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The inferno of the living is not something that will be: if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space. (Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities)
Cosimo Schinaia’s vision in Psychoanalysis and Ecology is surely in the category of those who seek to imagine and create a new space and way of being in response to the ecological disruption caused by our actions. To recognize and face up to the hard facts of the environmental devastation that is unfolding, while maintaining a balanced outlook to enable thought and conceive of reparative action takes a great deal of internal work. It is evident that Cosimo Schinaia, a training and supervising analyst at the Italian Society of Psychoanalysis, who practises in Genoa, has devoted serious attention to his topic.
The book under review is a natural outgrowth of the enriching dialogue between diverse disciplines, an interweaving of external and internal worlds, that Schinaia (2016) addressed in a previous book, Psychoanalysis and Architecture, The Inside and the Outside. In the current volume, Schinaia expands the definition of “external” to include the natural world. Eschewing the phrase “applied psychoanalysis”, Schinaia instead suggests “involved psychoanalysis”, a reframing that is integrative and inclusive. The positive connotation of involvement can counterbalance our tendencies to retreat to inner concerns as a defence against unbearable affect, and instead engage with the evolving crisis.
Psychoanalysis and Ecology is short and well referenced; it seeks to connect two extensive bodies of knowledge and approaches to the world.