Silvio Fanti
Encyclopedia
Silvio Fanti was a Swiss
psychiatrist
who founded micropsychoanalysis
.. He wrote several books about micropsychoanalysis and among them stand out J’ai peur, Docteur..., Le fou est normal, Le mariage, Après avoir..., La micropsychanalyse, Dictionnaire pratique de la psychanalyse et de la micropsychanalyse, Confidences d’une Japonaise frigide, Jusqu’où aimer ses enfants? Almost all of his books have been translated into many other languages: Italian, Spanish, English, Japanese, Chinese, Russian and Dutch.
at the end of the 19th century. He completed high school both in French (in Friburgo) and in German language (in Einsiedeln). He earned his degree bachelor of medicine in the university of Zürich
and became doctor of medicine both by the university of Vienna
and Geneva
. He specialized in psychiatry in the university of Munich
, Vienna and Zürich. His work of doctorate in Vienna in 1943 was among the first completed studies about the electroshock. His work of doctorate in Geneva was about the conducted birth.
The knowledge of different languages permitted him to carry on psychotherapy with French, English, Italian and German speakers, therefore giving him the opportunity to offer professional help as doctor and psychiatrist to people of great cultural diversity.
Fanti spent and worked long periods in English speaking countries as the United States
or Australia
and also in a few Asian countries as India
, China
or Japan
. During all his travels he observed people in their daily activity trying to understand the real motivations of the human being. He collected his thoughts and conclusions about the human nature in his book Après avoir…, in many respects the inaugural work of the micropsychoanalytical thought.
In 1973, Fanti moved definitively to Couvet
(Switzerland) where he formulated the main tenets of micropsychoanalysis. On 24 April 1974, under his patronage, the Société Internationale de Micropsychanalyse (S.I.M.), was constituted in Switzerland gathering the practitioners of the method discovered and developed by Silvio Fanti, denominated micropsychoanalysis.
From the 1960s to his death in 1997 Fanti was sometime the focus of the media attention in Europe. He was regarded as a highly controversial personage. At the end of the 1970s Fanti was interviewed by the Spanish journalist Joaquín Soler Serrano
in his high-profile cultural television program broadcasted by TVE A fondo.
In 1953, while working in New York
, Fanti started the psychotherapy of a diplomat who was representing his country in a series of international conferences. His treatment was a man of success with a brilliant career but anguished to the extreme of considering his life senseless. Fanti and his patient completed nine sessions of 45 minutes. Suddenly the diplomat was transferred to another country due to professional requirements and he therefore interrupted his treatment. A few months later, Fanti received a thankful letter from his client for all the work done with him but announcing he had committed suicide. This tragic event disturbed Fanti profoundly. He reflected about the clinical aspects of his client's case, trying to understand what he should have done differently to avoid his client committing suicide. He had a sense that if during those 15 days the psychoanalysis had lasted they could have done more frequent and longer sessions, his client would have been able to discharge enough anxiety as to permit him to pull through temporally. At a later stage he could have continued a psychoanalysis to seek a definitive equilibrium.
Shorty after, Fanti relocated to Switzerland
where purely by chance he was presented with the opportunity to put into practice what he thought he should have done with the ill-fated diplomat. A German businessman wanted to start a psychotherapy treatment but he only had five weeks at his disposal. Fanti proposed him to maximize this short time available to them by doing sessions lasting a few hours on a daily basis. According to Fanti the difference was notable as themes and experiences that with 45 minutes sessions are held long before they appear tend to emerge sooner and in a much more spontaneous way. Fanti got convinced that daily long-lasting sessions empowered the work of association and liberated the psyche in a more physiological way from the natural resistances opposed to the psychoanalytical work as well as those specifically neurotic ones. The experience turned out to be so positive for Fanti that he decided to adopt the daily long-lasting sessions.
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
psychiatrist
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
who founded micropsychoanalysis
Micropsychoanalysis
Micropsychoanalysis is a psychotherapy method. A basic form of micropsychoanalysis was first conceived in the 1950s by Swiss psychiatrist Silvio Fanti and developed systematically by himself and his collaborators, Pierre Codoni and Daniel Lysek, from the 1970s. Micropsychoanalysis has the free...
.. He wrote several books about micropsychoanalysis and among them stand out J’ai peur, Docteur..., Le fou est normal, Le mariage, Après avoir..., La micropsychanalyse, Dictionnaire pratique de la psychanalyse et de la micropsychanalyse, Confidences d’une Japonaise frigide, Jusqu’où aimer ses enfants? Almost all of his books have been translated into many other languages: Italian, Spanish, English, Japanese, Chinese, Russian and Dutch.
Biography
Silvio Fanti was born in Neuchâtel to bolognese parents immigrated to SwitzerlandSwitzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
at the end of the 19th century. He completed high school both in French (in Friburgo) and in German language (in Einsiedeln). He earned his degree bachelor of medicine in the university of Zürich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
and became doctor of medicine both by the university of Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
and Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
. He specialized in psychiatry in the university of Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, Vienna and Zürich. His work of doctorate in Vienna in 1943 was among the first completed studies about the electroshock. His work of doctorate in Geneva was about the conducted birth.
