Il volume si propone di contribuire allo sviluppo dell'esplorazione psicoanalitica del narcisismo. I lavori raccolti appartengono ad un periodo successivo al 2005 ed approfondiscono aspetti diversi e complementari della psicopatologia che affonda le radici nell'area del narcisismo e, soprattutto, della relazione narcisistica. Ruolo fondamentale svolgono la clinica e la tecnica, che costituiscono il nucleo dell'esperienza dalla quale prendono le mosse la cura, la riflessione e l'elaborazione teorica. Partendo dall'esame dei casi clinici, il libro vuole addentrarsi nella comprensione delle dinamiche profonde che pervadono la relazione analitica e determinano le vicissitudini del processo della cura.. Il volume vuole essere anche un riconoscimento nei confronti dell'opera di Ferenczi e dell'eredità che egli ha lasciato alla psicoanalisi.

This work purports to revisit the notion of death instinct within a theoretical framework based upon Balint’s theory of the basic fault, Ferenczi’s late studies on the relational con-texts of identification processes and Green’s reflections on the work of the negative. Cross-ing these three perspectives it is possible to claim that the unconscious vector of the trans-generational transmission of trauma is the condition in which the basic fault area constitutes a fundamental element of the intersubjective field. The joint unconscious work of the basic fault area and negative identifications breeds processes of instinctual defusion, split and ide-alisation that free significant amounts of death instinct, hate and envy which constitute in-sidious nuclei of destructiveness. The effectiveness of these hypotheses is proved through the exam of two clinical cases.

Starting from the exam of the clinical case of an adolescent, this paper explores the clinical aspects of self-destructive instinct, intended as a particular declination of death instinct, and it takes into account its transferal and countertransferal manifestations that may be observed in the analytic process. Based on the analysis of Dostoevsky’s biographic and creative experience, this work tries to go beyond Freud’s essay written in 1927, centred round the theme of parricide, in order to find in the trauma due to the failure of the primitive relationship with the mother the origin of this self- destructive tendency

This paper carries on the reflection started in 2012 on the role of death instinct and it pur-ports to clarify some concepts that had not been thoroughly understood and analysed. It stems from the need to examine and integrate the clinical material with more recent perspectives. Af-ter updating the case of Rossana, which revealed meaningful and unresolved complexities – especially in the area of transference – a new clinical case has been introduced in order to start an analysis of the relationship between countertransference and trans-generational dimensions emerging through the unconscious intersubjective field. This reflection allows to understand more deeply how the work of the negative influences pathological processes.

This paper aims at re-conceptualising the notions of regression and trauma in the light of the concept of the construction of trauma. Through the exam of a clinical case, the autor tries to show how the unconscious of patient and analyst in a deep analytic process and how the intersubjective field emerges. The analysis of countertransference and of processes regarding the intersubjective field, together with the analyst facilitating attitude, contribute to promote regression, meant as a privileged channelto rech pre-mental level and to come close to the state in which the shock situation - meant as trauma forerunner - is produced. The autor supposes that trauma, i.e. the expression of a secondary process, is a form of Nachtraeglichkeit and is indeed the risult of a psychoanalytic construction which resembles transitionl processes and is based on the intermediate area function.