Observing educational relations in their natural context

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* Paper presented at the Second European Conference on Child and Adolescent Mental Health in Educational Contexts, Naples, 29–30 November, 1 December 2007.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Flavia Portanova, who co-planned with me the project ‘Fox's Earth’, and the Fondazione Banco di Napoli per l'assistenza all'infanzia e all'adolescenza, which supported it generously.

Notes

* Paper presented at the Second European Conference on Child and Adolescent Mental Health in Educational Contexts, Naples, 29–30 November, 1 December 2007.

1. In 1895, Freud published his studies on hysteria in which he develops his theory, later repudiated, that the origins of this disorder lie in sexual seduction sustained during childhood. The fourth edition of these studies, devoted to the case of Katharina, describes a clinical consultation made by Freud during a mountain walk. I quote from the first part of the description:

During the holidays of 189*, I went on a trip to the Hohe Tauern to try and forget medicine for a while and, in particular, neuroses. I had almost managed to when one day I left the main road to go up a mountain some distance away, famous for the view and its well-maintained refuge. I reached the top after a hard climb, and after having some refreshment and a rest, I sat immersed in contemplation at the charming view, so completely wrapped up in my thoughts that I did not immediately realise that I was the person being addressed when I heard the question ‘Are you a doctor?’… When I came to my senses, I replied ‘Yes, I'm a doctor, how do you know?’

Freud's subsequent discussion of this episode regards his curiosity at seeing how neuroses could ‘thrive so well at an altitude of two thousand metres’, his uncertainty about the advisability of making (in that context) a tentative analysis, the impossibility of resorting to hypnosis which he used at the time, and the decision to try to provide an answer to the young person's request for help by means of a ‘simple conversation’.

2. In a talk given on 29 March 1983 to students of the graduate division of Columbia University, New York, Calvino (1983a) described the circumstances that formed the background to the composition of Invisible Cities, and stated that ‘In historical reality, Kublai, the descendant of Ghengis Khan, was the emperor of the Mongols, but Marco Polo in his book refers to him as the Grand Khan of the Tartars and this is how he has remained in literary tradition’.

3. The Observatory of Mount Palomar is one of the most famous astronomic observatories, and one of the most important in the world in the field of astronomic research. Mount Palomar is the site of the famous Hale telescope, completed in 1946 and run by the California Institute of Technology.