thoughts on Machiavelli. He maintains that Machiavelli shared with Classical and Judeo-Christian culture the idea that at the beginning of the human world there was terror and that the permanence of that world is assured by beliefs founded on terror. He maintains also that Classical and Judeo-Christian culture was aware of the illusiveness of those beliefs, but kept silent about it, and that the novelty of Machiavelli’s thought consists exclusively in his betrayal of its silence: according to Strauss, Machiavelli’s revelation of that illusiveness initiated modernity and lead to nihilism, relativism and to the end of the human world. Strauss maintains finally that Machiavelli’s thought, as he has interpreted it, is very near to Freud’s thought. Comparing the critic of Strauss with Machiavelli’s texts, this paper shows that, according the latter, at the beginning of human world there is not terror, but a feeling which Machiavelli calls ‘sbigottimento’ a word which in this paper is translated with ‘astonishment’. The paper shows also that Machiavelli considers this feeling as the condition of a dialectics of recognition different from the Hegel’s – which is at the root of Lacan’s thought. The author suggests that remembering the presence of Machiavelli’s way in western culture to conceive the beginning of the human world can be the precondition for conceiving society, psychotherapy and the continuity of the human world in a way that differs not only from Strauss’s, but also from Freud’s and Lacan’s.

Summary. Freud start writing Das Unheimliche (The uncanny, 1919) while he was writing Totem und T... more Summary. Freud start writing Das Unheimliche (The uncanny, 1919) while he was writing Totem und Tabu and concluded it interrupting his writing of Jenzeit der Lustprinzip. The Author takes this fact for reading Das Unheimliche as a chapter of a larger work, whose other chapters are the two over mentioned works and those on Leonardo and on Michleangelo published in 1910 and in 1914. He consider Das Unheimliche as the expression of Freud’s attempt to overcome an obstacle which prevented him to enunciate the law of repetition: that one rising from the experience he had of the works of art of Italian Renaissance and of their opening the internal space of uncertainty. The A. also maintains that the significance of Freud’s work for present time is in the result of that attempt. [KEY WORDS: uncanny, terror, art, new, uncertainty]

PSICOTERAPIA E SCIENZE UMANE, 2013

Ricerca psicoanalitica, Apr 10, 2024

Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane, 2015

Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane, 2023

cahiers du Cinéma, 2023

Index. International Survey of Roman Law, 2020

From "Storicizzare Freud", 2019

Rivista di Psicoterapia e Psichiatria culturale, 2020

Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane, 2018

Abstract. The author points out the presence in Freud’s itinerary of a trauma which is not that o... more Abstract. The author points out the presence in Freud’s itinerary of a trauma which is not that
one of his seduction theory, neither that one of his repression theory; it is that one he lived
when he met with what he called the “absolute beauty” of some works of art of the Italian Renaissance.
The author points out also the strict consequentiality between this trauma and the
formulation of the Oedipus complex paradigm. On this ground, the author suggests that the formulation
of this paradigm and its declinations in Freud’s self-analysis constitute a defensive
construction which Freud carried out against the trauma which he lived when he met with that
beauty. It is also suggested that this defensive construction is a moment of the history of the
rejecting reaction against that beauty which began immediately after its appearance. The author
finally hints at a definition of the concept of trauma in general and of the ontological and historical
meaning of psychotherapy. [KEY WORDS: trauma, art, beauty, Oedipus complex, selfanalysis]

The forgotten trauma is primarily addressed to those who are preparing to practice as psychoanaly... more The forgotten trauma is primarily addressed to those who are preparing to practice as psychoanalysts or psychotherapists and to those who are looking for an answer to the crisis of psychoanalysis highlighted by two phenomena: the failure of the psychoanalytic Institution in rethinking a training which has been said to paralyze the mind; and the fragmentation of psychoanalysis in many currents leading to the dissolution of its identity. The Authors maintain that it is necessary to inquire if the premises of these two phenomena are already present in Freud’s theory and in what he considered as his main discovery: the formulation, in 1897, of the Oedipus complex which he employed as the interpretative paradigm of the dreams in his 1899 book.
The psychoanalysts have conducted this inquiry swinging between the reconfirmation of that formulation and its partial or complete rejection. This book follows a different and new path. It does not try to assess if that formulation is scientifically valid or not, but to identify its “historic reality” – that is, its function in the context of Freud’s personal history considered in the context of a history which began in the transition from the XV to the XVI century.
The Authors ground themselves in the dissatisfaction first manifested by Freud with that formulation . They conclude that it corresponds to Freud’s reaction to a trauma; the one which he went through when he encountered a culture which appeared in that transition and which did not conceive of psychic reality as only the mixture of sexuality and death codified by that formulation. However, the latter is not conceived of in this book as regarding Freud’s privacy, but as the moment in which the history of the reaction to that culture reaches the point to directly hit dreams.
Freud and the psychoanalysts have forgotten that trauma. The Authors start from finding it again to
rethink the training of psychoanalysts and of psychotherapists;
to confer to psychoanalysis a new identity;
and to outline a technique which allows to search in dreams meanings not predefined by the Freudian paradigm. But they intend also to preserve dreams, which are the main expression of human freedom, from the tyrannical intent to discipline them by subjecting them to that paradigm.

Key Words: Machiavelli, Vettori, Guicciaradini, Machiavelli and the Women, Machivelli's actuality

they are linked by her interest in the history of sexuality to which she has devoted several book... more they are linked by her interest in the history of sexuality to which she has devoted several books. Therefore, it is not surprising if she has come to deal with the thinker who, at the beginning of the last century, brought into the open the " fantasies " and the feelings of human beings regarding sex and has deeply influenced the ways of the West to conceive and to live sexuality. In dealing with him, she situates herself in the context of the " New Studies " on Freud which started after the opening of Freud's Archives thanks to which not only psychoanalysts, but also historians turned themselves to the study of Freud and of the history of psychoanalysis. She maintains that this fact produced a change in the historiography on psychoanalysis and declares that her contribution to it presents two peculiarities. First, the assumption of the events of the history of psychoanalysis following the end of the Second World War as a mirror in which the events of the social and intellectual history of that period are reflected: according to her, the study of the psychoanalytic literature of that period allows to trace «a history of the vicissitudes of human nature, culture, politics, and sexuality» (p. 17). Second, the clarification of how, in the course of the history of psychoanalysis, «the practitioners and proponents of psychoanalysis have also, in the movement's long and strange career, generated a set of conceptual tools that remain potentially quite useful for critical political and cultural analysis» (ibid.) She proceeds in two complementary directions in order to give this peculiar contribution to the change mentioned above. The first one consists in representing the positions of psychoanalysis with regard to some phenomena of the post Second World War period: the opposition to the Vietnam war and to the South American dictatorships; the movements for women's and gay rights; the sexual revolution of the Seventies; the heredities of Holocaust and of Nazism; the revival of institutionalized religions;