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Floriana Irtelli
CONTEMPORARY
PERSPECTIVES ON
RELATIONAL WELLNESS
Psychoanalysis and the Modern Family
Contemporary Perspectives
on Relational Wellness
“This is an ethically and responsibly oriented project, since it is the specific task
of psychology to deal with the transformations and changes that affect commu-
nity, as well as those concerning the intrapsychic world.”
—Emanuela Saita, Professor of Health Psychology and Methods and Techniques
of the Psychological Interview, Catholic University of Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy
Contemporary
Perspectives on
Relational Wellness
Psychoanalysis and the Modern Family
Floriana Irtelli
Catholic University
of the Sacred Heart
Milan, Italy
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
A special thanks to Elena, Valentina, Roberta, Emanuela, Emanuele,
Federico, Romina Luca and Enrico.
Contents
2 Love, Actually 39
2.1 What Is Love? 39
2.2 I Hate You 49
2.3 Beyond Love, Before Hate: Sentimental Shopping and “Top
Pocket” Relationships 53
References 55
vii
viii Contents
5 Stepfamily 103
5.1 Do Not Take It as a Punishment, It Is Only a Remedy 103
5.2 Sons, Brothers, Half-Brothers 112
5.3 Stepfamily 118
Reference 122
Bibliography 139
Index 149
CHAPTER 1
In the later 1990s, in the midst of the high-tech boom, I spent a lot of time
in a coffee shop in the theater district in San Francisco […] and I observed
a scene play out there time and time again. Mom is nursing her mocha. The
kids are picking at their muffins, feet dangling from their chairs. And there’s
dad, pulled back slightly from the table, talking into his cell-phone […]. It
was supposed to be a “communications revolution”, and yet here, in the
technological epicenter, the members of this family avoid one another’s eyes.
(Jonathan Rowe, “Reach out and Annoy Someone”,
Washington Monthly, November 2000)
1 This is done through the co-construction of family narratives, stories that are elaborated
about the daily life within the family. They represent a fundamental process from the psy-
chological point of view. The psychologist Lev Vygotsky wrote about when a child inter-
nalizes his experiences with parents to develop the ability to think: children who build their
parents’ accounts of events they have witnessed then begin to relate to themselves, and
the content of their fantasies and their memories becomes an integral and active part of
their inner conscious world (Vygotsky 1934). This approach suggests the possibility that
the processes commonly considered “private” such as thinking and reflecting on ourselves,
have actually originated as a form of interpersonal, family, social communication relation-
ship (Siegel 2001). For further details, see Vygotsky, L. S. (1934). Thought and language.
Cambridge, MA and London: The MIT Press; Siegel, D. J. (2001). La mente relazionale,
neurobiologia dell’esperienza interpersonale. Milano: Raffaello Cortina Editore.
1 INTRODUCTION: SOCIETY, FAMILY, SUBJECTS 3
To expand on this, we can say that at first glance in the works of Freud,
psychoanalysis would seem to be a theory of the individual, but it is
reckoned that these theoretical elaborations also contain a latent fam-
ily-group dimension; in fact, even if psychoanalysis originated as a
method of treatment of individuals, and Freud elaborated most of the
theories in terms of “intrapsychic structures”, we must not forget that it
was psychoanalysis that discovered and signaled that the human being is
not conceivable without the existence of others, and that those paradoxical
“attempts at care” that make human beings, classified as “symptoms”,
have a meaning not only for the individual, but also for the relationships
with others.2 The relational theories are therefore salient in psychoanaly-
sis and embrace the family dimension, in continuity with that of the cou-
ple: indeed, group, family and couple are privileged areas of relationship,
of bond. The approach to the family and the couple has attracted the
attention of psychoanalysts to the importance of the function of inter-
subjectivity in the genesis and maintenance of the structure of the psyche
(and the symptoms) and has opened up new horizons, even on the most
“primitive” levels of the psyche, which are expressed also in the context
of family sessions.3 The experience with families allows us to focus on the
importance of real and concrete actions within the family ties, leading to
a clear evolution and openness to relationships, which allows the possibil-
ity for creating new technical conditions to deal with situations in which
usually “we do not know how to do with the individual approach”. The
explicit intention to develop this theme has progressively been revealed,
starting in the first half of the last century with authors such as Flügel,
who published a psychoanalytic work on the matter,4 illustrating a careful
study about family members.
