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Cassorla’s article is theoretically thought-provoking and clinically interesting in exploring technical issues that present themselves in psychoanalytic work with adolescent patients who develop defensive organisations against the detachment process. The author’s theoretical background is mainly Bionian, with particular reference to the concept of stupidity as described in Bion’s paper ‘On arrogance’ (1958). Stupidity, in this frame of reference, is linked to deficiencies in the capacity for symbolization, dreaming, and thinking. On the clinical level, this can be manifested as omniscience, dual collusions, and/or as discharges in the face of contact with triangular reality, which in turn links stupidity with arrogance insofar as a deep distortion of reality and a persecutory vision of frustrating experiences become paramount.
The author points out the high risk for the analyst of being drawn into multiple identifications through crossed projective identifications. Numbed perceptions and stupidity on the part of the analyst can be the result of such subtle identifications, where the analyst confuses him/herself with the concomitance of dual and triangular relationships, or as a result of the oscillations between the two.
On a technical level, Cassorla underlines how, when the young patient and their family organise stable defence conglomerates aimed at protecting the adolescent mind from acknowledging triangular reality, the analyst can be drawn into mutual idealisations and/or splitting and projective manoeuvres, which requires the analyst to be wary of this situation and its risks. In fact, the vicissitudes of these defensive organizations, and their impact on the analytic position are discussed by taking into account both the horizontal reverberations of projective and identification elements (intra-psychic as well as inter-subjective/family levels), and the vertical/trans-generational transmission. Such an approach, which is well grounded in the Bionian and post-B