The Pathological Gambling Game (GAP) An open window on post-modernity matriarchal universe

 

di Antonio Grassi e Sandra Berivi

 

Summary :

The Authors identify in the Pathological Gambling Game a widely –
spreading Addictions phenomenon which shows wordly Collective
Unconscious current structure psychopathological shadow side, namely the
Matriarchy. Their work starts from Gambling examination in its individual
neurobiological psychopathology. However their observations on
neuroscientific discoveries serve as a start point for a wide-ranging
analytical psychological analysis on western universe current, existential
and, above all, ethical human values hottest and most discussed topics.
Through the dominant single matriarchal thought (that realizes in
organizations construction, including those of the State and also at
jurisprudential level) rigorous and strict criticism, they propose to the
reader’s attention the dilemmas and paradoxes in which the current
‘politically correct’ thought ‘stumbles’ both in scientific and humanistic
field. The radicalizing conflict between male and female to the benefit of
the feminist matriarchy is producing, as a shadow side, addictions and
juvenile maladjustment phenomenon. The Authors propose human being’s
two worlds and two vision criteria higher level synthesis , as the only
salvific and healing path for man, as well as scientifically correct, at least
through depth psychology therapeutic tool .

Parole chiave: Gambling – Neuroscience – Ethics – Sense – Care

*–

Introduction

Pathological gambling unconscious meaning has been known since
psychoanalytic literature began, thanks to Bergler’s brilliant intuitions
(1958),: the masochistic loss pleasure satisfaction , determined by guilt
and self-punishment sense for rebellion against parents’ prohibitions and
revolt against logic, intelligence, moderation, morality and renunciation
(Bergler, 1900: 23). The author identifies in the player: megalomania,
omnipotence, cognitive impairment (complete final winning belief, as if
winning or not winning depended only on him), reality principle check
mate by pleasure principle. He also emphasizes the thrill component as
rational game motivation, higher than winning or losing consumer
component (Bergler, 1900: 20). The author thus anticipates the
neuroscientific discoveries on the differences between appetitive pleasure
and consuming pleasure and on the greater addictions appetitive pleasure
motivational salience than consuming pleasure (Di Chiara, 2010). The
author does not dwell much, except in reporting the story plot, on the
‘virtual’ incest that the player makes with the game.
The pathological gambling imaginary incest was also confirmed by our
clinical research group psychoanalytic findings: 80% of these patients
suffered direct or indirect sexual abuse by the opposite sex parent (or
relatives) in their childhood and adolescence (Grassi,2018).The incest
gives rise to child’s omnipotence sense development that is perpetuated
in adolescent age and in his/her life later stages both through manic-like
behavioural choices and sexual behaviour lacking limit sense for quality
and number (ib.).

