Originally proposed by Eric Kandel as a new intellectual framework for the XXI century psychiatry and supported in Italy, among others, by Mauro Mancia, the dialogue between neuroscience and psychoanalysis has become in recent years the most advanced frontier of the interdisciplinary research in psychology; the challenge of bringing psychoanalysis in the field of scientifically verifiable therapies could be won by abandoning the mandatory reference to metapsychology, as advocated among others in Italy by Antonio Imbasciati, and by focusing instead on the biology of mind.

While many neuroscientists showed keen interest in the psychoanalytic theories - such as, for example, Antonio Damasio, Mark Solms, Cristina Alberini and Vittorio Gallese - the opposite was not true for the official psychoanalytic institutions whose response was unfortunately mainly marked by resistance or indifference - consider for example the long querelle "The case against neuropsychoanalysis" on the pages of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis.


Most fascinating and suggestive neuroscientific discoveries in various subject areas at the core of our theoretical work - such as emotion, decision-making, the unconscious, the interpersonal relationship, intersubjectivity, love, motivation, pleasure and reward, choice and free will in our behavior - are therefore still largely to be worked through and assimilated. Only by incorporating them in our theories we will able to do justice to the richness of more than a hundred years of psychoanalytic research.

We firstly published in 2005 on the Internet (at Psychomedia )
Pionieri o Emigranti? Viaggio con la psicoanalisi nelle terre di confine (Pioneers or Emigrants? A journey with psychoanalysis in the borderlands) (which we later updated in 2007)

Some years later we published La psicoanalisi nelle terre di confine (Psychoanalysis in the Borderlands);
you can find online a presentation of the book and a review of it by Maria Ponsi - whom we thank - on the online pages of the Rivista di Psicoanalisi.

The dialogue between neuroscience and psychoanalysis was later the subject of a series of conferences and seminars and more recently we updated our research in the chapter
Il contributo delle neuroscienze al pensiero psicoanalitico (The contribution of neuroscience to psychoanalytic thought), in the volume Psicoanalisi senza teoria freudiana) (Psychoanalysis without Freudian theory) published by Borla and edited by Antonio Imbasciati (October 2013) and in the chapter
Cavarsela alla meno peggio. Psicoanalisi e neuroscienze (Making the best of a bad job: Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience), in the volume Neuroscienze e teoria psicoanalitica. Verso una teoria integrata del funzionamento mentale (Neuroscience and psychoanalytic theory. Towards an integrated theory of mental functioning) published by Springer and edited by Loredana Cena and Antonio Imbasciati (February 2014).

A more recent update can be found in the chapter Conscio e inconscio nell'era delle neuroscienze. Cos'è mai la coscienza? in the volume Psicologia Clinica Perinatale. Neuroscienze e psicoanalisi, edited by Antonio Imbasciati and Loredana Cena (FrancoAngeli, Milano, 2017, pg. 40-70) and in my foreword Making the best of a bad job to Building Bridges, The Impact of Neuropsychoanalysis on Psychoanalytic Clinical Sessions edited by Rosa Spagnolo (Routledge, London & New York, 2018, pg. xi-xix).



Our research is still in progress,
as our blog
La psicoanalisi nelle terre di confine shows.


Unfortunately all the mentioned papers and publications (except the very last one) are not available in English.

It all began, at the urging of Parthenope, in 1992 with the establishment of a study group on the works of W. R. Bion; then we continued together on the basis of her statement:

We can't define ourselves as Bionian, because being Bionian means to be in the first place ourselves, to remain mentally free in our voyages of discovery - always, however, on a strict personal discipline, because freedom and anarchy are not synonymous (my translation from Italian).

