Psychoanalysis in Milan in the Age of Dis-alienation: The Case of Elvio Fachinelli

This chapter discusses how Italian psychoanalysis dealt with the notion of alienation in the 1970s, looking specifically at Elvio Fachinelli’s work (1928–1989). In Italy at the time there were two main trends in the left-wing approach to mental health: so-called anti-psychiatry, which brought about the closure of asylums, and strong criticism of psychoanalysis. This criticism, which is the object of this chapter, resulted in different developments of psychoanalysis: in continuity with, or in opposition to, psychiatry. The psychoanalyst Fachinelli represents the latter. In this chapter his work will be read through Ferenczi’s notion of reciprocity, in contrast to and in comparison with Lacan, and with particular reference to the Italian reception of Abrahams’s L’homme au magnetophone (1969), first published in Italian by Fachinelli’s cofounded publishing house L’erba voglio.