Università Roma Tre

The course encourages direct and active participation from students, emphasizing participatory learning and critical thinking. The course is structured around two main themes:
1) Intersubjectivity and psychic functioning, focusing on how the mind is structured, its mechanisms, and the interconnections between individuals and society from a contemporary psychoanalytic perspective.
2) The centrality of emotional-affective and unconscious dynamics.
Contemporary psychoanalytic literature will be studied and discussed in class to stimulate critical and reflective thinking (relective practice). Each topic will be explored in depth, supplemented with additional theoretical knowledge and empirical case studies.
Specifically, the course will focus on the intersections between the individual and society (i.e., the psychic and social worlds), examining the cultural, social, and political implications of trauma, starting from the pioneering contributions of Ferenczi and Fromm, and then addressing - through the contributions of some contemporary psychoanalysts - topics such as freedom, introjective and projective mechanisms underlying the construction of identity (both individual and social). The course will also delve into the role and function of institutions in managing anxiety, as well as the intricate power dynamics inherent in psychic subjugation and submission, examining their connection with the concept of disavowal.
This year, in particular, the contributions of Lynne Layton to social psychoanalysis and her conceptualization of "normative unconscious processes," and those of Raluca Sorenau on working through socially rooted collective trauma, will be analyzed.

A list of references will be uploaded on the course's Teams channel, along with supplementary materials. Papers will be critically discussed and analyzed in class.

For non-attending students, the exam also include the following volumes:
Sorenau, R. (2018). Working-through collective wounds: Trauma, denial, recognition in the Brazilian uprising. Palgrave Macmillan.
Layton, L. (2020). Toward a social psychoanalysis: Culture, character, and normative unconscious processes. Routledge Press.