Several Bion's statements I met in those years contributed to build my identity as a psychoanalyst, such as

Will psycho-analysts study the living mind? Or is the authority of Freud to be used as a deterrent, a barrier to studying people? The revolutionary becomes respectable — a barrier against revolution. The invasion of the animal by a germ or 'anticipation' of a means of accurate thinking, is resented by the feelings already in possession. That war has not ceased yet.

or

When two personalities meet, an emotional storm is created. If they make sufficient contact to be aware of each other, or even sufficient to be unaware of each other, an emotional state is produced by the conjunction of these two individuals, and the resulting disturbance is hardly likely to be regarded as necessarily an improvement on the state of affairs had they never met at all. But since they have met, and since this emotional storm has occurred, the two parties to this storm may decide to 'make the best of a bad job'..

The bad job happens to be me. I cannot get thoroughly analyzed — I don’t think there is such a thing. It has to stop some day; after that I have to make the best I can of who I am.

It was at that time that we translated into Italian - together - Cogitations. Pensieri.
In 1997 Parthenope and I organized in Torino the International Centennial Conference on the Work of W. R. Bion.

The provisional drafts of the papers to be presented at the Conference were previously published on the Internet and still are there.
A dedicated mailing list"bion97" was opened.
At the Conference my translation into Italian of Taming Wild Thoughts was distributed to the participants.

At the end of the Conference we created the 'Wilfred Ruprecht Bion. Past and Future' Project,(still available here).
The most important papers presented at the Conference were then published in the volumeLavorare con Bion, published in Italian by Borla, and in two other volumes,Bion's Legacy to Groups andW.R. Bion. Between Past and Future, published by Karnac.

The untimely death of Parthenope, in 1998, put an end to this experience of study, leaving a great mourning and a great sense of lack ...

Only some time later I finally managed to devote to her the Parthenope Bion Talamo Memorial Site ...

I dealt with online therapy when it was still a term poorly regarded in the world of psychoanalysis.
I tell the story on my interest and my practice of remote therapy in the paper
The Prehistory, the First Clinical Experiences and the “Online Therapy Study Group”,
written with Pietro Roberto Goisis, which is the introductory article of the second part Online Therapy. Problems and Opportunities of the issue n. 48 of the journal Funzione Gamma (Sapienza University, Rome) that I edited with Pietro Roberto Goisis.

The second part of the journal is divided into five sections:

• How Do We Get Here?
• The Covid-19 Pandemic: A Year of Online Experience
• Theoretical Reflexions
• Clinical Experience
• On the Other Side of the Screen

and ends with a Photobook
Images from Some Online Offices,
and our conclusions
Afterword: A Look Through the Nets.

I would like to point out the paper by
Paolo Migone,
and our conversations with
Marlene M. Maheu
and Stefano Bolognini.

In addition to the introductory article, I also contributed two other papers:
Online Psychotherapy Before the Covid-19 Pandemic
and
Online Therapy: Setting and Body
written with Beatrice Cannella.

After a series of seminars on the subject of remote psychodynamic psychotherapy (2021-2022), Roberto and I returned to the subject with a paper published in the Rivista di Psicoanalisi (LXVIII, 3, luglio-settembre 2022) entitled
La sfide della terapia online. La psicoanalisi di fronte al cambiamento.

The English version of the paper is published in
The Italian Psychoanalytic Annual, 2023,The challenges of online sessions. Psychoanalysis in the face of change.

The topic of the dialogue between neuroscience and psychoanalysis was the subject of a lot of seminars and conferences I have given as an invited speaker.
Neuroscienze, terre di confine (Neuroscience as a borderland) (April 15, 2013), was recorded and can be watched (unfortunately sound and images are not high-quality).
You can watch as well my previous seminar Padroni a casa nostra. La scelta etica (Reggio Emilia, November 27, 2010).

Both of them are in Italian.

