Alla rubrica di questo numero hanno collaborato: Andrea Castiello d'Antonio, Matteo Fumagalli, Adriana Grotta, Giuliana Nico, Chiara Pecchio

It is shown in detail how the concept of empathy, contrary to essentialist definitions, is a construct. Recalling the plurality of current conceptions, it is urged to take into account the etymological meaning of the term when using empathy or developing theories about it. Finally, three typical problems raised by the concept of empathy are discussed: the notion of "feeling" (pathos), the subject of empathy in its relationship with truth, and the "nature" of the relationship between empathizing subject and target subject.

Viene mostrato in dettaglio come il concetto di empatia, fuori da definizioni essenzialistiche, sia un costrutto. Constatata poi la pluralità di concezioni oggi in campo, si invita a non perdere di vista il significato etimologico del termine laddove si intenda utilizzare l'empatia o elaborare teorie su di essa. Infine vengono esposti tre tipici problemi suscitati dal concetto di empatia: riguardano la nozione di "sentire" (pathos), il soggetto dell'empatia nel rapporto con la verità, e la "natura" del rapporto soggetto empatizzante/soggetto target.

André Green, La lettera e la morte. Le parole nella giungla. Il viaggio di uno psicoanalista attraverso la Letteratura: Proust, Shakespeare, Conrad, Borges… Undici Interviste/ Conversazioni con Dominique Eddé. Edizione italiana a cura di Valter Santilli. Prefazione all'edizione italiana di Giovanni De Renzis. Roma: Alpes, 2024, pp. XXVIII+102, € 15,00 (ediz. orig.: La Lettre et la Mort: Promenade d'un psychanalyste à travers la littérature: Proust, Shakespeare, Conrad, Borges... Entretiens avec Dominique Eddé. Paris: Denoël, 2004)Michel Foucault, Binswanger e l'analisi esistenziale. Edizione stabilita da Elisabetta Basso, sotto la responsabilità di François Ewald. Traduzione e cura di Deborah Borca. Milano: Feltrinelli, 2024, pp. 249, € 35,00 (ediz. orig.: Binswanger et l'analyse existentielle. Paris: Seuil, 2021)Joseph E. LeDoux, I quattro mondi dell'uomo. Una nuova teoria dell'Io. Milano: Raffaello Cortina, 2024, pp. 296, € 26,00 (ediz. orig.: The Four Realms of Existence. A New Theory of Being Human. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2023)Francesco Comelli, Distruttività e narcisismo nella crisi dei contenitori sociali. Psico e socioterapia integrata per individuo, famiglia e società. Sesto San Giovanni (MI): Mimesis, 2024, pp. 113, € 12,00Naomi Shragai, L'uomo che scambiò il lavoro per la sua vita. Come prosperare sul lavoro mettendo da parte il proprio bagaglio emotivo. Traduzione di Noemi Carifi. Firenze: Giunti, 2024, pp. 271, € 22,00 (ediz. orig.: The Man who Mistook his Job for his Life: How to Thrive at Work by Leaving your Emotional Baggage Behind. London: Ebury Publishing, 2021)

A sessant'anni dalla scomparsa di Franz Alexander occorre indagare ciò che è vivo e ciò che è morto del suo pensiero sulla psicosomatica, focalizzando in particolare le nozioni di emozione e di nevrosi vegetativa come centrali nel suo modello di spiegazione. Va poi rilevata, alla luce degli sviluppi posteriori ad Alexander, la difficoltà odierna a sostenere la psicosomatica come disciplina autonoma, fino a mettere in dubbio la legittimità dell'espressione: in questo problematico contesto va misurata la proposta di Bottaccioli & Bottaccioli (2024a) di identificarla con la PsicoNeuroEn-docrinoImmunologia (PNEI). Resta comunque l'esigenza sempre valida, già sostenuta da Alexander, di una considerazione unitaria, "olistica" dell'essere umano, malato e sano. Si tratta però di un paradigma che occorre giustificare e precisare concettualmente nel ruolo effettivo che svolge di ispiratore di ricerche e di spiegazioni specifiche.

Taking into account the complexity and variety of psychoanalysis today, the author first investigates the subjective motivations for work and the individual ways of living working relationships. Noting, then, that most of the work nowadays takes place within organizations of various types, the author highlights, retracing the 'socio-analytical' and similar orientations, the intriguing emotional dynamics, mostly unconscious, acting in organizations 'below' the formally regulated institutional dimensions. Some attention is also paid to the operational implications of these researches and to 'clinical' attempts to make work within organizations less uncomfortable.

The author points out how meaningful the notion of psychic working is in Freud's writings, especially for the debt to a mechanical-energetic model of mind. At the end, the few hints that appear on the psychological and social meaning of work, are retraced.

After recalling the agreement with Giuseppe Civitarese (2023a, 2023b) on important theses, it is pointed out that the divergences concern the review of philosophers and other thinkers - on which some perplexities are raised in terms of merit and method - that Civitarese considered in order to support an acceptable notion of intersubjectivity. Therefore the result is an unclear definition of intersubjectivity, despite the intentions declared by Civitarese (2023a).

It is proposed a fine-tuning of the definition of intersubjectivity as inferable by Giuseppe Civitarese (2023a) - especially with regard to the expression "with-being" which is included therein - in order to overcome certain ambiguities within a constructive perspective, also paying particular attention to compatibility with Bion's notion of group (and therefore of "field"). It is urged also to stick to the most consolidated interpretations of the philosophers mentioned, if their ideas are used in non-philosophical disciplines; in this way it is further attested to Husserl's unlikely compatibility with psychoanalysis.

While aiming with Civitarese (2023) at a notion of intersubjectivity capable of justifying an idea of the psychoanalytic field based on the "being-with" analysand/analyst, the inadequacy for the purpose of Husserl's philosophy is shown, ultimately for a notion of subject (transcendental ego) that is alien to psychoanalysis. On the other hand, the difference between the approach of Husserl and other authors who deal fruitfully with intersubjectivity should not be underestimated. Furthermore, the difficulties of the transition from philosophical speculation to clinical research, conducted from a field perspective, are underlined, and therefore attention is paid to the specific trans-individual phenomena, empirically detectable in the analytic setting.

That conservative and authoritarian psychoanalytic institutions open to innovation in theory and pluralism in the management of power is Arnold Richards' strong commitment. According to the Author, however, substantial innovations are unlikely as long as psychoanalysts linger on embroidering on the Master's thought and struggling in internal feuds, rather than seriously confronting research methods alternative to the clinical one, as well as the results of neighboring disciplines (which have made important progress since Freud's time). With regard to the adhesion to Marxism and Communism of many North American psychoanalysts, the Author shows - working on four topoi that we can see in the background of Richards' paper - how mild is the influence of this adhesion on their conceptions of mental processes; furthermore, the correlation of the same adhesion with the authoritarian practice, once those psychoanalysts reach power, is questionable.

Allison & Fonagy (2016) do not define formally what do they mean by the term truth. After having reminded the classical distinction between truth as correspondence and truth as disclosure, it is argued that Allison and Fonagy oscillate between these two definitions. The central thesis of epistemic trust does not seem to imply the certainty in finding the truth that Allison and Fonagy seem to attribute to it, since the process of mentalization would require a series of intermediate steps and mental inferences.