Silvano Arieti was an Italian psychoanalyst who undertook psychoanalysis of schizophrenic patients in the 1960s and 1970s. He left Italy in 1939 at the age of twenty-four following the Race Laws of 1938, and moved to New York until his death in 1981. A training analyst and author of several psychoanaly- tic and academic books, Arieti kept his research open in a wide variety of directions, giving equal weight to the internal world – as it seen from the psy- choanalytic viewpoint – and to the organic functioning of the brain, as viewed from the perspective of the neurosciences. Arieti’s interpretation of schizo- phrenia helped to overcome the dichotomies between the classical psychoana- lytic approach, neurobiological research, and research into cognition, and opened up new paths for an interdisciplinary understanding of mental func- tioning and creative processes. This paper examines Arieti’s book The Parnas (1979); this is a partly-fictionalised account of a pre-eminent figure (Parnas in Hebrew means “head”) in the Jewish community in Pisa, Giuseppe Pardo Roques, in the 1930s and early 1940s, who experienced mental illness and was killed in the Nazi extermination of Jews. The paper examines Arieti’s reflections on what he sees as the ‘insights’ provided by mental illness, which are considered through the figure of Giuseppe Pardo Roques, and in the con- text of the trauma of the Shoah in Italy.
Abstract Silvano Arieti è state uno psicoanalista italiano che negli anni ’60 e ‘70 ha approfondito la problematica psicoanalitica della cura con pazienti schizofrenici. Lasciò l’Italia nel 1939 all’età di 24 anni in conseguenza delle leggi razziste del 1938. Si trasferì New York dove visse sino alla sua morte nel 1981. Analista didatta e autore di numerose pubblicazioni accademiche e psicoanalitiche, Arieti mantenne aperta la sua ricerca in molteplici direzioni, dando pari dignità al mondo interno, così come appare nella prospettiva psicoanalitica, e al funzionamento cerebrale, così come appare dal punto di vista delle neuroscienze. La sua interpretazione della schizofrenia ha contributo a superare le dicotomie fra l’approccio psicoanalitico classico, la ricerca neurobiologia e quella cognitiva, contribuendo a sviluppare orizzonti nuovi per una comprensione interdisciplinare del funzionamento mentale e dei processi creativi. Il presente lavoro è in particolare dedicato al Parnàs (1979) una delle sue ultime opere. Il Parnàs è una storia in parte romanzata che ha per protagonista un’autorevole esponente della comunità ebraica di Pisa (in ebraico Parnàs vuol dire capo di una comunità ebraica), negli anni ’30 e inizi ’40, che fu trucidato dai nazisti. Il Parnàs soffriva di una grave fobia. Il saggio prende in esame le riflessioni di Arieti sui significati profondi della malattia e delle verità nascoste di cui può farsi veicolo. Verità che Arieti approfondisce attraverso la figura di Giuseppe Pardo Roques, sullo sfondo del trauma della Shoah in Italia.
Meghnagi, D. (2014). Silvano Arieti’s novel the Parnas: A scene from the Holocaust. THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOANALYSIS, 95(6), 1-37 [10.1111/1745-8315.12149].
Silvano Arieti’s novel the Parnas: A scene from the Holocaust
MEGHNAGI, David
2014-01-01
Abstract
Silvano Arieti was an Italian psychoanalyst who undertook psychoanalysis of schizophrenic patients in the 1960s and 1970s. He left Italy in 1939 at the age of twenty-four following the Race Laws of 1938, and moved to New York until his death in 1981. A training analyst and author of several psychoanaly- tic and academic books, Arieti kept his research open in a wide variety of directions, giving equal weight to the internal world – as it seen from the psy- choanalytic viewpoint – and to the organic functioning of the brain, as viewed from the perspective of the neurosciences. Arieti’s interpretation of schizo- phrenia helped to overcome the dichotomies between the classical psychoana- lytic approach, neurobiological research, and research into cognition, and opened up new paths for an interdisciplinary understanding of mental func- tioning and creative processes. This paper examines Arieti’s book The Parnas (1979); this is a partly-fictionalised account of a pre-eminent figure (Parnas in Hebrew means “head”) in the Jewish community in Pisa, Giuseppe Pardo Roques, in the 1930s and early 1940s, who experienced mental illness and was killed in the Nazi extermination of Jews. The paper examines Arieti’s reflections on what he sees as the ‘insights’ provided by mental illness, which are considered through the figure of Giuseppe Pardo Roques, and in the con- text of the trauma of the Shoah in Italy.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.