Vitality: Its Thousand Faces

Vitality does not seem to be a particularly required quality in the analyst, neither during his training nor afterwards. Other features are regarded as being important: sensitivity, empathy, insight, understanding, being able to resonate, attunement, authenticity, a sense of the limit. Vitality appears to be such a compound, complex and elusive quality that it might be taken for granted. It is an intangible aspect that is difficult to weigh up. Winnicott (1962) asked the analyst to be alive, healthy and awaken, but he meant something that has to do with attention and alertness. Yet his meaningful hint at vitality concerns the distinction between «being and doing» (1966); between the true and false self (1960): only the true self can feel; it exists, is alive and goes on being. Vitality is likely to be a quality that conveys the will to be authentically alive and to aim at self-realization according to one's own language (Bollas, 1987), whatever the price might be. It frays into a multitude of attributions: it is a drive to curiosity about the other and the world, it is liveliness, enthusiasm and spontaneity springing from one's own core, an opening to the mysteries that life has in store (Lopez, 1983). Possibly, it originates from an odd alchemy: the baby's original thrust and vital gifts and the caregiver's syntonic and mirroring matching of the baby's in fieri potential - its source is the implicit deal between the «committed» parent and the baby's illusion to create the world (Winnicott, 1945).

Maybe the meaning of vitality could be understood as being extended to and approximating the meaning of mental wellbeing on the one hand and creativity on the other.

According to a Bionian algorithm (1958), wellbeing can be considered as plastic capacity to oscillate in PS-D in both directions: shifting harmoniously from a fluid, kaleidoscopic, pluripotential, versatile, and limitless stance - such as the schizoidparanoid position - to a more organized one with limiting and