Elvio Fachinelli

Elvio Fachinelli (Luserna, Italy 1928 – Milan 1989) was an Italian psychoanalyst, psychiatrist, writer and journalist, widely known in Italy at the time mainly for his radical militancy and as a member of the anti-authoritarian movement.
== Life ==
He was born in Luserna, a village in the Italian Alps in which German, Italian, and Cimbrian were spoken (the latter is a local language known only to a few thousand people). After studying medicine and psychiatry in Milan, Fachinelli became a member of the SPI, Società Psicoanalitica Italiana (the Italian branch of the IPA) and underwent psychoanalysis with Cesare Musatti, one of the historical founders of the SPI. Fachinelli himself contributed to the Italian translation of Sigmund Freud; he translated The Interpretation of Dreams and the essay “Negation”.
Being a member of the SPI did not prevent him from co-organizing, in 1969, a protest against the International Psychoanalytic Association|IPA International Congress in Rome. This action was in the wake of the protests that, starting from 1968, spread across Europe. The way in which he staged the protest attracted attention and received strong media coverage beyond psychoanalytic circles. In spite of that, Fachinelli never left the SPI, not even when, in 1988, he published a conversation with Sergio Benvenuto in which he thoroughly attacked the way in which the SPI co-opted analysts, and called into question its authority and openness (“Impossible training of the analysts”). 
He had a daughter, Giuditta, from the psychologist Magda Esposito. 
The Elvio Fachinell Institute, which focuses on psychoanalysis and culture and is connected to the European Journal of Psychoanalysis, was founded and has been operative since 2019. His president is Sergio Benvenuto.
== Activity and thought ==
Fachinelli sided with the culture of the radical Left; specifically, he collaborated with the influential cultural journal Quaderni Piacentini. This journal was one of the noble sources of the movement that was then called “extra-parliamentary” in Italy, since it preferred action in society rather than in political institutions. In the 1970s, he became himself one of the leaders of the cultural Left thanks to his collaboration with L’Espresso, which was then the most prestigious Italian weekly magazine and had a non-radical leftwing orientation. Along these lines, he founded the journal L’Erba voglio [the name “L’Erba voglio” – literally “the herb ‘I want’” – is derived from the Italian saying “L’erba voglio non cresce neanche nel giardino del re”, something like “You can’t always get what you want”] which soon became a publishing house of the same name; L’Erba voglio promoted young writers, “extravagant” books, and essays.
In the meantime, Fachinelli had approached Jacques Lacan, whose writings he admired. Lacan proposed to appoint him president of the Italian society of psychoanalysis inspired by his work, but Fachinelli refused.
Fachinelli was particularly influenced by the Frankfurt School and Walter Benjamin; later by the Parisian avant-garde of the time.
At the same time, he set up a number of initiatives that were quite heretical with respect to psychoanalytic practice and linked to social themes. He initiated an anti-authoritarian and libertarian pedagogical project through the creation, in Milan, near Porta Ticinese, of a self-managed nursery school (Fachinelli recounts this experience, with L. Muraro and G. Sartori, in the book L’erba voglio (1971), which then lent its title to the homonymous journal and publishing house). In 1974, Fachinelli summarized his experiences and reflections on that decade of political and cultural struggles in the book Il bambino dalle uova d’oro [Golden eggs’ child]
Starting from the end of the 1970s and during the 1980s, Fachinelli focused on clinical and apparently more individual problems; however, his psychoanalytic approach was always in tune with a broad cultural perspective and his sensibility toward emerging social phenomena. In these years, he published La freccia ferma [The Still Arrow] (1979), a study of the processes of negation of time and death present both in the individual and society; Claustrofilia [Claustrophilia] (1983), an investigation of the fusional desire that would accompany every stage of life and be manifest in the process of the psychoanalytic treatment; and La mente estatica [The Ecstatic Mind] (1989), a visionary essay about some altered conditions of consciousness.
== Publications in Italian ==
Freud, Milano: Compagnia edizioni internazionali, 1965; poi in Su Freud, a cura di L. Boni, Milano: Adelphi, 2012 ISBN 978-88-459-2576-4
Prefazione a Paul Léautaud, Settore privato: diario personale, Milano: Feltrinelli, 1968
L'erba voglio. Pratica non autoritaria nella scuola, a cura di Elvio Fachinelli, Luisa Muraro Vaiani e Giuseppe Sartori, Torino: Einaudi, 1971
Il bambino dalle uova d'oro, Milano: Feltrinelli, 1974, 1999; n. ed. Milano: Adelphi, 2010 ISBN 978-88-459-2473-6
Uma tentativa de amor: Portogallo, estate 1975, Roma: Cooperativa scrittori, 1976
La freccia ferma. Tre tentativi di annullare il tempo, Milano: L'erba voglio, 1979; n. ed. Milano: Adelphi, 1992 ISBN 88-459-0874-7
Claustrofilia. Saggio sull'orologio telepatico in psicanalisi, Milano: Adelphi, 1983 ISBN 88-459-0526-8
La mente estatica, Milano: Adelphi, 1989, n. ed. 2009 ISBN 978-88-459-2407-1
Al cuore delle cose. Scritti politici (1967-1989), a cura di Dario Borso, Roma: DeriveApprodi, 2016 ISBN 978-88-6548-145-5
Grottesche. Notizie, racconti, apparizioni, a cura di Dario Borso, Trieste: ed. Italo Svevo, 2019 ISBN 978-88-99028-40-4
Category:Italian psychiatrists
Category:Italian psychoanalysts
Category:1989 deaths
Category:1928 births