Neuroscientific references: the state of the art

The latest research

The vulnerability derives from an uncontrollable addiction behaviour
desire, in our case Pathological Gambling, and from the reduced desire
inhibition ability. At the same time, the prefrontal cortex is hyper-reactive
to the stimulus. Physiological glutamatergic release is produced which,
along the glutamatergic pathway (the biological motivational salience
site) goes from the prefrontal cortex to the reward nucleus (prefrontal
part) and reinforces excitatory synapses, in which there is a reduction in
modulating neurotransmission ability. From this condition it results that
hyperexcited accumbens nucleus prefrontal glutamatergic connections
favour substance search or addiction behaviour impulsive-compulsive
dimension, reducing the natural biological satisfactions (motivation) and
cognitive control (choice) salience.
The most important contributions on cognitive control were provided by
Bechara and colleagues (2005) with their ‘somatic marker hypothesis’ and
with the well-known “Iowa gambling task”, a test designed to assess
decision-making skills decay in the GAP. Neuroimaging also contributed
to these studies, demonstrating insula and basal ganglia fundamental role
in guiding long-term decisions. The inferior parietal lobe appears instead
responsible for decision consequences evaluation and frontal cortex seems
to be implicated in errors correction. (Lin et al., 2008).
According to the drive-controller model in determining behaviors
(Serpelloni, 2010, p. 35), behavior arises from two forces opposition. The
first named ‘drive’ and the second ‘controller’. In the first case the
functional structure generates pressures ‘supported by needs’ and desires.
In the second case, there is voluntary choice ambit, in which self-control
systems come into play strongly regulated by individual’s external or
internal origin facilitators or deterrents. The controller can act in a
behaviour inhibiting or promoting sense, and therefore it should not be
understood as an inhibitory system only. In addiction use motivation can
be sustained by a strong drive, capable of inhibiting the self-control action
that the individual could exercise through the controller.
The latter has, above all, a function of problem analysis, problem solving
and decision making and uses ,for these functions, cognitive matrices
within which a series of parameters and values ,capable of influencing the
decisions and therefore the individual’s behaviour, have been
memorized.These matrices are formed during the subject’s growth on the
basis of learning stimuli coming from the external environment and from
the elaborations that the subject constantly performs on these stimuli. So
the controller forms over time on environment influence base and
conditioned both by educational inputs, cultural models, collective
behaviour, and by the reference group social pressure (Feldman, 1969).
The controller‘s low efficiency may have been generated by stress source
environment , poor in rewarding stimuli and with a reduced capacity for
behaviors and protective systems general learning (Serpelloni, 2010: 36).
Educational inputs are communications which, through verbal-affectivebehavioural vehicle, educate, that is extract the minors’ personality from
the shapeless (e-ducate = lead out). This is realized in limit sense
acquisition on whose background the other can thus appear as something
other than himself/herself in parallel with self discovery and identity
definition. This requires separation / decision process between what one is
and what one is not; decision means, even etymologically, cutting and
cutting does arise from prohibitions, meanings and correlated ethical
behaviour. Any prohibition, any decision as well as any inhibitory and
modulatory process are frontal and prefrontal cortical functions
prerogative (Controller), while needs / desires and their satisfaction, as
well as the related processes, belong to subcortical sphere Reward System
(Nucleus accumbens, Ventral Tegmental Area, Hippocampus, Amygdala,
Insula). The relationship between frontal and prefrontal cortex on one side,
and the reward system, on the other one, is, according to neuroscientists, of
Darwinian nature (Shallice and Norman, 1988). Therefore reason, thought
activity organizational pattern, as cortical product, has the function of
subjugating needs and their satisfaction to their rational meaning: for
example, sexuality is guided by the rational meaning of a relationship (eg
love and not hate, which has another meaning). But rational meaning
depends on an activation process of the prefrontal cortex which is by its
nature psychically defined as an ‘opus contra naturam’, since the
undifferentiated erotic attraction, that is rational meaning dimension
deprived , can also be inserted in relationships contexts that have nothing
to do with love. In value terms patriarchal ethics is based on Reason
principle that seeks and finds behaviour rational meaning, while
matriarchal ethics is based on needs and desires care principle, care is
identified with the relationship. From this point of view,
Darwinian relationship between the frontal / prefrontal cortex and the
subcortical reward system represents nothing but Darwinian relationship
biological side between the ethics of reason, realized in law, and the ethics
of care, realized in privileging the relationship. But a Darwinian
relationship is still an oppression relationship of one part over the other,
and therefore involves traumatic events development and occurrence
between one and the other system. So impulse control itself is still an
inhibitory violence act that the cortex must exercise against the underlying
reward system undifferentiated needs.
Currently trauma theories are to be examined. Early pathological trauma
has a devastating impact on symbolic capacity which makes imaginative
life impossible (Schore, 1994,2003b; Siegel, 2007, Kalsched, 2013). But in
what psychosociological context does this etiopathogenetic axis shift to
traumatic events? Trauma theory develops in current Western world
whose cultural-sociological orientation is distinctly matriarchal. In this
matriarchal orientation , both in neuroscientific research and institutional
political sociological psychological research, trauma concept specific
meaning has taken nuanced and variegated colouring shades and
borders that are becoming increasingly evanescent (anomia and / or
meaning dissemination). From analytical psychological point of view the
basic principle, that animates matriarchal orientation in all contemporary
life sectors, is mere relationality (Berivi, 2018). Mere relationality is,
according to the author, the basic principle that weaves the whole social
life aspects web .

