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PSYCHOTIC PROCESSES IN SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR BY PIRANDELLO
Author(s) -
Ceglie Giovanna Rita
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
british journal of psychotherapy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.442
H-Index - 17
eISSN - 1752-0118
pISSN - 0265-9883
DOI - 10.1111/j.1752-0118.2000.tb00521.x
Subject(s) - anticipation (artificial intelligence) , psychology , representation (politics) , work (physics) , psychoanalysis , artificial intelligence , law , computer science , mechanical engineering , politics , political science , engineering
The play Six Characters in Search of an Author is about madness, its seductiveness, its at times apparent plausibility, its language and its infectiousness. It makes the spectator participate in a psychotic experience. A great deal of disturbance in the audience followed its first performance in 1920 at the Teatro la Valle in Rome. By representing what is ultimately the failure of mental and theatrical representation Pirandello has created a work of art which is a most interesting anticipation and validation of the work on psychotic states of mind of the last few decades. In this paper we explore aspects of the play which are relevant to the work in the consulting room with a group of psychotic or borderline patients whose functioning is evocative of the Six Characters in Search of an Author .