What form of violence? From the violence of over-simplification to the complexity of violence. A theoretical viewpoint
10.4081/rp.2023.750
A partire da una critica del concetto di violenza di genere come lente privilegiata per la comprensione della violenza nei rapporti, e con l’obiettivo di aprire interrogativi utili all’intervento clinico, viene proposta l’ipotesi di un legame intimo tra la vita e la violenza, che diviene condizione psicopatologica quando si attesta come modalità rigida ed esclusiva di sopravvivenza della propria struttura identitaria. Nella nostra società, la negazione della differenza, della femminilità, dell’heteros, prodotta da una cultura di stampo patriarcale e gli sforzi reattivi per farvi fronte, come l’intervento del politicamente corretto, ne sono un esempio. In tal senso, obiettivo dell’intervento psicoanalitico che si confronta con “il violento” dovrebbe essere quello di favorire il processo di complessificazione della soggettività – sia essa del paziente o della nostra cultura. Come analisti abbiamo allora il compito di lavorare psichicamente – dentro di noi e nella relazione con l’altro – per mantenere la violenza in tensione dialettica con il suo opposto: la tenerezza. Far sì che la tenerezza accada implica investire, con amore e dedizione, i momenti di sosta – uno spazio potenziale tra la tensione a complessificarsi e quella a mantenere la propria identità. Significa, in altri termini, assumere i vissuti che la violenza evoca come termini del dialogo continuo con sé e l’altro, mantenendo vivo un pensare simbolico che possa accompagnarci nell’accoglierla e trasformarla.
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Federica Formaggi
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Ricerca Psicoanalitica
tenerezza
Violenza di che genere? Dalla violenza della semplificazione alla complessità della violenza. Uno sguardo teorico al di là dei contenuti
Text.Serial.Journal
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FOCUS: LA VIOLENZA NEI RAPPORTI: LA RELAZIONE CHE S-PIEGA
2023-05-15
2022-12-28
2023-04-30
2023-05-15
Ricerca Psicoanal
Federica Formaggi
2023/05/15
10.4081/rp.2023.750
SIPRe, Società Italiana di Psicoanalisi della Relazione
2037-7851
1
tenerezza
it
Tricoli, M.L. (2018). Il processo della supervisione psicoanalitica. Apprendere la psicoanalisi o sperimentarla? Roma: Giovanni Fioriti Editore.
Violenza di che genere? Dalla violenza della semplificazione alla complessità della violenza. Uno sguardo teorico al di là dei contenuti
https://www.pagepress.org/socialsciences/rp/article/download/750/743
34
                                     Ricerca Psicoanalitica | pISSN 1827-4625 | Year XXXIV, n. 1, 2023
                                                                               doi:10.4081/rp.2023.750


                 FOCUS: VIOLENCE IN RELATIONSHIPS: THE RELATIONSHIP THAT EXPLAINS



What form of violence?
From the violence of over-simplification to the complexity
of violence. A theoretical viewpoint

Federica Formaggi*




                                                                     ly
ABSTRACT. – Beginning with a critique of the concept of gender-based violence as a privileged




                                                               on
lens for understanding violence in relationships, and with the aim of opening up useful questions
for clinical intervention, the hypothesis of an intimate link between life and violence is proposed,
which becomes a psychopathological condition when it is attested as a rigid and exclusive mode

                                                   e
of survival of one’s identity structure. In our society, the denial of difference, of femininity, of
                                                us
heteros, produced by a patriarchal culture and the reactive efforts to cope with it, such as the
intervention of the politically correct, are an example of this. In this sense, the goal of
                                             al

psychoanalytic intervention confronting “the violent” should be to foster the process of
complexification of subjectivity – whether of the patient or of our culture. As analysts, we then
                                         ci


have the task of working psychically – within ourselves and in the relationship with the other –
                                   er



to keep violence in dialectical tension with its opposite: tenderness. Making tenderness happen
involves investing, with love and dedication, the moments of pause – a potential space between
                              m




the tension to complexify and the tension to maintain one’s identity. It means, in other words,
taking on the experiences that violence evokes as terms of ongoing dialogue with self and other,
                      om




keeping alive a symbolic thinking that can accompany us in welcoming and transforming it.
                 -c




Key words: violence; gender-based violence; identity structure; subjectivity; symbolic
thinking; tenderness.
           on
       N