Historical references on the conflict between Ethics of Care and Ethics
of Justice (Law)

The trauma, however, in its semantic meaning, from a neuroscientific
point of view, but also psychic, is inherent in individual’s
neuropsychological development . On this point the two theories, the
matriarchal of the cure and the other patriarchal of the rational meaning,
have collided for centuries on literary, psychological, juridical, scientific
and philosophical level. This very actual clash was already admirably
represented over 2,400 years ago by Sophocles’ tragegy ‘Antigone’.

Four children were born from Oedipus and Jocasta: two sons, Eteocles
and Polynices, and two daughters, Antigone and Ismene. Polinice
organizes far from his hometown and make war on his brother. Both of
them die in the fratricidal struggle between the two armies.

Creon, king of Thebes,the attacked city, orders ,however, that only
Eteocles be buried inside the city walls and have solemn State funerals,
indicating Polinice as a traitor to the country and therefore unworthy of
burial and destined to be devoured by birds. He also decides to punish
with death anyone who disobeys his will and buries the body.
Antigone decides to take responsibility for burying Polinice. When she is
brought to the presence of Creon, Antigone accuses her uncle of having
made his decision above the gods, in fact the funeral rite is to be granted
to all men for gods’ will, not even a king can oppose it.. Clearly
Antigone’s accusations further exacerbate Creon’s reaction , already
furious at the affront suffered. So he condemns his niece to death. Creon’s
son, Emone, Antigone’s lover and betrothed , tries to intercede with his
father. The dialogue ends in a disaster, Creonte is irremovable and
Emone, deprived of any possibility , does not know how to help his
beloved. Nevertheless, Creon, following a dialogue with Tiresia,
reconsiders his decision and then goes to Antigone to tell her that he has
changed his decision : killing a member of his family is an act against
nature that could arouse gods’ wrath.. So her destiny will be to be
imprisoned in a cave where she will stay all her life long. Then, Eurydice,
Creon’s wife, enters the scene and meets a messenger who tells the tragic
events that have upset Thebes: Emone had gone to free Antigone, but the
young woman, not imagining that Creon could change his previous
decision, had already hanged herself. So Emone decides to kill himself
and, in Creon’s presence , he pierces himself with his sword. After a while
he learns that Eurydice, after knowing Emone’s death, killed herself. The
curtain falls on Creon who, aware of his responsibilities in his family’s
tragic end , begs the gods to give him death.

The Ethics of Law (Creon)

Through Creon’s words, Sophocles manages to admirably express the
basic principles of the ethics of reason that is realized with law. The
Corinth king , in fact, turning to Antigone, states: ‘And whoever keeps his
friend in greater account than his own country I call this man rubbish …
never keep a friend of mine who is an enemy of my country. Homeland! It
saves us, citizens; When homeland ship is safe then we have everything,
even friends. … And it has always happened for homeland… he sepulcher
be placed and Eteocles have all those sacred honours that dead heroes
have. But his brother-Polynices, I say … He wanted to destroy his
homeland with fire: Carrion edible to birds and dogs; never from me the
wicked will have honours reserved for those who keep the laws’.
Addressed to Emone, his son: ‘just like that, son, we must think: put
everything behind the paternal will. Here it is why we are asked to have
obedient children in our own home: So that one day the children will make
bad for evil to those who are enemies and honour the friend, as their father
did. But whoever procreates incompetents, what else would you say that is
born to him if not sorrows for him,the father, and much laughter for his
enemies? Never throw, son, your reason for some woman’s pleasure : an
embrace of ice becomes an evil female in the bed and in the house, I assure
you. There is no greater plague than a villain by your side. … to obey, to
obey: both in much and little, in right and wrong, always and in any case
to the man who is placed at the State helm . Anarchy is the worst thing
among evils: it destroys cities, upsets houses, puts escaping and tears up
armies in battle. But it is obedience, obedience to leaders, the source of
salvation and victory. We must defend laws,written laws, Emone, never
give in to a female’ .

