Epistemalgia: stories of negative therapeutic reactions

Journal title PSICOTERAPIA PSICOANALITICA
Author/s Riccardo Galiani
Publishing Year 2025 Issue 2025/2
Language Italian Pages 18 P. 70-87 File size 126 KB
DOI 10.3280/PSP2025-002005
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

After recalling the position occupied in Western culture by the “pain-knowledge” dyad, Galiani reconstructs what he considers to be the main stages of a Freudian theory of pain. Basing himself on this and on his own interpretation of an indication by Pontalis on the relationship between pain and suffering for which the two terms can help to refer to two different conscious and unconscious psychic conditions ‒ the punctual intensity of pain and suffering protracted in time ‒ Galiani suggests reading some experiences of psychoanalytic clinics that can be classified as “negative therapeutic reactions” (three reported with brief references, one presented in more detail) in the light of the particular interactions between pain and knowledge that can occur in some psychoanalytic situations. It is in this perspective that the proposal of the neologism “epistemalgia”, designed to deal with the absence of manifestations attributable to an epistemophilic drive, would be justified.

Keywords: knowledge, psychic pain intensity, mourning, narcissism, death drive, negative therapeutic reaction.

  1. AA. VV. (1908-1910). Protokolle der Wiener Psychoanalytischen Vereinigung. Band II 1908-1910 (a cura di Nunberg H., Federn P.). Frankfurt/Main: Fischer Verlag, 1977.
  2. André J. (2014). La douleur qui se tait n’en est que plus funeste. In Chabert C. (sous la dir.): La douleur. Marseille: Érès, 2015.
  3. Bodei R. (1983). Conoscenza e dolore. Per una morfologia del tragico. In: Il Centauro. Rivista di filosofia e teoria politica, 1: 3-27.
  4. Duras M. (1985). Il dolore. Milano: Feltrinelli, 1985.
  5. Fachinelli E. (1979), La freccia ferma. Tre tentativi di annullare il tempo. Milano: Adelphi.
  6. Fédida P. (1992). Tradizione tragica dello psicopatologico. In Crisi e contro-transfert. Roma: Borla, 1997.
  7. Fédida P. (1995). Le neutre et la négation. Ora in P. Fédida, Œuvres Complètes. Vanves: MJW Éditions. Tome 9.
  8. Freud S. (1890) Trattamento Psichico (trattamento dell’anima). OSF,1.
  9. Freud S. (1892 – 1897). Minute teoriche per Wilhelm Fliess. OSF, 2.
  10. Freud S. (1895). Progetto di una psicologia. OSF, 2.
  11. Freud S. (1914). Introduzione al narcisismo. OSF, 7.
  12. Freud S. (1915a). Metapsicologia. La Rimozione. OSF, 8.
  13. Freud S. (1915b). Metapsicologia. Lutto e melanconia. OSF, 8.
  14. Freud S. (1920). Al di là del principio di piacere. OSF, 9.
  15. Freud S. (1922). L’Io e l’Es. OSF, 9.
  16. Freud S. (1924). Il problema economico del masochismo. OSF, 10.
  17. Freud S. (1925). Inibizione Sintomo e Angoscia. OSF, 10.
  18. Freud S. (1937). Analisi terminabile e interminabile. OSF, 11.
  19. Garella A. (2022). Prefazione. in Ferraro F.: Analisi in-finita e orizzonte edipico. Milano: FrancoAngeli.
  20. Green A. (1973). Il discorso vivente. La concezione psicoanalitica dell’affetto. Roma: Astrolabio, 1974.
  21. Laplanche J., Pontalis J.-B. (1967). Vocabolario della psicoanalisi. Milano – Udine: Mimesis, 2024 (le precedenti edizioni Laterza erano sotto il titolo Enciclopedia della psicoanalisi).
  22. Pontalis J.-B. (1976). Sul dolore (psichico). In Tra il sogno e il dolore. Roma: Borla, 1988.
  23. Pontalis J.-B. (1984). Malinconia del linguaggio. In Perdere di vista. Roma: Borla, 1993.
  24. Pontalis J.-B. (2003). La traversée des ombres. Paris: Gallimard.

Riccardo Galiani, Epistemalgia: storie di reazioni terapeutiche negative in "PSICOTERAPIA PSICOANALITICA" 2/2025, pp 70-87, DOI: 10.3280/PSP2025-002005