As already mentioned, the family-group dimension is found in sev-
eral texts by Freud.5 Also, in the Three Essays on Sexual Theory (1905),
Freud speaks of the possible influence of the parents in the transmis-
sion of neuroses to their children: he states that neurotic parents open
up routes that are more direct than the hereditary ones to transmit their
disorder to children, and also that disagreements between parents, or
their unhappy marriage, determine the children’s serious predisposition
for a disturbed sexual development, or for a neurotic illness. Freud also
refers to the negative effects of the mother’s lack of attention to her off-
spring or to the harmful effects of the early absence of one member of
the parental couple, which may be related to the development of hyste-
ria, for example.
The case of Dora, which is the most studied among Freud’s clinical
cases, reveals an indispensable family dimension. Freud (1905) describes
the situation of a young girl entangled in an intricate family situation,
packed with power games and secrets: Dora had been “implicitly deliv-
ered in sacrifice” by her father to a lord in exchange for toleration of his
adulterous relationship with the lord’s wife. Freud also reports that Dora
was complicit in the situation, and in turn colluded with her father’s
clandestine relationship. Curiously, the girl’s mother also “closed one
eye”, or perhaps both. This famous case indicates how the family dimen-
sion was an important focus of attention, in theory and in the clinic,
even in Freud’s time. The symptoms appeared in fact as a communica-
tion for a certain person: as a message and accusation. Equally famous
4 For further details, see Fluguel, S. (1921). The psycho-analytic study of the family.
the second Freudian topic introduces the fundamental theme of intersubjectivity, resulting
in a clear change of perspective. So Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego implies
a considerable change, highlighting how the individual is not conceivable without the other
and is always in relation with others. Then the others, the group, are present in the psy-
chic life of the subject. In addition, the same I who gives the sense of identity to the sub-
ject originates in these relationships: the identifications. For further details, see Freud, S.
(1921). Psicologia delle masse e analisi dell’Io (Vol. IX). Boringhieri.
1 INTRODUCTION: SOCIETY, FAMILY, SUBJECTS 5
is the narration about a patient suffering from intense anguish, with the
unconscious purpose of taking the mother prisoner and removing the
freedom of movement necessary to attend the lover (but consciously the
subject is unaware of the mother’s betrayal). Here, the problem of family
secrets, which we so frequently find in dysfunctional families, arises.
Another famous Freudian case is that of little Hans. The child
presented a phobia, which, according to Freud, indicated not
only a psychic conflict but also the denunciation of a family con-
flict; as Freud himself states, both in the case of Dora6 and little
6 The Dora case is still today one of the most interesting studies, not only on a psycho-
analytic level, but also on a narrative one. We can understand how this famous case also
emphasizes the importance of family relationships, which is why it is explored in detail
here: with the study of this case, Freud begins to understand how family relationships actu-
ally matter. The Dora case is a fragment of analysis, which lasted only three months and
then stopped. Freud considers this clinical case crucial for the understanding of mental
processes, with referral to the interpretation of dreams but also to the psychopathology of
everyday life. In the course of the analysis, he occasionally allows the patient to choose the
topic to discuss in the session, and underlines the extreme importance of the dream, which
he considers to be one of the preferential channels through which consciousness can make
manifest the material that has been somehow removed, because it is not accepted, and
therefore expelled from the consciousness itself (according to Freud, these removed ele-
ments reveal themselves in a certain symptom). In this case, Dora’s family and its dynamics
are accurately described: Freud writes of all its components, focusing in particular on the
relationship between the father and the mother. The father, at the time of Dora’s analysis,
is about seventy years old; he is a talented, economically affluent man, a professional who
has been affected by various diseases, including tuberculosis, during his lifetime. And it is
precisely because of this that he and his family visit the health resort near Vienna, where
he will meet Mrs. K. Then, when Dora is fifteen, he is stricken with a paralysis. Unlike
her husband, the mother is a woman who does not embrace her emotions, and this emo-
tional detachment is very evident in the relationship with her daughter. The father’s sister
and his brothers have children with neurotic traits; the brother has hypochondriac tenden-
cies, as does Dora’s aunt. From the age of eight, Dora begins to develop the first neurotic
symptoms: at twelve, she suffers from migraine, at sixteen years of coughing attacks, which
last between three and six weeks. The case begins with a description of the last episode,
which is reported to Freud by Dora’s father: during their stay at the health resort, Dora’s
family gets to know the K. family, composed of Mr. K. and Mrs. K. A close friendship is
established between Dora’s father and Mrs. K., while Dora spends a lot of time with Mrs.
