Staying afloat without a lifeline: fear, need, and the desire to depend in Psychoanalysis

Journal title PSICOANALISI
Author/s Alessandro Ruggieri
Publishing Year 2025 Issue 2025/1
Language Italian Pages 18 P. 49-66 File size 71 KB
DOI 10.3280/PSI2025-001004
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An excerpt from a clinical case will be presented. The reflection will focus on the human condition, which resists easy or rigid categorization-particularly when based solely on behaviour. To truly understand people’s functioning and potential, one must spend considerable time with them building a relationship with sufficient emotional intimacy. Difficult periods in life or specific circumstances may lead someone to adopt behaviours they would not typically engage in under more favourable conditions. Symptomatic behaviour must be acknowledged in order to facilitate the patient’s reconciliation with themselves. Such behaviour may be the result of defensive regression, which is not without risks, and may involve sacrificing freedom and vitality in exchange for reassuring security and certainty in the face of deep, often unconscious, anxieties about integration. When evaluating the progress of an analysis, it is important to consider not only the patient’s actions but also the relationships between those actions, unconscious fantasies, and how these evolve over time and within the therapeutic relationship. A central theme in Marta’s analysis – and perhaps in any psychoanalytic process – is dependency. This issue warrants careful reflection, particularly with regard to complex therapeutic decisions, such as determining the frequency of sessions.

Keywords: dependence, regression, symptom, transitional space.

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Alessandro Ruggieri, Stare a galla senza salvagente. Paura, bisogno e desiderio di dipendere in analisi in "PSICOANALISI" 1/2025, pp 49-66, DOI: 10.3280/PSI2025-001004