Contents & abstracts

Editorial

Theory and Technique

Giannotti V. Introduction. Richard & Piggle, 34, 2, 2026, 105-106.

Balint E. On Being Empty of Oneself. Richard & Piggle, 34, 2, 2026, 107-125.

We repropose the famous article on being empty of oneself published by Enid Balint in 1963. In this article, the author retraces the stages of a young woman’s analysis and reflects on the effects of a failure to recognize a child’s state of being after birth and their re-presenting themselves in transference. Balint places the feeling of emptiness in a very early phase of existence, during which good and bad objects are not yet present. In addition, she highlights the active and passive roles played by both participants in the dyad: the mother and child as well as the analyst and patient.

Wright K. Some Reflections on Enid Balint’s 1963 Article “On Being Empty of Oneself”. Richard & Piggle, 34, 2, 2026, 126-138.

The author comments on the article “On Being Empty of Oneself” published by Enid Balint in 1963. Balint herself emphasises the importance of the process of maternal feedback for the structuring of the Self during the psyche’s integration. Taking up and expanding this perspective, Wright introduces the concept of “maternal form”, linking it both to the affect attunement described by Stern and to Langer’s aesthetic theory. Maternal responses, particularly the non-verbal ones, act as representations of the child’s experience and are capable of containing it, giving it meaning and rendering it recognizable. Such forms become the psyche’s first structures, laying the foundations for the sense of continuity and personal identity. When this process fails, the subject can experience a profound feeling of emptiness and of being empty of him/herself.

Tabanelli L. Comments on Kenneth Wright’s “Some Reflections on Enid Balint’s 1963 Article ‘On Being Empty of Oneself’”. Richard & Piggle, 34, 2, 2026, 139-144.

The author comments on Kenneth Wright’s reflections on Enid Balint’s work regarding ‘being empty of oneself’. She emphasises the clear paradigm shift i.e., the position of the analyst who, going beyond contact with the most evolved aspects of the patient’s personality, has to constantly engage in the effort of reaching a more primitive nucleus of the self, both in cases in which this process can be shared and interpreted and in those in which it is only hypothesized by the analyst and turns out either not to be put into words for a long time or even to be impossible to ever put into words. She ends by emphasising the importance of the therapeutic setting as the place where the most primitive aspects of the patient’s interior organization are placed and, therefore, a fundamental therapeutic tool for reaching them.

Focus

Adolescents and the Body. Between Virtual Spaces and Real Ones

Parisi G. Introduction - Potential and Risks in Using Virtual Realities during Adolescence. Richard & Piggle, 34, 2, 2026, 145-148.

Rabboni RM. Adolescents’ Bodily Experience in the Post-modern Context. Richard & Piggle, 34, 2, 2026, 149-160.

The theme of bodily experience occupies a central place in the exercise of working-through and subjectively appropriating puberty’s manifestations: as an anatomical element, the soma must be adequately invested in both libidinal and symbolic terms so that it may become an identity-related referent for that given subject. The virtual terrain, with all its potential, can constitute an opportunity to experiment for adolescents. Conversely, in precarious developmental conditions (violent pubertal metamorphosis, inadequate narcissistic foundations and exaggerated demands from the super-ego), it can become the place of denial and self-forgetting, as is highlighted by the clinical vignettes the author presents.

Cardarelli B. “Where’s my Home?” An Adolescent in Search of a Body, Between the Virtual World and the Real World. Richard & Piggle, 34, 2, 2026, 161-170.

Through the clinical case of a young adolescent girl, this article draws attention to perception of the body during adolescence, with body being understood as a container in which one is able to experience emotions and feelings that construct the Self. Finding a physical and mental space for her body was impossible for this girl who lived a childhood marked by traumatic events. The virtual world became a home in which the adolescent took refuge, creating a body to her liking and finding friends who seemed to satisfy the needs that, on the contrary, were ignored in reality. As the psychotherapy progressed, there was a movement between interior experiences marked by deprivation and instances of abandonment and a highly complex external reality. The psychotherapeutic work was to allow the young adolescent to find a concrete space (the psychotherapy room) in which to reclaim possession of a mental space defined by the perception of her own body.

Clinical Reflections

Paluzzi C. Psychoanalytic Listening in the Area of Learning Difficulties. Richard & Piggle, 34, 2, 2026, 171-186.

In this article, the author seeks to highlight two issues that he considers to be central when approaching the academic learning difficulties that are gradually increasing in Italian schools. The first stresses that the learning difficulties are not simply a deficit in apparatus specialized in gathering and cataloguing information but are, rather, linked to deep-rooted fears and anxieties that condition the learning capacity. In this connection, he reports Giacomo’s clinical history, which he considers emblematic and representative of the very many other clinical cases that he has tackled over the years. The second aspect poses a fundamental question: to what extent are the fears of adults (parents and teachers) masked by the intervention protocols that avoid the duty to confront the deep fears burdening the child?

The Enchanting Screen

D’Amato GM. Adolescence (2025). Directed by Philip Barantini. Richard & Piggle, 34, 2, 2026, 187-191.

Reviews

Chiarelli MP. Sigmund Freud, Karl Abraham, Lettere 1907-1925. Edizione integrale.

Giorgi C. A.M. Niccolò, Gli inconsci che ci abitano. Psicoanalisi dei legami familiari e di coppia.

Dettagli

Contents & abstracts