K’s husband. But one day something happens: Dora claims that Mr. K. has made some
advances during a visit to the lake, and reports it to her father, who, however, does not
believe her (influenced, no doubt, by the bond he has established with Mr. K’s wife). Dora
has a strong, perhaps even excessive, admiration for Mrs. K. She does not relate to her as
a jealous woman, as a competitor, but as an admirer. Dora senses the relationship between
her father and Mrs. K., and often tries to find ways to divide them. Then another important
incident further complicates matters. While Dora was at the lake, Mr. K. kissed her, and she
6 F. IRTELLI
Hans,7 the iteration of the family group tends to crystallize the symp-
tom and gives it meaning, depending on the context in which it is
located.
felt a deep disgust. Freud considers it fundamental that all Dora’s symptoms are actually
a way to get the father’s attention: and this is also manifested through the attention that
Dora shows towards Mr. K.’s children (she tries to take Mrs. K.’s place as Mr. K.’s wife).
Dora claims that Mrs. K. is in love with her father (partly because he is a rather wealthy
man). This reveals that Dora is very attached to her father and this bond with Mrs. K. is
unacceptable to her, so she refuses the love for Mr. K. Dora also develops many symptoms.
According to Freud, therefore, the aphonia would be the representation and the realiza-
tion, which fantasy offers, of sexual impulses, which, however, present themselves through
the unconscious reactions in the hysterical subject. Freud also interprets her dyspnea as a
symptom that reflects different dynamics: Dora’s love for her father, her jealousy towards
the mother, the reference to the advances received from Mr. K. It turns out from the
analysis of this case that family relationships are relevant to mental health. To read more
on the subject, see Freud, S. (1901). Bruchstück einer Hysterie-Analyse. In Gesammelte
Werke (Vol. V, pp. 161–285). Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1966 [1901]. Tr. it.
“Frammento di un’analisi d’isteria (caso clinico di Dora)”. In Opere (IV, pp. 305–406).
Boringhieri, Torino 1970.
7 This case highlights the importance of family relations, and how unfortunately they are
not always harmonic. If we now look at the case of little Hans (Freud 1908), we note that
here Freud relies on different clinical and narrative assumptions than those of Dora’s case:
in fact, the analyst is Hans’s father and Freud is the supervisor. This case report is a com-
mentary on a pre-existing written text, consisting of the notes that Hans’s father gave to
Freud and which remained at a provisional level of processing. The narrative technique is
very different, resembling a collage of notes written (also in a dialogical form) by Hans’s
father, and observations and interpretations made by him, with which Freud’s overlap.
