Nikos Lamnidis1 (L) is Discussing with Stefano Bolognini2 (B), in Bologna, on Saturday 1 May 2010

L: …Let's try first of all to explore the question of your personal motivation to become a psychoanalyst… to the extent, of course, that this issue can be approached, consciously…

B: When I read this first question3, I approached it by thinking how I have answered it throughout my life. My answers were changing… We know that when one interviews a young psychologist or psychiatrist, who wants to become an analyst or thinks to enter a training analysis the most frequent question is: Why do you want to become an analyst? And the most frequent answers are: Because I read Freud; because I had an intellectual and a cultural interest; because I want to explore the mysteries of the human mind etc. However, when one puts the same question to a person, a candidate or an analyst, after his or her own analysis, the answer changes and if the person is intellectually honest, he or she answers: Because I needed analysis… I had my problems in life; problems with myself, with my history… and I needed analysis. So, behind what was partially masked as an intellectual interest, there was an urgent need for a sense of person. After many years

of working as an analyst, I have changed again my answer. Because… it's true that I had read Freud, like the majority of my colleagues, and I was stimulated by that. It's true, and this is basic, that I needed analysis and this was the real reason for wh