level. From 1989 to 1992, he was "Minister for the war on drugs" as part of the shadow government of the Italian Communist Party. In 2004 he received an award from the European Family Therapy Association (EFTA) in Berlin for his outstanding contribution to the field of family therapy. He was Scientific Director of the Therapeutic Communities of Saman from 1995 until December 2014. He has been Scientific Director of the Centre for the Assistance to ill-treated Children and Families of the Municipality of Rome since 1998, and of the Communities for Minors Domus de Luna in Sardinia since 2009. He is the editor-in-chief of the Scientific magazine Ecologia della Mente published by “Pensiero Scientifico Editore”, and of Alpes Italia’s (Bi)sogno di Psicoterapia series.

The main idea that has guided my clinical work over 50 years is very different and takes shape from the conviction that a childhood disorder is always a family problem and that therefore a child cannot be observed as an island, detached from his or her fundamental emotional ties.

Unfortunately, family therapy has largely built its theories and techniques on adult-centred thinking and has regarded the child-problem more as an object to be observed than as a competent subject. Thus it is often the case that during the session we talk mainly about the child and his problems and much less with him about his family.

In this presentation I would like to show how to give voice to the child in the session, being guided by his symptoms as relational indicators, in order to understand family dynamics on a multigenerational level. In this way, the child becomes a sort of relational bridge to explore severed family ties, intergenerational conflicts or couple contrasts.

The aim of this exploration is to encourage a transformation in the family and the couple and to allow the child to free himself from his disorders.

We present a model of work with couples according to the approach of Transactional Analysis in its psychoanalytic and phenomenological roots, integrated with the systemic-relational perspective.

We will introduce some theoretical tools based on thirty years of experience in working with couples at the Couples Service of the Centre for Psychology and Transactional Analysis in Milan, headed by Dr Evita Cassoni, in particular: structure and boundaries of the couple, evolutionary cycle in the life of the couple, blocking mechanisms within repetitive patterns and new potentials in the choice of a partner. We will show how we use these interpretations in a four-person setting, with two therapists, a man and a woman, to accompany the partners in the elaboration of expectations and images of themselves and the couple towards updated forms, and to reactivate evolutionary possibilities. The direction of the work can be drawn towards a more mature interdependence or also towards the need for a goodbye. The object of the care process is the couple as a relational system, a dynamic organism with its own identity and vitality, the centre of the family system and the cell of the social body. For us, helping to renew the motivation of the original commitment and to put the energy of the bond back into circulation also means promoting well- being in a broader system.

Consistent with our intersubjective approach, we have chosen to co-host the webinar, to allow us to see the collaboration of the working couple at work, and we would like to involve the audience in the reflection by presenting some simple exercises and clinical situations, proposing to read them with the theoretical tools presented.

Psychoanalytic interventions with couples is a research field of great interest for the development of a relational understanding of the human subject. What is the couple relationship? How best to read what happens between partners in both ordinary situations and moments of crisis? What is the relationship between the individuality of the partners and the relationship they establish with each other? Through a discussion of the epistemological and theoretical aspects underpinning the couple point of view, the dynamics governing the interaction between two human beings united in a couple's bond will be explored as they each deal with their own life process.

• The importance of sex and the challenges of talking about it

• Useful questions for a sexual history

• Diminished or discrepant sexual desire

• A partner’s past experience of sexual trauma

• Sexual script incompatibilities and paraphilias

• Porn and compulsive sexual behavior

• How to recharge satisfying sex once other things are better

The workshop is grounded in Dr. Nielsen’s approach to couple therapy, emphasizing interpersonal process and integrating systemic, psychodynamic, and behavioral/educational principles. We will discuss case examples from his extensive practice experience.

1. Receive a basic overview of Imago theory

2. Be presented with at least one practical tool utilized by Imago therapists

3. Understand how to create emotional safety in the couple session and utilize safety to deepen

couples emotional understanding of the other.

The development of parental fantasies and representations accompanying some crucial moments in the conception process, including the choice of gamete donors, the experience of contact with the pregnant woman and the choice of the (non-)biological parent, are examined from a psychodynamic perspective. Using clinical material, the identity transformations that lesbian women and gay men go through during the transition to parenthood are also analysed, in the articulation between procreative consciousness, internalised homophobia and desire for parenthood.