After having systematized his ideas on sexuality, on the basis of the underlying hypothesis
that all neuroses have a common root in the vicissitudes of infantile sexuality, Freud, whose
theory encountered much resistance, as a consequence felt more and more intensely the
need to provide clinical trials to support hypothesis. In 1908, he was offered the opportu-
nity to provide the evidence he required to support his theory, studying the case of phobia
in a five-year-old child (Little Hans). Freud had treated his mother for a neurosis about
which he provides no other information. The son’s phobia manifested itself in the fear of
being bitten by a horse. The analysis of the phobia is based on the transcription that Hans’s
father made of the talks he had with his son. The phobia arises when Hans is five years old,
but some precedents of interest are given. Hans is an alert and lively child, who manifests
early on a naive interest in urinating and the differences between male and female anat-
omy that he cannot decipher. His father’s transcripts also include interviews before Hans
developed a problem. Freud gives great value to this material, but does not ask why it was
recorded. The reason is obvious. Hans’s father is a neophyte of psychoanalysis and observes
with a watchful eye the development of the child to grasp the evidence of the veracity of the
Freudian theory on child sexual development. When Hans shows interest in his own urinat-
ing, the urination of animals and adults, this interest is constantly encouraged by his father.
The parental attention paid to the child’s sexual development is rigorous. This behavior is
1 INTRODUCTION: SOCIETY, FAMILY, SUBJECTS 7
Freud believed that the closest relatives of the patient showed little
interest in promoting the healing of their family member; rather, they
seemed to preserve the current status, substantiated by the same recur-
siveness of their interactions, so that the patient cannot move differently
in the context.
Even today we see how, superficially, when conflicting relation-
ships occur between family members, the publicly defined “healthy”
relative often seems to put their needs and desires ahead of the inter-
est of healing the family member labeled as “sick”; on the other
hand, often in family therapy, parents request the transformation into
seen by Freud as commendable, and evidence of the consequence of an education free from
the “usual omissions”. In fact, however, the parents frustrate the curiosity of the child: the
father never shows himself naked to him, the mother has some reluctance, and both forget
to explain to their son the anatomical differences between man and woman and how chil-
dren come into the world. When he is three and a half years old, and a little sister comes
into the world, Hans is at home. He realizes that a doctor has been called and, entering
the bedroom after the delivery and seeing the basins full of bloody water, is led to think
that children are brought by the stork. In short, the attitude of the parents is, on the one
hand, morbid in relation to the sexual development of the child; on the other, repressive.
Hans is in the phase of manipulation when an important episode occurs: At three and a half
years he is surprised by the mother with his hand on his penis, and she threatens: “If you
do that, I will have Dr. A. cut your penis.” Another similar episode occurs a few months
later when Hans is four years and three months old. This morning his mother bathes and
dries him as usual, applying talc near his penis, but taking care not to touch it. Hans asks:
“Why don’t you put your finger on it?” Mom: “No, it’s a dirty thing.” Hans: “Why dirty?”
Mom: “Because it is not right.” Even later, the parents insist on inhibiting and negatively
judging the tendency Hans has to touch his penis. We do not know much about his par-
ents. Here and there, however, it appears that, presumably exasperated by the vivacity of
the child, the mother threatens to abandon or beat him. At five years old, Hans develops
the phobia of horses. The advent of the phobia is preceded by a crisis of anguish during
which he expresses the fear of being abandoned by his parents, especially his mother, and
represses the need to be close to her and pampered. He is on his way back from a walk
with his mother, who reports that he was afraid that a horse would bite him. Subsequently,
Hans manifests all the symptoms of the phobia: the terror at the sight of the horses, the
avoidance. The contents of the phobia are specified. Hans is not afraid of all horses, but
only of those attached to transport wagons, when these are loaded. His fear is more intense
when there is only one horse, and it is not just about being bitten. Hans thinks that when
the horses have to pull a heavy load, they may fall and and kick. He is also very frightened
by seeing the carters beat the horses and shout at them. Freud relates that “a long time
before the phobia, the child was troubled by observing the whipping of the horses”. These
data, which testify to a lively sensibility, would lead Hans, in terms of common sense, to see
in the horse as a being that, harnessed, subjected to a heavy effort and whipped, falls and
becomes angry. If the bite is an expression of anger and, at the same time, of remorse, the
8 F. IRTELLI
horse is Hans himself, subjected by his father to an innovative and repressive pedagogical
experimentation: encouraged to grow up well and quickly to satisfy the narcissism of par-
ents who consider themselves pioneers of a new pedagogical model, and to repress, in the
name of their moralisms, their legitimate curiosity. But why the horse? Because, evidently, it
is the first living thing with features designed to promote identification that Hans sees.
