Mental earthquake-proof measures: can insecurity be tolerated in emergency situations

In this piece of work, impressions and observations made during the Abruzzo experience (2009 earthquake) are shared with the aim of stimulating reflection and creating emergency interventions while pondering whether an emergency psychoanalysis is viable and whether there is some way in which psychoanalysis can help people address insecurity in situations of emergency. In fact, we could think of interventions that are not limited to pacifying people by empathizing with their trauma, but those in which more articulate ways are sought in order to: 1) develop a method of making sense of traumatic experiences (on an individual as well as on a group level); 2) learn to build a culture of risk that combines with that of security in order to equip ourselves in readiness for unavoidable risks that day to day life entails while staying alert on civil responsibility to guarantee the maximum security possible; 3) emphasize an appropriate psychoanalytic model to direct the public to active citizenship in order to protect it from passivity, making room for the adult component and responsibility that should not become bi-dimensional in submissive dependence (dependent basic assumption) or in paranoid and self-destructive rebellion (basic assumption: fight and flight).

Keywords: Psychoanalysis, emergency, earthquake, trauma, observation, group

Ambra Cusin, Misure antisismiche per la mente: strumenti per tollerare l’insicurezza in situazioni di emergenza in "GRUPPI" 3/2010, pp 27-42, DOI: 10.3280/GRU2010-003004