In English:

• Parthenope Bion Talamo e Silvio A. Merciai (1997). On the Centenary of W.R. Bion. Psychoanalysis in Europe, IL, pagg.101-106.
• Parthenope Bion Talamo e Silvio A. Merciai (1997). Letter to the Editor of the F.E.P. Bulletin.
• Dominique Scarfone, Robert Galatzer-Levy, Romulo Lander, Peter Fonagy, Joseph Sandler, Silvio Merciai (1998). Ad-hoc Committee on IPA E-mail Discussion Forum.
• Silvio A. Merciai (1999). In Memoriam: Parthenope Bion Talamo, Ph.D. (1945-1998). In Journal of Melanie Klein and Object Relations, XVII, 2, pagg. 197-198.
• Franco Borgogno and Silvio Arrigo Merciai (1999). Searching for Bion: Cogitations, a new 'clinical diary'? In Parthenope Bion Talamo, Franco Borgogno and Silvio A. Merciai, Eds. (1999). W. R. Bion: Between Past and Future. Karnac Books, London.- Republished as Meeting Bion: cogitations, a new clinical diary? in Franco Borgogno, Psychoanalysis as a Journey, Open Gate Press, 2007, pag. 127. - Republished with some minor updates in International Forum of Psychoanalysis, 2018, 27:3, 135-145.
• Silvio A. Merciai. Making the best of a bad job (Foreword). In Rosa Spagnolo (Editor), Building Bridges, The Impact of Neuropsychoanalysis on Psychoanalytic Clinical Sessions, Routledge, London & New York, 2018, pg. xi-xix.
• Pietro Roberto Goisis and Silvio A. Merciai, Editors (2021). Online Therapy. Problems and Opportunities. In Covid-19 Pandemic and Online Therapy
• Silvio A. Merciai and Pietro Roberto Goisis (2021). The Prehistory, the First Clinical Experiences and the “Online Therapy Study Group”. In Covid-19 Pandemic and Online Therapy
• Silvio A. Merciai (2021). Online Psychotherapy Before the Covid-19 Pandemic. In Covid-19 Pandemic and Online Therapy
• Pietro Roberto Goisis and Silvio A. Merciai, Editors (2021). “What we Have Learned”: A Conversation with Stefano Bolognini. In Covid-19 Pandemic and Online Therapy
• Silvio A. Merciai and Pietro Roberto Goisis, Editors (2021). “A Great Opportunity and a Great Challenge”: In Conversation with Marlene M. Maheu. In Covid-19 Pandemic and Online Therapy
• Beatrice Cannella and Silvio A. Merciai (2021). Online Therapy: Setting and Body. In Covid-19 Pandemic and Online Therapy
• Pietro Roberto Goisis and Silvio A. Merciai (2021). Afterword: A Look Through the Nets. In Covid-19 Pandemic and Online Therapy
• Pietro Roberto Goisis and Silvio A. Merciai (2023). The challenges of online sessions. Psychoanalysis in the face of change

In Italiano:

