Psychoanalysis and social services: a method for caring

Psychoanalysis and social analysis are not separate worlds. Although much of 20th century cultural history has declined them as belonging to specific spheres of pertinence (the intrapsychic and the private one, the interpersonal and the public the other) it is to be hoped that a vision less marked by such dualism can recompose the fracture. It is evident, in fact, as modern theories of complexity show us, that there is a deep interdependence between the various levels that make up our life and that the persistence of such a marked dichotomy is more the result of a split than a fact. As psychoanalytic reflection has taught us, however, when the split is too rigid it compromises our ability to master and contain the complexity of the experience itself. Operating in the direction of a recomposition capable of restoring integrity to our existence is not then a mere intellectual operation. On the contrary, today it acquires the character of urgency, all the more so as visions of the world seem to prevail that are deeply marked by closure and rejection of otherness.