Violence and life

   My contribution starts with a question: what form of violence?
   I would like to open a discussion here prompted by some reflections aris-
ing from theoretical and clinical dialogues on violence. My intention is not to
present a fully comprehensive research paper, but rather to consider a certain
position towards violence, a stance that I believe psychoanalysis should hold,
or at least keep in mind, when exploring this delicate and complex territory.
   Gender-based violence, or the term violence with its complement of
specification, inevitably deals with a very specific phenomenon that has
been investigated on several fronts and from different psychological per-


   *SIPRe, Società Italiana di Psicoanalisi della Relazione.
E-mail: dottoressaformaggi.federica@gmail.com
80                                        Federica Formaggi



spectives. These perspectives can be summarized thus: individual theories
in which psychic disorders or particular personality characteristics account
for violent behaviour; systemic theories in which the focus of explanation
is on problematic family relationships; cognitive and social learning theo-
ries with learned dysfunctional patterns at the basis of violent conduct; pro-
feminist theories which suggest that violence can be interpreted as an
expression of patriarchal power. ‘Viewpoints tending to be used within a
single explanation and, therefore, unicausally.’ (Botta, 2016, p. 15).
    In order to understand the phenomenon of violence, rather than starting
from its complement of specification, the specification ‘gender’, which is cus-
tomary in today’s society – we might ask ourselves whether it is not more
appropriate to investigate the phenomenon from personal experience, and
how violence relates to ourselves.




                                                                       ly
    I wonder about the wisdom of investigating the phenomenon of violence




                                                                     on
from its apex, i.e., intimate partner violence. Edgar Morin’s theory (2017) is
particularly compelling when he states that ‘by isolating and/or fragmenting

                                                           e
objects’ this approach to knowing ‘negates not only context, but also singu-
                                                        us
larity, locality, temporality, existence’. This approach to studying phenomena
‘more generally, atrophies our ability to connect (information, data, knowl-
                                                     al

edge, ideas) and only furthers our ability to separate’ (p. 28). It must be said
                                                ci


that this inclination is often inevitable in language and speech. In this sense,
I believe that by taking gender-based violence as a starting point when we
                                           er



address the theme of violence in relationships, we violently separate violence
                                       m




from life. Therefore, I will begin by addressing the complex territory of vio-
                               om




lence and its connection to life.
    I suggest that violence is part of life, the life of each one of us, and that we
                          -c




expel this idea from ourselves in order to survive the trauma that the social
and moral discourse about violence often produces. In this regard, Emanuele
                    on




Severino, a prominent Italian philosopher, whose driving force for his studies
               N




is the general nature of violence, comes to our aid.
    Severino proposes an experiment:

         ‘Try to go back, as far as each of us is able, to the memory of our most distant
         past, as far back as we can. This experiment should draw us into experiencing a
         situation in which our will meets resistance. I use the term ‘our will’, but I could
         have said ‘we’, because we are above all will. Will that wants what? Will that
         wants to live. And what does it mean to want to live? Wanting to continue want-
         ing. But a will that does not immediately get what it wants is a will that clashes
         with a context that creates resistance.’ (Severino, 2016-2017, pp. 61-63)

  The philosopher continues, saying that from this perspective, we, as
Westerners,1 are a will: a will expressed in the will to transform the situation


     1      According to Severino, in Western society there is an idea, a basic belief, whic
  What form of violence? From the violence of over-simplification to the complexity of violence 81



which we are currently experiencing. Therefore, a will for something other
than what one is, other than what lies before us. But he adds: there exists a
kind of barrier that prevents us from willing or wanting for something other.
It is easy for a psychoanalyst to associate this idea with the reality principle;
in fact, we recognise this barrier as reality, and the limits reality places on
us. Severino tells us, using a personal example – in the sense that it derives
from personal experience – that the first kind of willing or wanting some-
thing other is breathing. ‘Breathing means making space, it means becom-
ing something other, it means making into something other the resistance
that, in the beginning, prevents the dilation of life-giving breath’ (ibid).
    As far as we know, human life began when space was created, that is,
when human beings were no longer restrained by the resistance of a barrier.
Think of childbirth, of being born. But also think of our species’ evolutionary




                                                                   ly
emancipation in how we broke down the barrier of instinct by means of lan-




                                                             on
guage. Maki’ng space then, means breaking something: it is a penetrating, a
tearing down of the barrier. Again, referring back to Severino, we can say that

