Interview to Doctor Frigoli

Doctor Frigoli, how was ANEB born?
ANEB was founded in 1985 and was registered in 1987 during a conference held in occasion of the publication of the book "The Psychosomatic Code of the Living"; before becoming an Association the idea of Ecobiopsychology was formed in me due to a personal - and professional - experience which I would doubtlessly call synchronic.

Can you tell us the founding events of this process?
At the beginning of my medical and psychiatric career I was dealing with Anorexia Nervosa which, in 1968, was not well known in my country. The team had a pioneer attitude and, being made up of Freudian psychoanalysts, it was decided to consider the psychological changes in patients who had regained weight, giving thus birth to a psychosomatic therapy. During the same period I was appointed Medical Officer in the Air Force and took notice of peculiar symptoms regarding the physical figure of the pilots…

What do you mean?
I realized that, during the simulated training sessions, the pilots who happened to crash the planes were the ones who hadn't yet integrated it into their own body-scheme; this led me to study Schilder's works on the relationship between body-scheme and the mental image of the body. These intuitions were furthermore corroborated by the work done on psychotic and schizophrenic patients, where I remarked the evident separation between body and mind.

Is it the subject of the division of the ego…?
Yes, but in those times nobody was considering the physical ego. Anyway, the significant synchronic event in this period was an unexpected trip to China to study acupuncture, during which I came in contact with a whole set of symbols I didn't know of.

You speak of it as if it were some kind of Copernican revolution…
More than that! I was bewildered by the Chinese approach to illness and, after a Freudian-based education, I started to seriously study symbolism and C.G. Jung. This fascination brought me to get a specialization in official acupuncture: it was then that I met a Sinologist, who studied the etymon of the Chinese ideogram, so as to trace them back to the corresponding pictogram and write the first European English dictionary of ideograms. My task was to find somatic correspondences, searching for the similarity between an ideogram and the area of the body referring to it.

Can you give us an example?
Of course. The ideogram in point 19 of "The Ruling Jar" called "The Jade Door" is a stone for the Chinese, but it's also the “lapis philosophorum” for alchemists; moreover it corresponds to the tonsure of Osiris' priests for the Egyptians. From an anatomic point of view it's where the epiphysis lies along with all that is neurophysiologically related to it in this part of the body.

At that time you wrote some essential books...
Yes, I did. The first one was “Towards a conception of the psychosomatic Self” (original title "Verso la concezione di un Sé psicosomatico") written with two colleagues, while the fundamental text I wrote in 1983 was "The Metamorphosis of Conscience", in which I had to build the theoretical basis of the way archetype operates.

The concept of archetype is difficult, almost unknowable...
Especially if you associate it to the relationship with the body, seen as symbolism; I won't hide the fact that it was a book that I left lying in a drawer for quite a while, and that I picked up after I had left my job at the University.

From your words one understands that you have had a trying time...
...and also troubled, but during this period I had several important and even unconscious experiences: I had clear, expressive dreams, which frightened me with their depth; nevertheless I managed to orient myself, in such a way that I actually managed to obtain good results.

Of what kind?
At that time I was an independent town councillor in suburban Milan, and managed to combine politics with professionalism, contributing to the establishment of the first surgery subsidized by the municipality and not by the district, which dealt with prevention in the field of drug dependence.

It's a bit personal question, but did you work directly with your own body?
I can tell you that I followed a course of Aikido, a very interesting experience because while the teacher cited the moves I found the corresponding points on the body, taking advantage of my knowledge of the meridian. At the same time I started to get into Alchemy: this experience led me to a deeper insight into Jung. I discovered that what Jung wrote had two messages, the former explicit , the latter more important and explained in footnotes. There you will find what he really wanted to say...

It's almost an advice to read above all the notes of the Junghiani text...
He couldn't - for obvious legal motives during that historical period and owing to his vicissitudes - say everything clearly... In the meantime - during the years from 1984 to 1987 - I was asked to give lessons in Padua and Venice, and in Milan, at an Italian psychosomatic institute; during these meetings I came to understand the needs of developing students, in that I was asked to run seminars concentrated on the themes of symbols and analogy, concepts that are still 'thorny' for those employed in psychology, psychotherapy, and medical/doctors. At this stage ANEB, which initially was based on research, left the interpretative field and started to give a series of revealing seminars and courses for specialists, at first triennial and then quadrennial, until it has become today a permanent formative course.

It seems almost to be the alchemic route...
Exactly, the intent is to create a laboratory when one talks while the other works to the advantage of both, the group and myself, giving this way a collective enrichment. Keep in mind that the group is made up of people with different ideas, different routes, different specialisations, experts of almost antithetic disciplines, which constantly undergo a process of confrontation, with a lot of energy expended, maintaining a method of ecobiopsychological thinking, operating in a transformative sense.

I remember at the beginning of the first year, in studying pure symbols, as the geometric and mathematical ones, clear psychosomatic responses were created: I was struck by dizziness.
But you weren't the only one! When I realised what was happening, I sought to provide more concrete/substantial literature, tools such as books, clinical cases, without ever arriving at the depths of themes that I introspectively thought; this orientation on the positive side brought about exciting transformative deeds. For example, several people decided to undertake a personal analysis... After two, three years of preparation (the first triennium, edn), also under the stimulus of concrete needs, I started to outline a work on body-symbol, contemplating the symbolism of the apparatus of the human body, in physiology and in pathology. Now this work has come to an end and we are introducing direct methods of intervention, with visualisation and imaginative experience: in this way the symbol is working on the participants. I found that some legitimised themselves with research, books and participation at conventions.

On the other hand, when we spoke of an alchemy laboratory, in reality, more than "talk and work" we had to "pray and work" ("ora and labora" ndr).
It is not by chance that St. Benedict was an alchemist: that is why, he wrote the “blessed” (“Benedettina”, edn) rule. The aim is to reach a transformation in this sense.

One of the greatest abilities that unanimously we recognise in you and that you have conveyed to us is the ability to link apparently distantly connected material, such as economy and psychology, physics and literature...
What you are saying is true, the mind is a sort of polygon; the mind has many sides, many more analogical sides than the individual is capable of gathering. Nevertheless, for example, to pass from an environment in the form of a pentagon to one in the form of a hexagon, it is necessary for the pentagon to break the sides of the perimeter of the polygon. One has to undergo a subjective experience of pain and crisis in the beginning, but further on and without notice, without noticing the Self begins to work, manifesting itself in impulsive unexpected creations...

And then there is the resistance in taking part to this logic...

Yes, of course and it is right that it should happen: whenever one seriously works with symbols and analogy many parts are left in shadow and the scientific or clinical medicine become privileged. It is necessary to respect the moments of our Ego, first: then each one will find his own way.