Field Theory in Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis: Understanding and Reacting to Unexpected Developments

172 Pages·2017·6.9 MB·English

by  Elena Molinari

Field Theory in Child and
Adolescent Psychoanalysis
Field Theory in Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis looks at the intersection of
two types of psychoanalysis that challenge the classic model: child analysis, and
field theory.
Children impose a faster pace on the analysis and a much less stable struc-
ture than adults, whilst psychoanalytic field theory looks at the patient-analyst
relationship in a much wider context than is typical. By combining these two
approaches, this book advocates the use of a set of tools and techniques that allow
the psychoanalyst to understand and react much faster than normal and to be bet-
ter prepared for unexpected developments. This book shows the reader how to
navigate smoothly and steadily through passages of tense analytical situations,
which might otherwise feel like being trapped in a maze with no obvious way out.
Bion’s writings allowed the improvement of new techniques or instruments for
exploring the psychoanalytical process. Discussion about technique is a hugely
important and necessary step for improving the evidence base of psychoanalytic
psychotherapy. This book also seeks to improve the research in therapeutic effec-
tiveness and unexpected relations between body and mind, emotions and dreams.
By doing so, Elena Molinari contributes to expanding the perspectives that child
and adolescent psychoanalysts have had in exploring primitive functioning of the
mind.
With specific emphasis on working with difficult situations and patients, Field
Theory in Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis is a highly practical book that
will appeal greatly to child psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists
as well as psychologists, paediatricians and advanced students studying across
these fields.
Elena Molinari is a psychoanalyst of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society and an
IPA member. She began her professional life working as a paediatrician. Since
2000, she has worked as a private analyst with adults and children. Since 2004,
she has been teaching ‘Child Neuropsychiatry’ for the postgraduate course in art
therapy at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera, Milan. Since 2013, she has been a
Section Editor of the SPI journal Rivista di Psicoanalisi.
Psychoanalytic Field Theory Book Series
The Routledge Psychoanalytic Field Theory Book Series was initiated in
2015 as a new subseries of the Psychoanalytic Inquiry Book Series. The
series publishes books on subjects relevant to the continuing development
of psychoanalytic field theory. The emphasis of this series is on contempo-
rary work that includes a vision of the future for psychoanalytic field theory.
Since the middle of the twentieth century, forms of psychoanalytic field
theory emerged in different geographic parts of the world with different
objectives, heuristic principles and clinical techniques. Taken together, they
form a family of psychoanalytic perspectives that employs a concept of a
bi-personal psychoanalytic field. The Psychoanalytic Field Theory Book
Series seeks to represent this pluralism in its publications. Books on field
theory in all its diverse forms are of interest in this series. Both theoretical
works and discussions of clinical technique will be published in this series.
The series editors are especially interested in selecting manuscripts
which actively promote the understanding and further expansion of
psychoanalytic field theory. Part of the mission of the series is to foster
communication amongst psychoanalysts working in different models, in
different languages and in different parts of the world.
Titles in this series:
Vol. 1 Contemporary Psychoanalytic Field Theory:
Stories, Dreams, and Metaphor
S. Montana Katz
Vol. 2 Advances in Contemporary Psychoanalytic Field
Theory: Concept and Future Development
Edited by S. Montana Katz, Roosevelt Cassorla & Giuseppe Civitarese
Vol. 3 Field Theory in Child and Adolescent
Psychoanalysis: Understanding and Reacting to
Unexpected Developments
Elena Molinari
Field Theory in Child and
Adolescent Psychoanalysis
Understanding and Reacting to
Unexpected Developments
Elena Molinari
First published 2017
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2017 Elena Molinari
The right of Elena Molinari to be identified as author of
this work has been asserted by her in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be
trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only
for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Molinari, Elena, 1960– author.
Title: Field theory in child and adolescent psychoanalysis :
understanding and reacting to unexpected
developments / Elena Molinari.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge,
2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016048448 | ISBN 9781138686724
(hbk : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781138686731 (pbk. : alk.
paper) | ISBN 9781315542584 (ebk)
Subjects: | MESH: Psychoanalytic Therapy—methods |
Psychology, Child | Psychology, Adolescent |
Psychoanalytic Theory | Professional-Patient Relations
Classification: LCC RJ504 | NLM WS 350.5 | DDC
618.92/8917—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016048448
ISBN: 978-1-138-68672-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-68673-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-54258-4 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
To Paolo, and Cecilia, Beatrice, Roberto

