somatic matrix. Giving voice to blind areas in the mind-body dialectic
Journal title PSICOANALISI
Author/s Annita Gallina
Publishing Year 2026 Issue 2026/1
Language Italian Pages 24 P. 5-28 File size 132 KB
DOI 10.3280/PSI2026-001001
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The author explores the complex mind-body dialectic within psychoanalytic practice, focusing on primitive memories and early, unrepresentable traumas. Revisiting Freud’s work on memory, and the observations of Bertolini, Gaddini, and Winnicott on early mental organization, the paper investigates how the earliest sensory experiences become inscribed directly into the soma as mnemonic traces. These somatic memories constitute an unrepressed unconscious. The theoretical framework is made more understandable through a clinical case report in which the onset of a traumatic event appears to trigger a profound bodily regression, in which the patient physically hallucinates the original absence. Finally, the work highlights the vital function of the analyst as a reflecting surface and containing presence who, by receiving the unspeakable terror within the transference, enables these split sensory memories to be tranformed which can be gradually historically remembered during the course of the analytic process.
Keywords: trauma, memory, unrepressed unconscious, primary development, body.
Annita Gallina, La matrice somatica. Dare voce a spazi ciechi nella dialettica mente-corpo in "PSICOANALISI" 1/2026, pp 5-28, DOI: 10.3280/PSI2026-001001