title: [Psychoanalytic studies and examination of imputability].
abstract: The Author points out that the recent contributions to the study of the crime require an improvement of the traditional principles followed for the investigation and qualification of the crime, as regards both its psychological dynamics and any juridical implications. The Author also shows that psychoanalysis is able to determine a decisive evolution in the eitology as well in the therapy of criminality. After a few preliminary considerations on the ambiguity of the idea of insanity, in accordance with the ordinary nosographic principles formulated in psychiatry, the Author emphasizes the uncertainties and discrepancies that, in the legislative systems from different countries, result from a limited view of the psychological phenomena. Then, he examines the utility of considering again the whole intra-psychic process which is involved in the crime dynamics through a psychoanalytical methodology. Particularly, he highlights the clarification which psycho-analysis may bring to the understanding of certain forms of aggressiveness which cannot be properly diagnosed according to the conventional medical and juridical methods. The Author finally considers the opening of the psycho-analytical application in the delicate examination of imputability. In this regard, he suggests to avoid any strict qualification, even in the evaluation of the most abnormal processes of psyche and he recommends--in conformity with a few juridical trends appeared in some countries--not to limit the investigation on the ability of understanding and will to the moment when a crime is committed, but to extend it to a single evaluation of the whole personality of the criminal.
mesh_terms: D003417:Criminal Psychology; D005060:Europe; D005555:Forensic Psychiatry; D007878:Legislation as Topic; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory; D011678:Punishment
vernacular_title: Indagine psicoanalitica ed esame dell'imputabilita'