                                                  e
becoming something other implies tearing oneself away from what one is in
                                               us
order to evolve into something other. That tearing away is an act of violence.
    I wonder, then, whether we should not think of violence first and fore-
                                            al

most as a form of life. An experience that serves to affirm life. Let us
                                       ci


assume that this is the case. We could ask ourselves whether, in intimate
                                  er



relationships, assigning a complement of specification, such as gender-
                             m




based, to violence, is not also an act of will, to make space, to separate, to
remove from one’s life, to place the violence in a more specific, more sep-
                     om




arate, more distant place. We know that when we touch an exposed nerve
instinctively our first reaction is to stop the pain (Minolli, 2016).
                 -c




    It follows that expelling the violence and fragility we experience by
          on




the limits placed on us by reality, and projecting them onto something
other, is necessary, since, when we experience violence, it seems to be a
      N




negation of the roots and the paradigms on which our very structure is
built. The function of the quest for naming, e.g., gender-based violence,
may be to ward off fear and violence, and by giving it a name we distance
ourselves from it and can then instead, point the finger at barbarians, those
who are different; the phenomena becomes an object of study and not an
experience that is part of us.


presupposes the nothingness of beings, from which the Christian concept of creation ex nihi-
lo emerges. This belief – which has been part of our culture for centuries – seems to be say-
ing to beings, unconsciously: you are nothing, you do not exist! ‘The ontology of mortal is
exactly that which releases the greatest violence. Where, by violence, we do not mean simply
something horrendous, but an extreme horror which is an extreme error. And it is an extreme
error because it is the negation of that being self whose negation is self-negation’ (Severino,
2016-2017, p. 122).
82                                   Federica Formaggi



     ‘Some interpretations of violence, historically supported by theories that place
     it within a pathological frame, and, in some way render the cultural imagination
     of the time absolute. In its attempt to find meaning in violence, it is no wonder
     that humanity has always struggled in its search for an explanation, even a sci-
     entific one (…) Recognizing human violence, and above all one’s own, without
     justifying it by calling primordial instincts into question, would already be a not
     inconsiderable acquisition.’ (ibidem, pp. 65-66)

    It is not my intention to deny the existence of gender-based violence;
however, I think it is important to ask whether classifying violence in inti-
mate relationships as something-based (e.g., gender-based) does not lead to
the over-simplification of a delicate and complex phenomenon that con-
cerns us all closely. Obviously, denying so-called gender-based violence is
equally simplistic, so how should we view violence?




                                                                       ly
    It follows from what we have said that violence is not in itself a problem,




                                                                 on
or a deviance, but becomes so when it assumes a specific, indisputable iden-
tity; from a force attempting to make space for itself, it takes on a fixed role,
an indisputable identity: essential Truth.
                                                      e
                                                   us
                                                al

Patriarchal identity and denial of heteros
                                            ci
                                       er



    Michele Minolli (2016) considers the nature of violence, and like other
                                  m




psychoanalysts he interprets it in his own way. He states: ‘Only when the
objective is to force the other to act according to one’s desire, or to bend
                          om




their will to ours, can we speak of violence’ (p. 61). But he warns: ‘The cru-
cial question is not so much the use of force - which is only the means - as
                      -c




rendering one’s will absolute (...) Violence arises from the desire to bend the
               on




other to our will’ (ibid.).
    If we think of violence as a kind of affirmation of life, and if we think of
           N




the other, not only as a subjective other, i.e., the object of our projections,
introjections and identifications, but also as a real-other, imbued with the
infinite nuances and irreducibility of otherness, the idea of violence as
something that arises from the desire to bend the other to our will sounds
not dissimilar to Severino’s idea.
    I would like to analyse the theory that violence is a fundamental experi-
ence concerning life and may be considered pathological when, in a rela-
tionship with the other, it crystallises into being the sole modality for the
survival of one’s individual or socio-cultural identity (provided that a clear
division is possible between these two dimensions).
    Massimo Recalcati (2017) argues that in our patriarchal society woman
represents difference, heteros. Referring to Lacan who underlines the fact
that the female organ is not immediately visible, Recalcati invites us to con-
sider femininity as representing the unknown, the hidden and the unrepre-
  What form of violence? From the violence of over-simplification to the complexity of violence 83



sentable. He suggests that we reflect on the fact that, in our social structure,
there exists a model of motherhood, but not of femininity, because the fem-
inine is nameless. In language, the masculine represents the universal, while
the feminine is the ‘singular’, the particular. And precisely because woman
is representative of heteros, man’s violence against her becomes a way of
trying to control and confine heteros, which by its nature is irreducible.
    According to ‘man’s phallic logic’ which determines the patriarchal
society identity, there is a total rejection of the heteros, of the feminine.
Recalcati identifies three operations resulting from this logic: the identifica-
tion of femininity as an object of anguish and its consequent expulsion; the
categorical identification of femininity with motherhood, as the only possi-
ble destiny of a woman, who is obliged to accept it, flattening her evolution-
ary path to a culturally preordained, one-dimensional identity; the reifica-