The father, who evidently has already communicated to Freud his previous observations,
informs him of the situation and asks for his help. Freud invests him in the role of analyst
of his son, who is subjected to exhausting analytically oriented interrogators. The conclu-
sion reached by Freud on the basis of the transcribed interviews is that “Hans is really a
small Oedipus, who wants to get rid and suppress his father to be alone with the beauti-
ful mother, to sleep with her”; “under the fear of the biting horse, expressed at first, we
have discovered the deepest fear of the falling horse, and both of them, the horse biting
and falling, are the father, who will punish Hans for having nourished towards him desires
so bad”; “all moving or loading wagons and omnibuses are nothing but storks’ crates in
the form of caravans, they are of interest to the child only as symbolic references to preg-
nancy … So the horse that falls is not only the father who dies, but also the mother who
gives birth. There is no need to add that the baby is the son of Hans-Edipo.” To read
more on the subject see Freud, S. (1908). Analyse der Phobie eines funfjahrigen Knagen.
In Gesammelte Werke (VII, pp. 245–379). Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Verlag, 1968. Tr. it.
Analisi della fobia di un bambino di cinque anni (Casoclinico del piccolo Hans). In Opere
(V, pp. 481–590). Torino: Boringhieri, 1972.
1 INTRODUCTION: SOCIETY, FAMILY, SUBJECTS 9
and how family ties condition the presence of symptoms: if the symp-
tomatology disappears, the “pathological” links also disappear. Freud
anticipates the ideas that systemic theory will develop much later,8 both
on familial homeostasis and on the family sense of the symptom.
Passing now from father to daughter, we can say that Anna Freud
was an influential psychologist who had a great impact on psychoanaly-
sis, psychotherapy and child psychology. Anna Freud did more than live
in “her father’s shadow”; she became one of the world’s foremost psy-
choanalysts and is recognized as the founder of child psychoanalysis. She
built her theory of infant and child growth from hundreds of detailed
written observations of infants and young children at various ages and
stages of development, from a few months to five years old. Even for
Anna Freud (1962, 1965), it is important, in therapy with children, to
include parents in the field of observation, so as to ensure their collab-
oration: this allows the therapist to then switch from zooming in on the
subject to a wide angle view—that of the family. In the first chapter of
Normality and Pathology (1965), Anna Freud in fact notifies her desire
to provide parents with the corresponding indications to “discovered dis-
coveries”. For example, parents were asked to try to reduce their chil-
dren’s fear of them. This passage reveals initially that one has in mind an
“ideal subject” that must act in a certain way, according to an idealiza-
tion, for which it is necessary to “correct and straighten”. Anna Freud,
however, noted the ineffectiveness of a corrective approach, which gives
advice, for the full prevention of neurosis. Indeed, it must be stressed
that the role of parents is of great importance in the development of chil-
dren, but is not the determinant causing neurosis or health; there are
many other factors that intertwine with each other (Engel 1977, 1980).
Extending the argument, we can say that Anna Freud devoted herself
also to the prevention of neurosis and developed an excellent theory
of object relations; conducting research on how to prevent the rise of
neurosis in the development of children, she investigated if a psychoana-
lytic education could help in an appropriate process of growth, even for
children who came from concentration camps. Anna Freud strength-
ened awareness of the importance of the mother to the child in war-
time (even if “not a particularly good mother”), which is the outcome
8 To read more on the subject, see Marcer, R. (1985). La obra de Sigmund Freud, punto
9 As we have highlighted, the attention given to family dynamics and to the interaction
between parent and child is also very important in Anna Freud’s contribution, but there
are also other relevant elements of her theoretical production. The authors who reviewed
Anna Freud’s contributions agree on some fundamental aspects of her thinking (Young-
Breuehl, 1996): a first aspect concerns her theoretical position that had highlighted her
link to Sigmund Freud’s theorization; the second relevant aspect is her proposal of original
theories and new contributions. Her strong bond with her father’s theories consists in shar-
ing his classical theory and his metapsychology, but the importance of her original and new
contributions represented a great step for psychoanalysis.
