L'IMMAGINARIO SIMBOLICO (THE SYMBOLIC IMAGINARY) NOTES ABOUT
THE "ITINERANT SEMINAR"
by Alfredo Anania
(passages)
"These pages, that preface the next publication of the Acts,
put two articles together which were published on the periodical
"Il Vomere", in order to introduce to
the vast audience the Itinerant Seminar "L'Immaginario
Simbolico" ", yearly organized by the Center of Psychodynamic
Researches on the Relation Mind-Body in the province of Trapani.
Even
if the system can look singular, and I'm sorry about it, I would
like to propose a piece of my first article which reports my answer
to a letter which was sent me by a kind woman from Marsala present
to a daywork of ours; the letter reached a few days later the
end of the first Itinerant Seminar.
Dear Mrs. I'm very glad to read your letter that witnesses
your sensibility as woman and artist, your attention for the "figure
and background" and for the "framework"; included the resuming
of the epistolary means that the modern age - marked by the hurry
and the mass-media - doesn't consider it a communication means
any more
One
of the main merit of psychoanalysis is to stimulate the progress
of the dynamic thought, a new thought, that is, to stimulate a
reflection on ourselves and on the others, "ectopic" in comparison
with the stereotypes imposed from culture and mentality; so to
encourage the deep knowledge of our interior dimensions (I'm referring
to the unconscious, the Self, the subjective relationships), which
is able to help the individual to feel himself more fulfilled,
freeing parts more constructive of personality from the "compulsion
to repeat" those experiences which are disappointing or meaningless
or "soulless".
If
the participation in the seminar regarding the "Immaginario Simbolico"
has aroused in you some emotions, sensations, questions and psychological
reactions, it means that we are succeeded in achieving our main
aim, that is to feel the soul, the world of the archetypes, the
value of the game of the "divinity" which lies in our psyche and
that are the basis of our different capacities, both positive
and negative, which it is necessary to know in order to avoid
to be subdued.
Dionysus,
Apollo, Zeus, Juno, Mercury, Minerva, Aphrodite are as metaphors
used to describe the inner parts that sometimes can became so
prevailing to dominate us. But furthermore, the use of metaphors
has another meaning: it leads to a spiritual sentiment that the
ancient Greeks had during the classical period and that we have
lost, only maintaining some signs in our unconscious.
For
this reason I think that the "Itinerant Seminar" through the activation
of "imaginal" world has allowed the achievement of something new:
the capacity to do a "journey" in ourselves to find out the personal
history and the humanity one.
I
quote a piece of your letter: "it gave a lot of sensations to
me thanks to the subjects but above all to the spiritual sentiment
transmitted and I was very well."
I
think you are right; what everybody felt is difficult to illustrate
because it can't be explained through a logical thought. In fact,
the situation that you experienced encouraged the raise of the
analogical processes and the oneiric world. Everyone it came to
find deeply dipped on perceiving the manifold goads coming from
outer world, in adsorbing it inside, in feeling himself and at
same time the other through the play of the identification and
empathy, intensified by living three days together.
So
as the ancient people; when they saw the enactment of a tragedy
- and I'm sorry that you didn't come to Mothia (a "natural theatre"
of many human tragedies, from the rite of the "tophet" to the
total destruction of the Phoenician settlement). Or, when gathered
in front of the temple they spiritually soared in relationship
with the divinity object of worship - and for this one I'm sorry
that you weren't with us in Segesta the day before.
The
seminar has given the sensation to you to be a "community" rich
of spirituality. Experience this which in the Jungian psychoanalytic
language is describable as "to do soul", while in the groupanalytic
language is describable as "return to the matrix". (A. Anania,
Vomere, Marsala 21/10/95 page 3).
"The
Symbolic Imaginary" because of its itinerant development
is opened for a few people in order to assure an optimal participation.
It wants, time by time, to give the stimulus to the scientific
elaboration through the previous visit of some suggestive places,
so to create a correlation between the historical-cultural matrix
and the analytic theories, in reference with Jung's movement which
gave the most important contribute to the study of symbols, myths,
and "imago". For this reason the prearranged relationships are
not provided but, on the contrary, it is favoured the possibility
that an analytic group discourse develops, enlightened by the
scientific personalities which are called to lead the Seminar.
The
first year there was the important presence of psychoanalysts,
who chair persons belonging to Jungian and group-analytic movements,
as Bianca Garufi, Girolamo Lo Verso, Luciano Perez, and Rafael
Lopez Pedraza of Caracas, who, incarnating the figure of the "Old
Wit", has a central role in seminar work.
The
seminar, has also represented a meeting of different worlds: Caribbean
one - represented by Rafael Lopez Pedraza - "where nature is wild
and uncontaminated, where there are the jungle and the wild animals"
and the Mediterranean one " where nature is quite and lovely".
Between these two worlds there is a group came from Rome, representing
a culture rich in history and legends - which has became the connective
element of them.
«The
adventurous psychoanalytic journey has maintained the characteristic
of "full immersion in the soul", it is linked to the historical-cultural
matrix of the country, and for the second successive year it took
place in the province of Trapani.
The
seminar has been conduct by some psychoanalysts such as Bianca
Garufi and Luciano Perez of Rome, Luigi Zoja of Milan, professor
of Palermo University such as Angela Maria Di Vita, Daniele La
Barbera, Girolamo Lo Verso. The team was completed by the childhood
psychoanalyst Eva Pattis of Milan and by Pasqualino Ancona of
Catania, Franco La Rosa of Palermo, who belongs to the analytic
psychology movement and me.
In
occasion of this second meeting, we tried to underline the possibility
of a connection between two psychoanalytic schools - we had already
tried it - through the original method which takes place in a
group work and that doesn't provide introductory relations, in
order to encourage the accomplishment of a scientific elaboration
which goes on with "free associations" - stimulated "here
et now" by a place full of suggestions (in the eyes of landscape-environmental
and of historical-cultural) and by the dynamic development of
a group-thought making use of the "working in progress"
immediacy, surely also it is founded on the addressing speech
of chairmen and through the seminar becomes more rich in sense
…"