title: Body, affect, thought: reflections on the work of Matte Blanco and Ferrari.
abstract: The author takes the body to be the point of departure- and the central foundation of symbolization-in psychoanalytic theory and practice. This perspective recognizes the body as a precondition for the formation of affects and for their registration in conscious awareness. Ignacio Matte Blanco (1975, 1984, 1988) considers that sensation-feeling is the link that connects emotion with thinking, the unrepressed unconscious with consciousness, and the body with the mind. Armando Ferrari (1986, 2004) conceptualizes the body as the concrete original object (COO), from whose inchoate promptings the sensory function and perceptual activity upon which mental functioning is founded are derived. The author suggests that these hypotheses offer a structure that facilitates psychoanalytic process in the treatment of difficult patients.
authors.affiliation: Italian Psychoanalytic Society. dr.riccardolombardi@libero.it
authors.forename: Riccardo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Lombardi