                                                                   ly
tion of heteros in the brutal formula ‘They are all whores’ legitimates the




                                                             on
use of violence against women.
    Violence then becomes repetitive and restless because heteros, the place

                                                  e
of anguish, with its potential for indeterminacy and irreducibility threatens
                                               us
our steady, undisputed faith in a patriarchal identity.
    Recalcati then asks himself why a woman who suffers violence stays with
                                            al

a violent man. The psychoanalyst replies that in a patriarchal culture women
                                       ci


have difficulty inhabiting heteros. Femininity, according to the author, is basi-
                                  er



cally everything that goes beyond what is already known and is beyond any
                             m




classification or symbolisation. Therefore, heteros, being an unknown factor
even for the woman herself, leads to continually seeking points of reference
                     om




for her identity. So, a woman stays with a violent man because a man supplies
answers with regard to her identity in relation to heteros; in the sense that he
                 -c




frees the woman from the risk of subjectifying heteros.
          on




    Basically, ‘offering oneself’ to a man as an object to possess is a patho-
logically identifiable way of understanding what a woman is.
      N




    Recalcati’s consideration brings us face-to-face with the ever-present
consequences of our patriarchal society. At the same time, in a world where
the consumption of objects (women, men, the planet) is first on our list of
priorities, and counts more than relationships, many patriarchal convictions
have fallen by the wayside, to create abstract, dangerous weapons such as
the politically correct.


The reactive violence of political correctness

   The philosopher, Rocco Ronchi (2021), tells us that the term, politically
correct is a ‘play on words’ and a ‘form of life’ (p. 2): its purpose is to stem
the tangible violence exerted by the majorities over the minorities and is a
constraint on the dictatorship of majorities towards those who have no
84                                   Federica Formaggi



material power (ibidem). A politically correct action, therefore, is a preven-
tive measure. Its strength lies in the immaterial level of form, the philoso-
phers would call it the a-priori form as it is unencumbered by experience
but capable of shaping it. ‘The reason for the extraordinary effectiveness of
this immaterial weapon lies in the fact that in this play on words (...) one
plays with the most sublime of abilities inherent in language: its ability to
‘say what is true’ ‘ (ibid.). In order to be understood and to have some influ-
ence even those who lie must presume to say or pretend to say how things
stand objectively; they must express themselves communicatively, and hon-
our the truth even when they bend it.
    So what does it mean to be politically correct in a communicative
exchange? It means not allowing in communication anything that trans-
gresses the universality of truth, implicitly conceding that there is a univer-




                                                                     ly
sal and unequivocal truth (ibidem). Assuming that the universality of the




                                                               on
truth means assuming the implicit obligation to cancel all those words that
evoke particularity, historical determination, the irrational and violent con-

                                                     e
tingency of events. Hence, from newspaper articles to social networks aster-
                                                  us
isks appear in place of masculine/feminine gender words; the word ‘holi-
days’ appears in place of Christmas, and so on.
                                               al

    Although born of the noblest intentions, i.e., to curb violence by promot-
                                           ci


ing respect for rights, and the political and social equality of different sub-
                                      er



jectivities, expressing itself and polarising through the implicit function
                                  m




inherent in language, ‘its ability to ‘say what is true’ ‘ (ibid.), from being a
communicative tool whose purpose is to curb tangible violence, the politi-
                          om




cally correct becomes a rigidly defensive idea, a modality that is a re-active
mirror-image of violence; it absolutises its aspirations into a Truth which
                      -c




one must adhere and conform to, negating differences. ‘Violence is not only
                on




the force exerted but the belief that the other must accept one’s point of
view without reservation’ (Minolli, 2016, p. 62).
            N




    Conformism is a manner for mass functioning,2 and the mass presuppos-
es individuals that are non-differentiated (Ambrosiano, 2021). We could say
that conformism has an adaptive function, since it presupposes the construc-
tion of a vision of the common world, but at the same time, when it pursues
its ideals rigidly and exclusively, electing them as Truth, Identity and
Uniformity, it can lead to dangerous ideologies, levelling into a rigidly
egoic mass modality which gives abstract equality to all speakers in the face
of an impersonal, objective and ahistorical truth (Ronchi, 2021).
    A truth that erases diversity, endorses fantasies of omnipotence and self-


    2     In Psychology of the masses and analysis of the Ego (Freud, 1921), ‘For Freud the
mass represents a particular type of social connection which indicates a functioning that
eludes individual thought and pushes individuals into sharing dominant ideas without com-
punction ‘ (Ambrosiano, 2022, p. 2).
  What form of violence? From the violence of over-simplification to the complexity of violence 85



sufficiency, producing a world in which one is the double of the other, in
which all of us are instantly twins and individual curiosity and singularity
is silenced (Ambrosiano, 2021).

