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Several English colleagues led clinical seminars in Milan in the 1980s and 1990s, and they were very influential in the development of our thinking and clinical practice. I want to use this opportunity to express my enduring gratitude to all of them: Irma Brenman Pick, Betty Joseph, Donald Meltzer, Margaret Harris and Herbert Rosenfeld (whose Italian seminars were published in Italy and were subsequently translated into English).
Many analysts in Italy became interested, during this period, in postKleinian thinking. I remember that, at that time, some Italian psychoanalysts came to live in England, or commuted between London and Milan or Rome, in order to have a Kleinian analysis. The people who invited the English colleagues were young associate members, who had a strong desire to listen to and keep in touch with the psychoanalytical ideas which were developing abroad. These ideas helped us to listen more deeply to our patients in our consulting rooms. I think I can say that the professional skills of some analysts of our generation originated more from the teaching of those English colleagues than from that of even the most esteemed and admired Italian training analysts.
The link with British psychoanalysis promoted a change in the traditional connections between our Italian Society and foreign Psychoanalytical Societies. There was a move, for people of my generation, away from the French psychoanalytical tradition towards the British one: strong ties were formed with the Kleinian group. The work, which followed this new interest in British psychoanalysis helped us to grow professionally. For several years now, we have been more active in the international psychoanalytical movement, we begin to have a leading role and are able to present new and original topics to the international community.