Aldo Carotenuto
Aldo
Carotenuto, born in Naples (Italy) in 1933, is Professor of the Theory
of Personality in the Department of Psychology (University of Rome, La
Sapienza). Following his studies in Rome and Turin, he lived for some time
in the U.S., where he attended the School of Experimental Psychological
of the New School for Social Research in New York. He is a member of the
American Psychological Association and president of the CentroStudi
Psicologia e Letteratura. He is director of the Giornale
Storico di Psicologia Dinamica and on the editorial staff of the Rivista
di Psicologia Analitica. He is also on the scientific committee of the
review Prometeo and the director of the Quaderni della Cattedra di Psicologia
della Personalità with the collaboration of his assistents. Aldo
Carotenuto practices as a psychoanalyst in Rome. His research is centered
on clinical psychoanalysis and the relationships between psychoanalysis
and literature. As a result, special attention has been given to the question
of transference love in the area of psychoanalytical procedure. Many of
the books written by Aldo Carotenuto between 1980 and 1988 reveal the inevitable
inauthenticity of a concept of 'neutrality' as regards the relationship
between analyst and patient. Thus, as that material - the intimate history
of the patient - must be both source and object of the psychoanalytical
process, analysis becomes the elected space of Eros and Thanatos. Only
an adequate awareness of the powerful nature of those affects which are
created in the analytical couple will equip the analyst to cope with the
seering requests of the patient; negating his involvement will inevitably
render him vulnerable and blind. The above research is also an interesting
and complex series of portraist of artists, observed in the light of their
secret, interior life. Carotenuto analyzes works of Kafka, Dostoevskij
and Bousquet, as well as those of poets and painters, his theory being
that psychological suffering alone does not suffice to explain a work of
art, but that suffering generates a destiny which makes artistic research
its raison d'etre. The interest in these luminaries bears out the basic
theory underlying the entire production and research of Aldo Carotenuto:
the primacy and absolute importance of creativity for the human being.
Art, like psychoanalysis, is a process to liberate individual creative
energies which have been imprisoned and blocked by a rigid, false education
or by serious neuroses. However, complexes are indicative not only of blocked
creative energies, but also of the effort exerted by the psyche to transfor
its suffering into an instrument of liberation and creation. Aldo Carotenuto's
writings are extensive and, besides numerous articles, include works some
of which are considered fundamental texts in the study of personality theory
and psychotherapy and the history of psychology.
Publications
October 1997
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