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Mindscapes: Psiche nel paesaggio, the most recent book by Vittorio Lingiardi—an Italian psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, poet, and professor of psychology at Rome's La Sapienza University—is an exploration of unmapped territories, internal and external. Lingiardi reflects upon the aesthetic and environmental aspects of our object choices, excavating and exploring the role of places and landscapes in our psychic world. I found the experience of reviewing Mindscapes fascinating and unexpectedly inspiring. I had approached the book with hesitation, wondering how a book on landscapes could inform my analytic thinking and practice. I soon discovered that Lingiardi was taking me to stunning panoramic highlands and exposing unexpected views to consider how our internal worlds are inextricably made with and from our physical environment. Organized around literary, philosophical, neuro-aesthetic, and psychoanalytic themes, this book urges us to imaginatively uncover the landscapes that inhabit our souls.
Mindscapes is a neologism (the author uses English for it) that locates us in a transitional space “where our psyche is in the landscape and the landscape is in our psyche” (p. 32; all translations mine). Each chapter evokes a sense of progressive expansion from and communication between an inner space and the colors, shapes, and forms of the outer world. Lingiardi explains that “the places we love are a discovery and at the same time a creation. We can find them because they are already in ourselves” (p. 8). The depth and complexity of this experience are immediate. In his introduction, the author elucidates his starting point by