Introduction

In the course of an informal discussion with some colleagues in 1985, shortly before his unexpected death, Eugenio Gaddini was asked what was his special field of interest in psychoanalysis. His spontaneous reply was as follows:

I must say that when I became deeply involved with psychoanalysis I was particularly interested in the primitive perceptions as described by Fenichel. At the time I understood that these were not really perceptions but rather that they were sensations. The movements from sensations to perceptions, as I saw it, led me to understand the importance of mental development in relation to the early primitive body development. I was also impressed with the extent to which the development of bodily functions conditions the mind, creating models of functioning which we later discover at the mental level. This created my interest in the study of movements from sensations to perceptions on which I am still working on the basis of the clinical material which I have accumulated. I think there is still a lot of work to be done.