      ‘Desecrating acquired truths is a group task (…) in its evolution, the group
      needs to review, disassemble and investigate, feed on the dialectic between tra-
      dition and betrayal, between continuity and rupture. From this dialectic the
      group evolves, from the group-mass it moves towards more complex and artic-
      ulated positions, its mental functioning transforms and organises large cultural
      structures.’ (Ambrosiano, 2022, p. 6)

   From Ronchi’s words we can appreciate the connection between con-
formity and violence: conformity and violence in the sense of negation of
the complexity of reality.




                                                                   ly
   Today we live in an age that is highly sensitive and reactive to the patri-




                                                             on
archal approach and at the same time we notice that social and political
efforts to confront complexity in order to embrace heteros often have unfor-

                                                  e
tunate outcomes, such as the reactive violence of political correctness.
                                               us
   In my view, both patriarchal culture and the reactive function of political
correctness have a common matrix: an unconscious desire that has, as its
                                            al

absolute objective (or absolutised meaning) wanting what one is not, or
                                       ci


does not have, starting - paradoxically - from the suppression of otherness
                                  er



as a rigid and reiterated affirmation of one’s identity.
                             m




   And here the countenance of violence re-emerges as the absolutisation
of a certain identity, of a certain point of view.
                     om




   I would like to clarify that conceiving violence as an absolutisation of
one’s viewpoint …
                 -c
          on




      ‘… means affirming that there is no guilt, but only an understandable closure in
      a need. If one is caught up in the need to redress an injustice suffered, it goes
      N




      without saying that one expects the whole world to understand. However, if one
      feels that one has a sore spot inside, in an inaccessible part of oneself, then one
      naturally assumes that everyone should appreciate this.’ (Minolli 2016, p. 68)

    This implies that violence - in one way or another - is a part of us not as a
destructive force, which if anything, is an effect, but as faith in the principle
of true identity. In this sense, I agree with Recalcati: a man or woman who
submits to it and/or inflicts it, the violence bears down as if it were an epi-
demic wiping out the difference which testifies to its limits and shortcomings.


The complexity of violence in relation to subjective development

    We know that when one’s identity image crystallises into an indisputable
truth in the system of acquired meanings and in previously-adopted solu-
86                               Federica Formaggi



tions, this arrests the evolutionary process of the subject and causes an
unease identified as a disorder. In this sense, the condition is not so much a
departure from an a priori criterion of normality, but more the pain and suf-
fering of both the individual and their environment (Tricoli, 2018). In other
words, at a given moment in an individual’s development, psychopathology
develops into total identification and a two-dimensional flattening of the
processual and transformative nature of subjectivity with the Ego.
     However, accepting otherness and allowing oneself to be transformed by
it is an inevitable necessity of human beings who in this manner remain vital
and ‘in the making’. I believe that individual development is by its nature –
or rather by its culture – intrinsically conflictual, since it moves between affir-
mations and denials, that is, between opposite polarities (dependence-auton-
omy; activity-passivity; separateness-symbiosis; individuation-approval…).




                                                              ly
But ‘any psychic event, in order to be defined as complex, must include at




                                                         on
least a possibility that the opposite is equally true, otherwise it would produce
neither change nor growth but only emptiness and death (Pinkus, 1979)’
(Tricoli, 2018, p. 35).
                                                 e
                                              us
     We should clarify that these opposing polarities are extremes on a con-
tinuum of psycho-physical development and should be viewed from an
                                           al

intersubjective position, since they are dimensions that are defined and
                                       ci


materialise within relationality and do not concern aspects circumscribable
                                   er



to the mind of a single individual. We are dealing, therefore, with all valid
                               m