After conducting many studies and checks, Anna Freud became much less optimistic
about the possibility that psychoanalytic education could always prevent psychopathology.
In the first chapter of Normality and Pathology in Childhood (1965), she wrote about psy-
choanalysis discoveries and about her conceptualization of prevention: initially, if she tries
to give parents the corresponding indications regarding the new discoveries that have
occurred to prevent the pathology—for example, the importance of child sexuality—she
recommends a more lenient attitude towards its manifestation; when the importance of the
super-ego was established, she suggests reducing the fear that children could have of their
own parents. But in the end, after numerous attempts, Anna Freud concludes that accord-
ing to psychoanalysis there cannot be a complete prevention of neurosis. Of course, there
1 INTRODUCTION: SOCIETY, FAMILY, SUBJECTS 11
are cases in which a psychoanalytic education helps the child to find appropriate solutions
that safeguard mental health, but there are also many other childern with an internal dis-
harmony that cannot be prevented, and this becomes the starting point for a pathological
evolution of one kind or another (Freud 1965) However, Anna Freud continued to attrib-
ute particular importance to: the influence of parental reality on the child, the potential
influence of the environment, and the need to investigate the balance between internal and
external forces in the child’s psyche (Freud 1965). According to the author, the psycho-
analysis of the child does not have to interpret the child’s situation exclusively in terms
of internal reality, because there is the risk of neglecting patient reports about the envi-
ronmental circumstances of the moment: relations and enviroment are no less important
than internal reality. This also highlighted the importance of the family environment for
the development of the subject, even if it is not the only determining factor (according
to the Anna Freud, for example, merely altering external reality cannot always produce a
healing effect, except perhaps in the very early childhood). Child analysts must relate to
the harmful external factors that acquire pathological significance through interaction with
innate predispositions and acquired and internalized attitudes of the ego’s libido. However,
it should be emphasized that when we talk about education on a psychoanalytic basis, it is
not a question of pedagogical aspects, but of translating psychoanalytic conceptions with
the aim of helping the child to progress in his normal development.
In Vienna and in London, Anna Freud explored psychoanalytic pedagogy in more depth,
thus demonstrating her interest in education; then she continued in the practice of the
Jackson Nursery in Vienna and the Hampstead War Nurseries in London. However, already
in this last activity, the education about psychoanalytic theories assumes different meanings
from pedagogy. Certainly, poor children in Vienna, and those separated from their parents
in London were also given physical care (nourishment and medical treatment provided by
the pediatrician and friend of Anna Freud, Josephine Strauss), but of fundamental impor-
tance in the theoretical approach was psychological understanding. This understanding led
to a number of contributions in cooperation with Joseph Goldstein, of Yale Law School,
and Albert Solnit at the Yale Center, including a trilogy of works: Beyond the Best Interests
of the Child (1973), Before the Best Interests of the Child (1979) and In the Best Interests of
the Child (1986). These books are dedicated to the psychoanalytic understanding of chil-
dren who, belonging to atypical, divorced or adoptive families, must be placed in a foster
family or institution. The authors discuss the problem, taking into account the needs of the
child at each specific stage of development, the support and the circumstances necessary
to promote healthy maturation, the role of the father and mother in relation to their chil-
dren, the possible typical family effects, foster caregivers, adopters and the care provided by
the residential institutions; they also examined the ways in which disabilities, diseases and
physical traumas can interfere with normal development, stop it or force it in directions
that make it difficult, pushing the effort of adaptation to the limit. The impetus for direct
12 F. IRTELLI
observation of the child derives from an interest in verifying the hypotheses on child devel-
opment, derived from her father in the psychoanalysis of adults. This came initially with
the opening of the Jackson Nursery in Vienna, where Anna Freud saw a unique opportu-
nity to learn how to test psychoanalytic ideas in a typical daycare program (Sandler 1996).
