2014 Programme
Event #11
Massimo Recalcati
Can One Forgive in Love?
Although eternal love does not exist, every love would like to be just that. What happens when love is overcome by the traumatic experience of betrayal and abandonment? What happens when one of the two partners lives another affective experience in secret and deceitfully? What happens, then, if the person who betrays asks for forgiveness and, after saying that things had changed, wants everything to be as it was before? Should we make fun of lovers in their efforts to make love last? Or can we come to terms with the experience of betrayal, with the offense suffered, with the pain inflicted by he or she who has always been our reason for living? The task of forgiveness is close to that of bereavement yet differs from it because it saves the lost object. Is this work possible? Can we forgive the unforgivable? Can one forgive in love?
Massimo Recalcati, is a member of Società Milanese di Psicoanalisi (Psychoanalytical Society of Milan). He is the founder of Jonas - Centre of Psychoanalytic Clinical Practice for New Symptoms, and the scientific director of a postgraduate school in psychotherapy at IRPA (Research Institute of Applied Psychoanalysis) in Milan. He teaches at the University of Verona and at IULM University of Milan. Since 2003, he has been director and lecturer of the postgraduate school in New Symptoms Clinic at the Jonas Onlus centre in Milan. He is currently a supervisor at the Gruber Centre in Bologna for serious cases of eating disorders. He contributes to the cultural sections of la Repubblica and La Stampa. Since 2014, he has directed the Eredi series for Feltrinelli. Since 2020, he has collaborated with Maurizio Balsamo and co-edited the journal Frontiere della psicoanalisi, published by Il Mulino. His numerous publications are translated into several languages.
ph. credits: Settimio Benedusi
Event #20
Paolo Cornaglia Ferraris, Marcello Massimini
The Secret of the Consciousness and its Measurement