‘positions’ of subjectivity, which become pathologically conflictual and dis-
turbing for the subject and for others only when the Ego treats them as
                        om




exclusive, making them absolute and imposing them on others.
     I agree with Maria Luisa Tricoli (2018) when she states that conflict is
                    -c




not to be collocated between the extreme polarities of the continuum of
               on




individual characteristics; for example, activity versus passivity, but in a
more systemic sense, between the perception of self, hitherto acquired by
           N




the subject, and any other aspect that determines identity within subjective
development. It follows that the subject perceives these positions as in con-
flict with each other only when they take on the appearance of rigid alter-
natives on which it is not possible not to base one’s own egoic position.
     The goal of psychoanalytic intervention should be to encourage or ‘jump-
start’ the process of complexifying subjectivity. The process involves – in
times, ways and content that cannot be standardised – a satisfactory, evolving
integration of the constitutive aspects of subjectivity: the totality of an undif-
ferentiated unconscious state (function of thought, irreducible to the implicit
and repressed), the implicit, reflective and self-reflective aspects, and an
increasingly fluid and profound intersubjective dialogue. When I say fluid, this
does not mean free from conflict, but rather, tending to assimilate within one’s
make-up the tensions and the stimuli from outside and inside, via continual,
productive crises, using the means that one’s subjectivity has at its disposal.
  What form of violence? From the violence of over-simplification to the complexity of violence 87



    From this perspective, the phenomenon of violence is not simply a
pathological mechanism, but a more complex phenomenon, a phenomenon
that, of course, gives voice to inmost discomfort and suffering, to a certain
state, to a certain psychopathological condition, but also to a change of
state, to a potential move on the part of the subject: the desire to continue
to make and unmake oneself, as well as to communicate and maintain a
connection with what they know, and, at the same time, with what deeply
disturbs them.
    To achieve this the individual has need of the other. And one’s relation-
ship with the other requires work: psychic work.


The unexpected guest in the encounter with violence: tenderness




                                                                   ly
                                                             on
    By psychic work, I mean, among other things, the possibility of toler-
ating and investing in productive precariousness and indeterminacy that is

                                                  e
part of our make-up as living beings. It is a matter of ‘passionately invest-
                                               us
ing in the pause rather than the ravenous rush to make objects your own’
(Ambrosiano, 2021, p. 11), whether they are subjects, representations, or
                                            al

phenomena. In this pause, that I see as a potential space between the ten-
                                       ci


sion to complexify and the tension to preserve one’s identity, I believe a
                                  er



function of the mind, which is open to welcoming the multiple contradic-
                             m




tions of reality, might emerge.
    To understand violence, we must be willing to accept it, and to accept
                     om




it we must turn into suspended individuals, engaged in relationships with
others (internal and external) in the thought-provoking, ‘heartfelt’ search
                 -c




for new senses of experience. In this way, new thinking can emerge by
          on




itself without the familiar thinking that is known to us a priori. ‘But,
open, associative thinking means tolerating passivity, which is something
      N




we do not always agree to. It means tolerating a dependence on thoughts
that emerge spontaneously through discourse with the other. It means tol-
erating the extraneousness of thought: the otherness’ (Ambrosiano, 2022).
    I think that, thanks to this pause, the other side of the moon may emerge:
the other side of violence; what Laura Ambrosiano (2021) calls the ‘T fac-
tor’: a current of tenderness towards the diversity of the other and towards
common frailty’ (p. 11). Indeed, human frailty is a concept which is inti-
mately intertwined with the stuff we are made of: infinite textures of rela-
tionships rather than matter.
    Tenderness is a feeling that makes us reach out to the other with no
expectation of fidelity, participation or submission; it means making room
for the other, without claiming the satisfaction of our own desires.
    It is arbitrary, a tender rapture for the humanity of the other. Humanity
that encompasses violence to make it more complex. Tenderness reaches
88                                    Federica Formaggi



out and does not pause with the trauma of violence, but in the possibilities
it opens up. The expression of tenderness runs along a fragile, mobile line
as it cannot be produced on command, but emerges when engaged in chal-
lenging psychic, intersubjective work with the other. The work should be
viewed as the procedural commitment of two subjects with equal dignity,
the analyst and the patient, who share similar social and cultural problems.
    Understanding and intervening in violence – as always in analysis –
entails opening up to the intersubjective modality of one’s relationship with
oneself and the other which can only be achieved when actively using one’s
own experience to create a continuous dialogue with oneself and the other.
It is a dialogue in which the unconscious nature of the experiences become
accessible to one’s consciousness as a conscious sense of what is happening
(to us) (Cozzaglio, 2012).




