TY - JOUR A1 - Loiacono, Anna Maria T1 - Feelings of the therapist and the obligations of countertransference JF - International Forum of Psychoanalysis, Abingdon (Routledge - Taylor and Francis) Vol. 22 (No. 1, 2013), pp. 31-34. N2 - The author discusses countertransference in relation to the impact of training institutions on the therapist as a person. The author claims that therapist's feelings and experiences determine the diagnosis of the personality. It is neither the behavior nor the psychopathological phenomena, which have a diagnostic value, but how the relationship is experienced in terms of the therapist's feelings. The author speaks about the problems connected to of “as if” personalities as a starting point. This concept originated with the psychopathological studies of Helene Deutsch, who associated it with schizophrenia. Later, Paul Roazen transported the concept to the social dimension of politics and to the personality of politicians. In this article, the author treats the “as if” personalities as a concept of unification, in contrast to current attempts to fragment diagnostic personality disorders, as in many psychoanalytic concepts in relation to the medicalization of psychoanalysis. Some clinical vignettes are briefly presented in order to sharpen this focus. Y1 - 2013 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Loiacono, Anna Maria T1 - Integrating the dissociated: From the dominance of fear to the power of angst – Angst as a >presence of feeling< JF - International Forum of Psychoanalysis, Vol. 29 (No. 3, 2020), pp. 136-141. N2 - The author addresses contemporary clinical practice, where we encounter individuals, seemingly incapable of getting in touch with their own existential dimension, who communicate their detachment, at times even total, from their feelings and fears, wilfully committed as they are to avoid experiencing the inevitable angst that may accompany them through life. This dissociation from the angst-producing emotion is revealed to the clinician through either detachment or a simple action. This feeling that generates both detachment and its opposite, perhaps a hypomanic reaction, proves to be >absent,< and is not perceived by the patient. In this way, angst can be avoided and indeed seems >absent,< but what is experienced is the complete range of raw emotions connected to it, such as fear, terror, panic, detachment, apathy, and anhedonia. The author sets out to clarify the terms >fear,< >anxiety,< and >angst< as they have been historically used in philosophy, psychoanalysis, psychiatry, and psychology. Ultimately, she explains her reason for her choice of the word >angst< instead of >anxiety< in her distinct and explicit handling of this subject matter. Y1 - 2020 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Loiacono, Anna Maria T1 - Terrorism and the practice of angst JF - International Forum of Psychoanalysis, Vol. 28 (No. 1, 2019), pp. 003-007. N2 - Following in Hannah Arendt’s steps, this paper addresses the author’s definition of terrorism mostly from a psychoanalytical point of view and focuses further on the clinical implications related to the different thoughts on terrorism of a number of psychoanalysts. Some clinical vignettes, from individual as well as group psychotherapy, show how deep the reverberation of our way of thinking about terrorism can be in our work as psychoanalysts, particularly in regard to the integration of the destructive aspects of the personality and of the Self, and above all in cases with a history of traumatic attachment. Indeed, the psychoanalyst can actually remain embedded inside the patient's dissociative dynamics, and the treatment can fall into a painful impasse, allowing mutilated, torn, dead, and dissociated aspects to be left outside the conscious and the Self. The result of this kind of situation is a stiffening of the personality and a mortification of the whole Self. Y1 - 2019 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Loiacono, Anna Maria T1 - Psychoanalysis in the time of coronavirus: From an onboard logbook during the pandemic (https://doi.org/10.1080/0803706X.2023.2259646) JF - International Forum of Psychoanalysis, Vol. 32 (No. 3, 2023), pp. 247-255. N2 - During the lockdown, we, as analysts, had to face new situations, which disrupted our habitual mode of working and challenged our ability to adapt. I discovered that having a supportive relationship among colleagues became more important than ever. I will discuss the influence that the transition from in-presence sessions to the online modality during the pandemic has had on the therapeutic process and setting. The adoption of new relational working procedures instead of the usual in-person session has revived the centrality of those themes having to do with the body and sensoriality in psychoanalysis, including the possibility of recognizing and integrating dissociated embodied traumatic experiences, ones that are non-verbalized, and not able to be verbalized. I will outline a clinical case to detail the difficulties encountered in my clinical practice, in which the contingency strategy, based on working remotely, continued to guarantee that sense of security necessary to enable the possibility of dreaming together and freely exploring – introducing, however, within the relationship, aspects of Ferenczi and Rank’s >active technique,< which would not have occurred in person, and which certainly impacted the process in a different way, while always permitting the identification and assimilation of dissociated experiences. Y1 - 2023 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Loiacono, Anna Maria T1 - Countertransference and Oedipal love JF - International Forum of Psychoanalysis, Vol. 31 (No. 2, 2022), pp. 076-082. N2 - In this essay, the author will explore the use of countertransference in the therapeutic process, with particular emphasis on Oedipal love. We begin with countertransference as conceptualized by interpersonal psychoanalytic theorists, who immediately pointed out the technical relevance of the therapist as a person, and the importance of the use of the therapist’s feelings, thoughts, life experiences, and states of mind in the therapeutic relationship. Just as dreams, slips of the tongue, peripheral thoughts, and physical gestures are useful in reading the patient’s unconscious experience, accepting, examining, and exploring countertransference become useful in reading the analyst’s unconscious experience. The author will then identify a more radical and contemporary conception of countertransference as representative of the analyst’s unconscious receptivity to the patient within the enactments in which transference and countertransference reciprocally affect each other. Finally, the author will concentrate on the Oedipal feelings experienced by the therapist and their importance in treatment. A clinical case will illustrate the clinical ramifications of these hypotheses. Y1 - 2022 ER -