The work, continued with the Hampstead War Nurseries in London, where she directed
studies on separation and different substitutes, on libidinal development, on the impact of
the internal and external world on the child, on child development and on the systematic
use of observations in children. She also wrote numerous reports on the activities of the
Hampstead War Nurseries and described the most important scientific conclusions derived
from this work. She states that many psychoanalysts had proposed the idea that the sci-
entific and therapeutic value of psychoanalytic treatment was directly proportional to the
depth of the psychic states examined (Freud 1936), and, starting from this observation,
Anna Freud points out that the psychoanalyst cannot directly observe the profound uncon-
scious but only its derivatives mediated by the ego of the subject. Psychoanalysis is therefore
dedicated to the exploration of the conscious dimensions of the psyche. She revisited the
theories of Sigmund Freud and became increasingly aware of the inadequacy of the phases
of libidinal development as a frame of reference in considering all aspects of the develop-
ment of childhood pathology. For example, it is clear that the classical libidinal phases did
not adequately adapt to the development of the child’s aggression and were not completely
suitable for an evolutionary categorization of the child’s object relations, and certainly
did not constitute a sufficient basis for understanding the complexity of ego development
and of the super-ego. Moreover, from the psychopathological point of view, increasingly
the presence of disorders different from neurotic ones emerged and therefore cannot be
explained in terms of regression fixation with respect to the phases of psychosexual develop-
ment. The awareness of these limitations led her to the brilliant solution of introducing the
concept of evolutionary lines, which, although not contradicting the idea of development
1 INTRODUCTION: SOCIETY, FAMILY, SUBJECTS 13
If the mother fails to modulate the anxiety and reacts with panic rather
than raising one impassable wall between self and child she will determine
an inclination […] to the uncontrolled spread of anxiety or induce in him
the formation of an impoverished psychic organization. (Kohut 1984)
according to the libidinal phases, allows additional ones in order to avoid the existing
restrictions in classical theory. The evolutionary lines theorized by Anna Freud are based
on the central idea that detailed observations of behavior (i.e. an accurate study of surface
phenomena) should allow a professional with adequate training to draw inferences on the
functioning of the inner life of the child. For further details, see Freud, A. (1927). Four lec-
tures on child analysis, in The Writings of A. Freud. Madison, CT: International Universities
Press. 1974 vol. 1; Freud, A. (1936). The ego and the defense mechanisms in Works vol. 1,
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peu. Tout même porte à croire que Fuston n’aurait pas vu sans
déplaisir un caprice indiscret des saisons déranger son bonheur et
secouer l’aimable paresse de ses meules.
Vrai logis de poète ce moulin :
Le moulin de Fuston, à sec l’été, gelé l’hiver, qui ne fait jamais de
farine !
DANS UNE PETITE VILLE
I
LA VIEILLE MAISON.
Étonnant, ce Midi !
J’entre ce matin chez mon nouvel ami Cougourdan, notaire !
mais notaire d’opinions avancées et qui s’était fait le plus grand tort
pour avoir installé, dès le 4 septembre, un buste de la Déesse (c’est
ainsi que nous nommons la République, nous autres païens de
Provence), en pleine étude, sur la cheminée. Buste peu subversif,
du reste, sans bonnet phrygien, et simplement couronné de rayons.
A l’apparition du buste dans l’étude, quelques clients retirèrent
leurs dossiers… Des personnes de la noblesse !
Cougourdan ne s’effraya point. Il acheta un second buste,
couronné d’épis cette fois ! et, se trouvant en posséder deux, il les
plaça chacun à un coin de la cheminée, avec goût, pour faire
pendant.
Quelques dossiers partirent encore.
Ferme dans ses idées, Cougourdan se procura un troisième
buste, avec le bonnet phrygien celui-là ! et lui ayant construit un
piédestal de quelques livres de droit superposés, il le planta
courageusement au beau milieu, entre les deux autres.
A partir de ce moment, comme les clients avaient fini de retirer
leurs dossiers, mon ami Cougourdan cessa de collectionner des
déesses.