Contents
List of figures viii
Acknowledgements ix
1 From one room to the other: a story of
contamination – the relationship between
child and adult analysis 1
2 Luigi and the cinématographe, the first
motion-picture camera 23
3 An analyst learns to play: from crumpled-up
paper to origami 36
4 A ‘quantum’ of truth in a field of lies: the investigation
of emotional truth in a child analysis 54
5 The anteroom: a camera obscura for
grasping aspects that are invisible in the classical setting 74
6 The use of child drawings to explore
the dual  group analytic field in child analysis 88
7 Sunday cartoons and very young patients 110
8 Action across emptiness 129
Bibliography 146
Index 156
Figures
1.1 Awareness of movement 12
1.2 The family of Giuseppe 17
1.3 Giuseppe in hibernation like an insect 17
2.1 First drawing on a squared paper 28
2.2 Furniture and alarm systems in Luigi’s room 29
2.3 ‘Grolla’ or crafted cup 31
2.4 House inside a castle 32
4.1 Map of α elements incapable to evolve 60
4.2 Map of transformation of a β element into an α one 69
5.1 Under Alice’s shoes 79
6.1 Room of Elisa’s parents 95
6.2 Parents at work 97
6.3 Wedding of parents 100
6.4 Trip to the analyst’s room 103
6.5 Susan Hiller, Dream Mapping, Notebook, 1974 107
6.6 Susan Hiller, Dream Mapping, Collective Work, 1974 108
7.1 Sunday cartoon: field’s expansion 114
7.2 Daily strip: persecutory object 117
7.3 Sunday cartoon: analyst’s unavailability 118
7.4 Sunday cartoon: an unexpected event 125
8.1 Squiggle with objects 139
8.2 Pole voltage and electric wire 141
8.3 Orange juice extractor 142
8.4 The connected meter 143
8.5 Meter with free-floating strings 144
Acknowledgements
Every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders for their permis-
sion to reprint selections of this book. The publishers would be grateful to
hear from any copyright holder who is not here acknowledged, and we will
undertake to rectify any errors or omissions in future editions of this book.
Chapter 1 first published as Molinari, E. (2011), From one room to the
other: a story of contamination. The relationship between child and adult
analysis, International Journal of Psychoanalysis, vol. 92; pp. 791–810.
Reprinted by permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Excerpt in Chapter 1 from ‘Lappin and Lappinova’ from A HAUNTED
HOUSE AND OTHER SHORT STORIES by Virginia Woolf. Copyright
1944 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Copyright ©
renewed 1972 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Reprinted
by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights
reserved.
Figure 1.1 first featured in Il movimento disegna. Di Renzo, M., Nastasi, I. E.
(1989) Roma, Armando. Reprinted with the kind permission of Armando
Editore.
Excerpt from The Daydreamer by Ian McEwan. Copyright © 1995 Ian
McEwan. Published by Jonathan Cape. Reprinted by permission of The Ran-
dom House Group Limited and Doubleday Canada, a division of Penguin
Random House Canada Limited.
Chapter 2 first published as Molinari, E. (2004), Luigi e la machinna del
cinema, Quarderni di psicoterapia infantile, vol. 49; pp. 231–244. Reprinted
by permission of Edizioni Borla.
The epigraph featured at the start of Chapter 2 is taken from I racconti by
G. Tomasi di Lampedusa, Feltrinelli, Milano, 1961. Reprinted by permis-
sion of Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore.