Foreword

In the first part of this edition of the Italian Psychoanalytic Annual there are four articles which address important theoretical and clinical topics.

Claudio Arnetoli takes as his starting point Bion's concept of «L» and defines the function of love as the analyst's capacity for appropriate attunement to the patient's need for love in a way that fits their roles and the relational context. The function of love is put into relation with other concepts - primary love, holding, reverie, and attachment to the primary object - and it takes concrete form in a range of emotions in the session; joyous pleasure, eros, love of one's profession, collegiality, friendship, and affection. The Author considers that the function of love is necessary for the process of integration between mind and body, and passes through moments of spontaneity and authenticity: interpretations accompany the process, establishing the limits of the setting and the correct distance.

Lucia Fattori explores a topic that is unusual in the psychoanalytic literature, that of rancour, which involves two different temporalities: a diachronic one linked to the progressive deterioration of psychic life and an atemporal one, the eternal present linked to the trauma that is at the origin of the rancorous state. Rancour constitutes a nucleus of persistent, unconscious aggressiveness and ends up being directed against the subject. Using a clinical case history, the Author shows the progressive emergence of rancorous states and their connection to the melancholic nucleus. In the management of the trauma, the solution contrasts true forgetting with «putting a stone over it».

Alessandro Musetti starts from Roussillon's concept of primary symbolisation to investigate the ways of reaching the narcissistic areas in analysis. The process of symbolisation is centred on the presence of the object, by means of and through the object: a symbolisation in its absence only comes at the end. The Author investigates clinical situa