Memory and Abstraction Processes

Journal title PSICOANALISI
Author/s Annalisa Ferretti
Publishing Year 2017 Issue 2017/1
Language Italian Pages 7 P. 95-101 File size 144 KB
DOI 10.3280/PSI2017-001006
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Based on examples taken from very different fields (Neolithic skulls modelled in clay, the baetylus of Petra, the journey of Odysseus into Hades, the sculpture of Giacometti), the author attempts to illustrate what connects loss, the processes of abstraction and memory. Some examples mean to focus on the phases of the transformation from concrete to abstract thought, where the processes associated with loss and mourning act as catalysts, as in the case of the Neolithic skulls modelled in clay: here we find the dead in person (it is still his skull) and the beginning of the representation of his absence: the modelling in clay abstracts from the real, personal skull the sense of an human being, his life and death, and several thousands of years later we still can feel the meaning of this presence and absence.

Keywords: Abstraction, loss, mourning, memory, symbolization, Paleolithic art.

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Annalisa Ferretti, Memoria e processi di astrazione in "PSICOANALISI" 1/2017, pp 95-101, DOI: 10.3280/PSI2017-001006