                                                                         ly
    If we accept the theory that violence is an experience that concerns life




                                                                  on
primarily, and that it is considered a pathological relationship with the other
when it crystallises into an exclusive means of preserving identity, then it

                                                       e
requires work on the psyche to keep it in a constant dialectical tension –
                                                    us
within ourselves and in relation to the patient - with its opposite: tenderness.
But tenderness is fragile. It is fragile because it happens, it cannot be willed
                                                 al

or forced. Yet, it can happen if we are committed to dealing with the internal
                                             ci


and relational conditions which allow it to cut across the field and the psy-
                                        er



chic work that we are creating with the other. In particular, it can happen,
                                   m




with the intensity of experiences that this entails, if we are willing to be
touched by the violence, counting our own private, intimate, affective and
                           om




representational ‘correspondences’ with it.
    In other words, we could say that tenderness is a sentiment that charac-
                      -c




terises reverie.
                on




     ‘We often forget that according to Bion, reverie is not so much the result of an
            N




     identification on the part of the primary figures, but of their willingness to let
     themselves be triggered by the emotions of the other, drawing on their own per-
     sonal emotional experiences, similar to those that the child seems to experience,
     or the patient in analysis, never identical. (…) If the child, the patient, the indi-
     vidual feels himself an object of tenderness, he in turn develops a current of ten-
     derness which invests not only the primary objects, but the wider environment.
     C. Neri (2015) defines it as an asymmetrical bond endowed with reciprocity
     (…) Tenderness also goes beyond the bonds indicated by W. Bion (1962), love,
     hate, knowledge, because it points towards the aspects of fragility and need that
     bring us all together.’ (Ambrosiano, 2021, p. 142)

   It is a question of opening up to the other and of being committed to the
complex work of meeting through slow, tiring, receptive passivity. As I said
earlier, tenderness cannot be produced on demand. It will only materialise
through working on the psyche.
   In this sense, tenderness is an unexpected guest which graces you and
  What form of violence? From the violence of over-simplification to the complexity of violence 89



occurs unexpectedly. Often rejected because it is mistaken for passivity or
pity. Other times, it is opposed because mistaken for weakness (Correale,
2021). Ensuring that tenderness happens, accepting the possibility that it may
not happen, means taking charge of the circumstances: engaging in a relation-
ship with the other, in a passionate search for the symbolic significance of the
experience of violence, whether considered endured or inflicted.


Accepting the symbolic significance of violence and directing
a softened gaze towards the other

    Thinking in symbols means having to do with a sort of compositional
ability or succinctness, aimed at opposites. If rational thinking means mov-




                                                                   ly
ing through an endless separation of the oppositions, symbolic thinking is




                                                             on
moving through the composition of the oppositions. The symbol, in fact,
might be seen as an image with indefinite contours which realises the per-

                                                  e
spective function of the unconscious mind, putting together what already
                                               us
exists and what is structured in our consciousness, with any other possible
determination in our unconscious mind.
                                            al

    According to Jungian psychology, the Unconscious3 has a complemen-
                                       ci


tary and compensatory relationship with Consciousness.4 This means that
                                  er



the Unconscious punctually corrects the one-sided and one-way attitude of
                             m




Consciousness, proposing what, out of necessity, or rather in order to adapt
to reality, is excluded or expunged from itself (Trevi, 2012). Furthermore,
                     om




according to Jung, everything concerning the structure of the psyche (func-
tions, attitudes, relationship between conscious and unconscious, etc.) is to
                 -c




be considered an aspect of the law of antitheticality, which consists in the
          on




subject’s continuous alternation of pairs of opposites, which maintain a
complementary and compensatory relationship.5
      N




    3      Jungian consciousness is that function or activity which keeps psychic content and
the Ego (Jung, 1921) connected. It is an ephemeral phenomenon that is useful in momentary
adaptations and orientations. The ego lies on images of sensory functions which transmit
stimuli from inside and outside, and it also lies on a huge accumulation of images of past
processes. Consciousness has the function of holding all these different elements together.
The unconscious is also a function of thought. A priority function with respect to the con-
sciousness that emerges from it and far more complex than both the Freudian dynamic
unconscious (the repressed) and what we today define as the ‘implicit unconscious’.
    4      In the Jungian perspective, ‘the psyche consists of two spheres interacting but con-
trasting in their qualities: the conscious and the so-called unconscious. Our ego participates
in both fields’ (Jacobi, 1948, p. 18). This means not that the unconscious and the conscious
should be considered as two different parts of the psyche, but that they are two different
states of a unitary subject which functions and expresses itself appropriately.
    5      Jung’s principle of ‘obligatory opposites’ appears to be consistent with the view of
90                                   Federica Formaggi



   In German, symbol is expressed as Sinnbild. With its two parts, the
term accurately expresses the dual nature and pertinence of its content:
meaning (Sinn), which is the responsibility of Consciousness, the rational;
image (Bild), which comes under the jurisdiction of the Unconscious, or
the irrational.