• Silvio A. Merciai (1965). In L. Burato e G. Trovati, Cosa dicono gli studenti. 45° Parallelo, II, 7, marzo-aprile 1965, pagg. 70-71.
• Liana Valente e Silvio Merciai (1969). Profilo psicologico di alcuni studenti contestatari. Archivio di psicologia neurologia e psichiatria, XXX, II, pagg. 115-166.
• Silvio Merciai, con la collaborazione di Francesco Monaco (1969). Il problema dei rapporti interindividuali. Riflessioni sul film "Diario di una schizofrenica" di Nelo Risi. Ateneo Medico, III, 3/4, pagg. 22-23.
• Silvio Merciai, con la collaborazione di Francesco Monaco (1970). Il problema dei rapporti interindividuali. Parte II. PREmedico, I, 1, pagg. 7-10.
• Silvio Merciai (1970). Il gruppo come ipotesi di una metodologia dell'impegno. PREmedico, I, 2, pagg. 16-20.
• Silvio Merciai (1970). L'impegno come alienazione all'alienazione. PREmedico, I, 3, pagg. 16-19.
• Silvio A. Merciai (1974). Presentazione del libro Tecniche drammatiche di educazione e di rieducazione, di Giuliana Contini, data e casa editrice non indicati.
• S. A. Merciai e F. Gubetti (1974). Appunti sulla sindrome ipercinetica. Annali di Freniatria e Scienze Affini, LXXXVII, pagg. 1-12.
• Silvio A. Merciai (1990). Computer, pensiero e apprendimento. Qualche riflessione. In:Atti del Convegno Nazionale sulle Tecniche di Addestramento, Insegnamento ed Apprendimento Assistiti dal Computer, Torino, 6-8 marzo 1990; pubblicato a cura dell'Associazione Utenti CBT.
• Silvio A. Merciai (1995-1996). 27 'colonne' su Tuttoscienze - La Stampa, sull'argomento Internet [inserisci "Silvio Merciai Tuttoscienze" nel campo della ricerca].
• Silvio Arrigo Merciai (1996). Il sesso virtuale. In La Coppia: nuove realtà, nuovi valori, nuovi problemi, FrancoAngeli, Milano, vol. II, pagg. 1020-1028. Lavoro originariamente presentato al XIV Congresso Nazionale della Società Italiana di Sessuologia Clinica 'La coppia: nuove realtà, nuovi valori, nuovi problemi'. Torino, 20-22 giugno 1996.
• Silvio A. Merciai (1998). Una rete di persone - aspetti psicologici e relazionali dei rapporti in rete. Seminario per il Forum di Moncalieri 'Inter-Net o Inter-Nos?', 29-30 maggio 1998. [Pubblicato in edizione CD].
• Franco Borgogno e Silvio A. Merciai (1998). La nostra amica Parthenope. Notiziario SPI, 1998, vol. 2, pag.11.
• Franco Borgogno e Silvio Arrigo Merciai (1998). Parthenope Bion Talamo: un ricordo. Rivista di Psicoanalisi, XLIV, 3, pagg. 641-647.
• Silvio Arrigo Merciai (1998). Internet: una sfida. Psiche, I, pagg. 161-166. - Una bozza del lavoro è pubblicata qui
• Franco Borgogno e Silvio Arrigo Merciai (1998). Incontrare Bion: Cogitations, un nuovo 'Diario Clinico'? In Parthenope Bion Talamo, Franco Borgogno e Silvio A. Merciai, Eds., (1998) Lavorare con Bion. Borla Editore, Roma, pagg. 43-68. - Una bozza del lavoro è pubblicata qui .
  Un'ulteriore edizione del lavoro, lievemente ampliata e modificata, è pubblicata in Franco Borgogno, Psicoanalisi come percorso, Bollati Boringhieri, Torino, 1999, pagg. 126-143.
• Silvio A. Merciai (2000). Ripensando il percorso clinico con Parthenope Bion Talamo - Presentato il 13 maggio 2000 al seminario straordinario Il pensiero di P. Bion Talamo e di W.R. Bion, Roma, Dipartimento di Scienze Neurologiche dell'Università degli Studi La Sapienza.
• Silvio Arrigo Merciai (2000). Appunti sui progressi delle neuroscienze. Seminario tenuto al Centro Torinese di Psicoanalisi il 27 novembre 2000. La trascrizione dell'intervento (a cura di Beatrice Cannella) è pubblicata altrove su questo sito.
• Silvio A. Merciai (2001). Recensione del volume La catastrofe e i suoi simboli: il contributo di Sándor Ferenczi alla teoria psicoanalitica del trauma a cura di Carlo Bonomi e Franco Borgogno. - Rivista di Psicoanalisi, XLVIII, 2, pagg. 369-377.