Donc, ce matin, chez mon nouvel ami Cougourdan, ayant
regardé de près les divers objets d’art qui, en outre des bustes,
décoraient l’étude, je ne pus m’empêcher d’être fort étonné.
Au-dessus de la plus haute des trois déesses, frôlant la pointe du
bonnet phrygien de sa marge, une gravure était clouée sur le mur.
Moins qu’une gravure, une image ! une de ces planches de poirier
taillées à coups de serpe à Toulouse, dont la violence et le goût
barbare heurtent les délicatesses bourgeoises, mais qui, par leurs
couleurs brutales et vives comme la lumière, leurs traits rudes
comme un coup de soc, se font comprendre des imaginations
paysannes.
Cette image représentait une sorte d’évêque en robe longue,
portant la crosse, coiffé de la mitre, et auréolé d’un nimbe d’or. Tout
autour, plaqués de pourpre et de vert cru, s’élançaient des pampres
et retombaient des grappes.
— Qu’est-ce que c’est que ça ? m’écriai-je.
— C’est saint Vincent, fit Cougourdan.
— Comment ? saint Vincent !
— Oui, saint Vincent, le saint des Rouges.
Car, je ne m’en doutais pas, mais je l’appris ! dans le Midi, ce
Midi terrible, les Rouges eux-mêmes avaient leur saint.
Un saint estimé, respecté, ami des libertés et du peuple, que les
membres du cercle Garibaldi allaient dévotement, une fois l’an,
prendre à l’église, la messe entendue, pour le porter à l’ermitage.
Taillé dans un cep de vigne centenaire et tout enguirlandé de raisins
nouveaux, le bon saint parcourait les rues, puis les champs, oscillant
sur quatre robustes épaules. Et c’était plaisir de voir ces mécréants,
républicains à longue barbe qui laissaient passer méchamment,
entre le pantalon et le gilet, une large bande de taïole écarlate,
monter la côte raboteuse, dans les cailloux coupants et les lavandes
sèches, fiers de porter leur saint Vincent au milieu des hymnes en
latin et des patenôtres ecclésiastiques. Car le vieux curé du village
accompagnait le saint et chantait. Il rechignait bien un peu, mais il
chantait : c’est l’esprit de l’Église !
Le jour de la Saint-Vincent, par exemple, et même quand la fête
tombait un dimanche, les Blancs du village faisaient grève. Tout le
monde aux champs, l’église vide ; plutôt le péché et la damnation
que de fêter un saint qui pactise avec l’infâme République ! Plus
d’une fois même, tandis que le cortège défilait en bel ordre, des
figues molles arrivant on ne sait d’où et des tomates tombées du ciel
étaient venues religieusement s’écraser sur la robe d’or du saint des
Rouges.
De là des querelles, des batailles. A chaque Saint-Vincent
nouvelle, le village s’ensanglantait. La Providence, par bonheur, est
venue arranger les choses.
Le vieux curé meurt, un jeune le remplace : fleurant à plein nez le
séminaire, jaune comme un cierge, aigre comme le vin de la
Passion, qui du premier coup veut tout réformer. Des gens prudents
lui parlent du saint des Rouges, l’avertissent ; il n’écoute pas.
Et le jour de la Saint-Vincent, voyant rassemblés autour de lui,
respectueux et tête nue, tous les réfractaires de sa paroisse, il ne
peut résister à l’envie de les régaler d’un sermon. Il les exhorte, il les
chapitre, il leur parle d’Henri V, du pape, et du bon Dieu par
occasion. Si bien que le plus ancien, perdant patience :
— Monsieur le curé, il y a erreur ! Nous sommes ici pour saint
Vincent tout seul, pas pour Dieu ni pour d’autres.
Le curé se fâcha, et la procession n’eut pas lieu.
Si bien que, depuis ce jour-là, l’antique cep de vigne moisit
délaissé au coin le plus noir de la sacristie et que les Rouges n’ont
plus de saint dans la ville où mon ami Cougourdan est notaire.
Étonnant, n’est-ce pas ? ce Midi !
IV
DRÔLES DE PÉNITENTS.