19 October 2024 Lecture

Psychic dimensionality: Psychoanalytic understanding of autistic and delusional/hallucinatory - Francesco Bisagni

To be held online from 10.00am to 12.00noon on Saturday 19th October 2024, by Zoom. Attendance is free of charge for all FPC members and will count as 2 hours CPD. The lecture will not be recorded. To book a place please email admin@thefpc.org.uk 

Chaired by Sue Howlett

In this paper  Francesco gives a clinical account of an autistic child who had been in intensive analytical therapy and developed hallucinatory phenomena at some point. The material is discussed with the support of the theories of Tustin, Bion and Meltzer.  Discussing autism from a psychoanalytic standpoint does not deny the biological-genetic component of autism. Psychoanalysis can give up the attempts to hypothesize a psychodynamic aetiology of autism but can usefully contribute to the understanding of the pathogenesis, in the autistic subject and in their family.  Typical autistic features like the so called “autistic shapes” and “autistic objects” are illustrated in the clinical material, as well as the typical bi-dimensionality of the autistic functioning, and the mechanism of adhesive identification. The development of psychotic-hallucinatory phenomena can be seen as a manifestation of projective identification, in the realm of a mind that is no longer bi-dimensional but, although in a pathological way, tri-dimensional, which can be seen as a significant evolution.

Francesco is a psychiatrist, a Jungian analyst and a Tavistock-trained child psychotherapist. Currently, a training and supervising analyst of the SAP and organiser of the SAP two-year Diploma Course in psychodynamic psychotherapy with adolescents and young adults. He has taught and lectured in Europe, the US and Russia.  Author of many publications, his latest book is Obsessions: The Twisted Cruelty (Karnac 2017).