Constructions and the Analytic Field: History, Scenes and Destiny

Constructions and the Analytic Field questions the relationship between psychoanalysis, history and literature. Does the analyst help the analysand construct a narrative, or is their task more of a historical reconstruction? In seeking to answer this question, Domenico Chianese examines Freuds writing, beginning with Constructions in Analysis and ending in Moses and Monotheism, as well as the impressions of analytic method reflected in contemporary writers such as Thomas Mann, and historical writings from both sides of the Atlantic. Drawing on vivid and persuasive clinical examples, he argues that psychoanalysis creates a scenic space between analysand and analyst, a theatrical space wherein the cast of the patients interior world enter and exit from the scene. Drawing on the rich Italian psychoanalytic tradition, this original approach to the analytic field will be of interest to psychoanalysts, historians and literary experts.