Narrative Identity, Memory, and Narrative Therapy

It is certainly no longer the time to think in terms of a soul sepa-rated from the body, still less of apodictic proofs of the existence of God. Even if today, when the most markedly materialistic neurophysi-ological theories and practices are proving — in the eyes of the most discerning neuroscientists themselves — increasingly unconvincing in their ability to account in depth for how the human mind functions and how it can be cured, it seems that the discussion should not be con-sidered closed once and for all. Nor does it appear groundless to chal-lenge the opposite tendency as well: that of regarding the body and its practices of care as entirely devoid of any relation to a conscious-ness and an identity that does not appear reducible to physical pro-cesses and that, in deference to tradition, we may still call “soul”. Certainly, the problem lies entirely in the meaning to give to this term. In its designation one may well avoid introducing explicitly “metaphysical” traits; yet one cannot avoid incorporating qualities that psychology has described as Gestalt-like and that philosophy has consistently associated with the power of imagination. These are qual-ities that human beings undoubtedly possess, and that cannot be re-duced to mere biochemical processes. Further support for such considerations can be found in the theo-retical reflections and practical experiments carried out in recent years within the European Project (PRIN PNRR) entitled Aesthetics and Therapeia, which funded the conference “Memory, Identity, Narra-tion”, in which the contributors to this issue of Critical Hermeneutics took part. Although inspired by a clinical experiment — namely, the one conducted some years ago at the ASP Giovanni XXIII in Bologna, coordinated by the geriatrician Dr. Giancarlo Savorani together with his team on a selected group of Alzheimer’s patients in the early stag-es of the disease, to whom so-called “memofilms” were “adminis-tered”—the project raised a distinctly theoretical question... (D. Guastini, Preface)