     ‘These qualities make the symbol particularly suited to accounting for the
     processes that take place in the totality of the psyche and for expressing the most
     intricate and contrasting psychic states of affairs as well as for acting on them
     (…) The symbol is neither an allegory nor a sign, but the image of content that
     transcends consciousness. However, symbols can also ‘degenerate’ into signs
     and become ‘dead symbols’ if the hidden meaning of the symbol is completely
     revealed, ceasing to be meaningful, since we can then fully grasp it through rea-
     son. A true symbol can never be fully explained. Consciousness can give us the




                                                                       ly
     key to its rational part, but we can only ‘feel’ its irrational elements.’ (Jacobi,




                                                                 on
     1948, pp. 123-124)

    The symbol seems to perform a function, the role of medium, of ‘syn-
                                                      e
thesiser’ of opposites, connecting the divergent conscious and unconscious
                                                   us
polarities, which the ego would otherwise be torn between (Trevi, 2012). It
follows that an analysis of the symbol should not mean returning it to
                                                al

rational thought (revealing its semantic correspondence with another sign)
                                            ci


but amplifying the image or experience that characterises it, to the point of
                                       er



acknowledging not only the subject’s cultural and personal meaning sys-
                                  m




tem, but also the subject’s reiteration of unconscious meaning. However, we
                          om




must not consider the use of the term synthesis or synthetic function of the
symbol as something which clears any contradiction of the opposites, but
rather as a tension in the composition of the opposites, in such a way that
                      -c




they each revitalise in relation to the other.
               on




          In these terms, I think we can consider tenderness as the polar
            N




opposite of violence. Indeed, tenderness causes us to lay down our arms
because we meet the other in an unprotected territory where it is possible to
feel – because it is shared – the joy of the transience and precariousness of
life, but also its aspiration to last. The welcoming of tenderness and prepar-
ing the ground for its arrival implies establishing a particular relationship
with the other, a relationship that invests the pause with love and dedication
and which, through sharing work on the psyche, through symbols and sym-
bolic thinking, creates an area in which the paradoxes of one’s identity and
the possibility of being transformed by them, emerges.
    With the other we can experience fusion and separation at the same time:



the human subject and his becoming which we saw previously; in this perspective, on its
continuous evolutionary journey, the human subject articulates and complexifies itself
through affirmations and denials, through opposite polarities.
  What form of violence? From the violence of over-simplification to the complexity of violence 91



‘I am the other but I am not the other. But the other is here in his helpless
state, and therefore calls to mind my own helpless state’ (Correale, 2021, p.
150). In this sense, helplessness assumes the nature of a common heritage.
A heritage that may be related to the violence entwined with life that we dis-
cussed earlier using the dialectic of being-becoming. A sort of ‘naked life’
(ivi) that can only emerge by sprinting between opposites; a life imbued
with contradictions, limits and infinite expansions, which unites us all and
which we make resonate in encounters with the other.
    What I want to share with these reflections on violence is a softened
gaze on the other, which may be the violent other.
    I believe that a tender, theoretical, but clinical eye with regard to vio-
lence, that embraces otherness, can lead to measures that require, first and
foremost, that we put ourselves in the state of being suspended individuals




                                                                   ly
who acknowledge the tensions between opposing polarities and participate




                                                             on
in them in order to find out where an intimate, open encounter with violence
might take us.

                                                  e
    I think the clinical implications of what has been said are easy to guess.
                                               us
    One could say that part of psychoanalytic commitment consists of the
challenge of creating conditions in which we and our patients ‘can experi-
                                            al

ence tenderness in their love life’ (Correale, 2021, p. 152) and in their rela-
                                       ci


tionship with violence.
                                  er
                             m




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Conflict of interests: the author declares no potential conflict of interests.

Ethics approval and consent to participate: not required.

Received: 28 December 2022.
Accepted: 20 March 2023.

Editor’s note: all claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily
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third party mentioned. Any materials (and their original source) used to support the authors’ opinions
are not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
©Copyright: the Author(s), 2023
Licensee PAGEPress, Italy
Ricerca Psicoanalitica 2023; XXXIV:750
doi:10.4081/rp.2023.750

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