• Silvio A. Merciai (2000). Psicoterapia online: un vestito su misura ... In: @psychotherapy, a cura di Tonino Cantelmi, Simonetta Putti e Massimo Talli, Edizioni Universitarie Romane, pagg.113-186, 2002; ripubblicato su Psychomedia.
• Franco Borgogno e Silvio A. Merciai (2004). Parthenope Bion Talamo: una memória (in portoghese). Ide (Rivista della Sociedade Brasileira de Psicanálise de Säo Paulo), novembre 2004, 40, 78-82.
• Silvio A. Merciai e Beatrice Cannella [a cura di] (2006). Neuroscienze e Psicoanalisi: cavarsela alla meno peggio ... In: O. Todarello e P. Porcelli (a cura di). Trattamenti in Medicina Psicosomatica. FrancoAngeli, Milano, 2006.
• Silvio A. Merciai. Precoce e non rimosso. Recensione di Psicoanalisi e Neuroscienze, a cura di Mauro Mancia. L'Indice, XXIV, 11, novembre 2007, pag. 20.
• Silvio A. Merciai. Ai piedi della montagna. Recensione di Psichiatria, psicoanalisi e nuova biologia della mente, di Eric R. Kandel. L'Indice, XXV, 1, gennaio 2008, pag. 7.
• Silvio A. Merciai. Un reticolo di relazioni. Recensione di Psiche, a cura di Francesco Barale, Mauro Bertani, Vittorio Gallese, Stefano Mistura e Adriano Zamperini. L'Indice, XXV, 7-8, luglio-agosto 2008, pag.28.
• Silvio A. Merciai. Intervista sull'impatto della ricerca empirica e delle neuroscienze sulla psicoanalisi, 2012.
• Silvio A. Merciai. Un modo di dar forma alla paura. Il Venerdì di Repubblica, n. 1329, pag. 25, 6 settembre 2013.
• Silvio A. Merciai e Beatrice Cannella. Il contributo delle neuroscienze al pensiero psicoanalitico. In: Antonio Imbasciati (a cura di), Psicoanalisi senza teoria freudiana. Riflessioni da un Congresso, Borla, Roma, 2013.
• Silvio A. Merciai. Cavarsela alla meno peggio. Psicoanalisi e neuroscienze. In: Loredana Cena e Antonio Imbasciati (a cura di), Neuroscienze e teoria psicoanalitica. Verso una teoria integrata del funzionamento mentale, Springer, Milano, 2014.
• Silvio A. Merciai. Neuropsicologia del Sé. In: Andrea Mosconi, Monica Pezzolo e Giada Racerro (a cura di), Identità sistemiche. Atti del Convegno Nazionale 2012 del Centro Milanese di Terapia della Famiglia, Centro Padovano di Terapia della Famiglia, Padova, 2014 (ebook).
• Silvio A. Merciai e Beatrice Cannella. La 'naturale alleanza' tra neuroscienze e psicoanalisi. In: Plexus n.11, novembre 2014.
• Silvio A. Merciai. Risposte al questionario 'Cosa resta della psicoanalisi'. In Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane, Numero speciale del cinquantesimo anno, vol. 50 n. 3, pg. 542-543.
• Silvio A. Merciai e Beatrice Cannella. Conscio e inconscio nell'era delle neuroscienze. Cos'è mai la coscienza? In Antonio Imbasciati e Loredana Cena (a cura di), Psicologia Clinica Perinatale. Neuroscienze e psicoanalisi, FrancoAngeli, Milano, 2017, pg. 40-70.
• Silvio A. Merciai (2018). Recensione di "La coscienza dell'Es. Psicoanalisi e neuroscienze" di Mark Solms. In Psicoterapia e Scienze Umane, vol. 52 n. 4, pg. 641-644.
• Pietro Roberto Goisis e Silvio A. Merciai (2022). Le sfide della terapia online. La psicoanalisi di fronte al cambiamento. Rivista di Psicoanalisi, LXVIII, 3, Luglio-Settembre 2022, pg. 897-914.

Until the academic year 2012-2013 I taught
Psicoanalisi e Neuroscienze
(Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience)
at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milano
and Neurobiologia dell'esperienza relazionale
(Neurobiology of relational experience)
at the Valle d'Aosta University.

Previously I taught
Psicosomatica (Psychosomatics)
at the Torino University.

Currently I teach in some Italian psychotherapy schools.