The knowledge of different languages permitted him to carry on psychotherapy with French, English, Italian and German speakers, therefore giving him the opportunity to offer professional help as doctor and psychiatrist to people of great cultural diversity.
Fanti spent and worked long periods in English speaking countries as the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
or Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and also in a few Asian countries as India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
or Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. During all his travels he observed people in their daily activity trying to understand the real motivations of the human being. He collected his thoughts and conclusions about the human nature in his book Après avoir…, in many respects the inaugural work of the micropsychoanalytical thought.
In 1973, Fanti moved definitively to Couvet
Couvet
Couvet was a municipality in the district of Val-de-Travers in the canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland. It is claimed that Couvet was the birthplace of absinthe at the end of the 18th century and it is now the home of La Clandestine Absinthe. It was also the home to Edouard Dubied & Co...
(Switzerland) where he formulated the main tenets of micropsychoanalysis. On 24 April 1974, under his patronage, the Société Internationale de Micropsychanalyse (S.I.M.), was constituted in Switzerland gathering the practitioners of the method discovered and developed by Silvio Fanti, denominated micropsychoanalysis.
From the 1960s to his death in 1997 Fanti was sometime the focus of the media attention in Europe. He was regarded as a highly controversial personage. At the end of the 1970s Fanti was interviewed by the Spanish journalist Joaquín Soler Serrano
Joaquín Soler Serrano
Joaquín Soler Serrano Joaquín Soler Serrano Joaquín Soler Serrano (August 19, 1919 (Murcia)- September 7, 2010 (Barcelona) was a Spanish journalist and presenter of radio and television programs. He was most active during the 1960s and 1970s....
in his high-profile cultural television program broadcasted by TVE A fondo.
Origin of micropsychoanalysis
A combination of coincidental events led Silvio Fanti to change the methodology of some kind of his interpretation of psychoanalysis. Firstly, he increased the length and frequency of sessions. Later on, and gradually, Fanti introduced what he called the technical innovations and developed a practice and theory specifically micropsychoanalytical.In 1953, while working in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, Fanti started the psychotherapy of a diplomat who was representing his country in a series of international conferences. His treatment was a man of success with a brilliant career but anguished to the extreme of considering his life senseless. Fanti and his patient completed nine sessions of 45 minutes. Suddenly the diplomat was transferred to another country due to professional requirements and he therefore interrupted his treatment. A few months later, Fanti received a thankful letter from his client for all the work done with him but announcing he had committed suicide. This tragic event disturbed Fanti profoundly. He reflected about the clinical aspects of his client's case, trying to understand what he should have done differently to avoid his client committing suicide. He had a sense that if during those 15 days the psychoanalysis had lasted they could have done more frequent and longer sessions, his client would have been able to discharge enough anxiety as to permit him to pull through temporally. At a later stage he could have continued a psychoanalysis to seek a definitive equilibrium.
Shorty after, Fanti relocated to Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
where purely by chance he was presented with the opportunity to put into practice what he thought he should have done with the ill-fated diplomat. A German businessman wanted to start a psychotherapy treatment but he only had five weeks at his disposal. Fanti proposed him to maximize this short time available to them by doing sessions lasting a few hours on a daily basis. According to Fanti the difference was notable as themes and experiences that with 45 minutes sessions are held long before they appear tend to emerge sooner and in a much more spontaneous way. Fanti got convinced that daily long-lasting sessions empowered the work of association and liberated the psyche in a more physiological way from the natural resistances opposed to the psychoanalytical work as well as those specifically neurotic ones. The experience turned out to be so positive for Fanti that he decided to adopt the daily long-lasting sessions.
External links
- Times Magazine (15 March 2003). On the Couch, by Alix Kirsta. http://www.alixkirsta.com/articles/micropsychoanalysis/index.htm
- Andrea Rocchitelli in Luxury Magazine, How people become what they are (in English, Italian and Russian). http://www.luxurymagazine.it/download_01_08/LUXURY01_ROCCHITELLI.pdf
- Scienza Psicoanalisi. Photographs (in English). http://www.psicoanalisi.it/psicoanalisi/psichiatria/articoli/psichiatria10ing.htm
- A lecture of J.J. Rousseau in micropsychoanalysis by Silvio Fanti. Published by the Jean Jacques Rousseau Association, Neuchâtel, 1995 (in French). http://rousseaustudies.free.fr/http://rousseaustudies.free.fr/ArticleFanti.htm
- Training as micropsychoanalyst (in French). http://www.micropsychanalyse.net/fr/formation.html
- The new technic of psychoanalysis:the micropsychoanalysis of Silvio Fanti by Suely Mizumoto (in Portuguese). http://www.metodista.br/ppc/mudancas/mudancas-13-1/uma-nova-tecnica-para-a-psicanalise-a-micropsicanalise-de-silvio-fantihttps://www.metodista.br/revistas/revistas-ims/index.php/MUD/article/viewFile/846/872
- The hypothesis of micropsychoanalysis are confirmed by the evolutive biology, by Quirino Zangrilli (in English). http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/71265.php
- Life in Micropsychoanalysis.