Eugenio Borgna – författare

À contre-courant des idées reçues, Eugenio Borgna nous dévoile sa propre vision de la fragilité… un mot qui d''ordinaire fait peur, suscite d’emblée des réactions négatives et qui, pourtant, recèle des trésors. C’est donc dans une chasse aux trésors d’un genre un peu particulier que nous entraîne l''auteur. Celui-ci propose une analyse fine de la fragilité partout où elle apparaît à l’évidence, s’arrêtant plus particulièrement sur l’adolescence, la maladie et la vieillesse, pour mettre au jour toute la force et les virtualités qu’elle renferme, bien souvent à notre insu. Pour ce faire, il s’appuie aussi sur des citations d’écrivains, de poètes, de philosophes et de personnages publics, nous révélant des parts d’ombre et de lumière souvent insoupçonnées. Mais cet ouvrage concerne tout le monde, bien portants et malades, jeunes et vieux, car il réussit l’exploit de nous faire prendre conscience avec acuité de nos faiblesses, tout en faisant ressortir les potentialités extraordinaires qu’elles recèlent et qui pourraient peut-être changer notre regard sur nous-mêmes et notre approche de ceux qui nous entourent.Né à Borgomanero (Piémont) en 1930, Eugenio Borgna fait des études de médecine à l’université de Turin, avant de se spécialiser dans les maladies nerveuses et mentales à l’université de Milan en 1962. Entre 1970 et 1978, il est consultant à la Clinique des maladies nerveuses et mentales de Novare, puis chef du service psychiatrique de l’Hôpital majeur de Novare à partir de 1978. Il s’est particulièrement occupé de la psychopathologie des dépressions et des schizophrénies, comme en témoignent nombre de ses ouvrages. Il a expliqué dans la revue Studi di psichiatria (« Études de psychiatrie ») comment la subjectivité et l’intériorité des patients l’ont poussé à se consacrer exclusivement à la psychiatrie, délaissant sa passion initiale pour la neurologie.

Hope allows us to look at reality with eyes not clouded or obscured by appearance or habit, convention or repetition; it allows us to open ourselves to the future, freeing us from the rigid cage of the past and present. In Speranza e disperazione [Hope and Despair], Eugenio Borgna follows the concept of hope through moments in literature, on the one hand, and his work in psychiatry on the other. Hope may be fragile, but it is the only way to pull human beings out of loneliness and the darkest depths of the soul. Consistently listening to patients, and in close conversation with the poetry of Cesare Pavese, among others, he paints a portrait of the slender figure of one of life’s most revolutionary forces. With a preface by Ilaria de Seta.

With La nostalgia ferita [Wounded Nostalgia], Eugenio Borgna develops another term in his personal lexicon of emotion. Here he describes wounded nostalgia, with its constellation of keywords: memory, time, homesickness, childhood. But there is also nostalgia for death, for a face that, as Rilke wrote, haunts us, sometimes impossible to find, as well as nostalgia for life when we are afflicted by illness. Nostalgia that is open to hope is different from nostalgia that remains frozen in the past. These are some of the words thematized in this book. There is nostalgia wounded by pain, and nostalgia spared from it. Naturally, Borgna refers to Leopardi and Proust, but also to Emily Dickinson and Guido Gozzano. Ultimately, nostalgia can be understood as a salvaging of the past, as its gift of meaning; and as an antithesis, too, to the dragon of indifference that leads to an emotional wasteland. With a preface by Michele Dantini.

Phenomenology allows us to consider psychiatry not only as a natural science, but also a human one, where treating the wounded self takes places along a path of knowledge built on kindness and sensitivity, ethics and humanity, exploring areas that seem beyond the realm of psychiatry but actually share a common emotional ground. Wounded emotions are a part of all kinds of psychic suffering, not only depression. But whether we like it or not, emotions follow us in every circumstance of our lives, in good times and bad, not only when we are unwell, even if we are not always aware of them. In La follia che è anche in noi [The Madness That is Also in Us], Eugenio Borgna brings together his reflections on the past, present, and future of psychiatry with moments from his own life that are “rhapsodic and winding, where experiences near and far in time have flowed together.” With a preface by Stefano Redaelli.