Massimo Ammaniti and Margherita Spagnuolo Lobb dialogue on the issue of developmental perspective and psychotherapy. They propose different, sometimes contrasting, other times in line with one another, ideas on how the development of the patient is revealed in the here-and-now of the therapeutic session and in the present life of the patient. Basing results on contemporary research, the two authors agree on the idea that development is much more complex and variable than what the traditional theories based on developmental phases can describe. The dialogue here transcribed becomes passionate when the authors talk of their epistemologies, and of their different models of domains and super-ordinated motivational systems, of the sense of self, of the importance of the body in psychotherapy, and of the parallel concepts of intersubjectivity and contact.
Keywords: Developmental perspective, domains, super-ordinated motivational systems, sense of self, contact, intersubjectivity