The ethics of care (Antigone)

Through the words of Antigone, Sophocles shows the ethics of care,
relationship and emotional ties basic principles The young woman replies
to Creon: ‘if I had tolerated my mother’s son being left without a burial
(Polinice), this would have been my pain. Death Isn’t it a shame to have
pity on my brother? to Ismene: ‘Has he (Creon) perhaps not given the
honour of the tomb to only one of our two brothers and to the other hasn’t
he denied it? He buried Eteocles, you know, as law and justice want… But
then he banned all citizens from covering Polinice, his poor inanimate
body, with land … Without human tears, … I’ll rest forever beside him, my
dear brother ‘.

The conflict between the ethics of law and the ethics of care.

This conflict reaches its climax in the conflict between Creon and
Antigone: ‘Creon: are you not ashamed to be different from all the others?
Antigone: Is it shame having pity on my brother?’ Creon: ‘And wasn’t the
another one your brother too? ‘Antigone: ‘yes, my father and my
mother’s son ‘. Creon:’ honoring that other do you offend him? ‘Antigone:
‘now that he is dead and is a corpse, he cannot agree with you’. Creon:
‘But if you honour him like that ungodly one!’ Antigone: ‘not a slave did
die but a brother’. Creon: ‘who destroyed his own homeland. The other
defended it’.
Antigone:’ death wants equal laws for everyone.’ Creon:’ the same honors
to the good and the wicked? Oh no, it will never be.’
Antigone:’ I wonder if this is holy for that world down there. ‘Creon: ‘I
hate my enemy even in death.’ Antigone:’ but I’m not made to hate. To
love only.’

The Ethics of Care philosophical assumption

It is Karl Mark’s historical materialism.In contrast to a metaphysics- based
Transcendence, The ethics of care feminism proposes universe
pantheistic vision rooted in the relationship between all living beings,
human and otherwise. The consequent Ethics of Care, on the
anthropological level, uses relationship vehicle for the subject’s needs
and desires satisfaction without any meaning discrimination between the
different needs and desires. The ethics of care and the underlying
philosophical vision produce vertical meaning dimension demolition in
favour of horizontal relationality total dominion , as said before. For
example, a young teenager may want her own death and this desire must
be satisfied. Another young teenager needs to kill her father so as not to
feel oppressed or to take her mother and herself away from her father’s
physical violence, even without these violence aimed at killing her mother,
but only to torment her. The metaphysics of such a feminist approach is
radically atheistic and atheological.

Philosophical assumption of the ethics of law

It is spiritualist idealism that from Aristotle (1978), going through San
Tommaso d’Aquino (Fabro, 1997) arrived at Hegel (Alessandroni, 2016)
by metaphysical-theological elaboration. His metaphysical vision is based
on God’s Transcendence with respect to Creation, patriarchy is its
anthropological declination. Patriarchy is rooted in life law basic
unchangeable rules , which are the same for all human beings. The
consequent ethics of reason uses meaning as discrimination criterion
between the various needs and desires, authorizing the satisfaction of those
in line with the basic life rules and denying the satisfaction of those in
contrast with the latter. For example: suicide is banned from the civil order
because life is an asset not available to human being and is oneself ‘s
murder. In ‘Antigone’ funeral honours burial cannot be granted to those
who fought against their homeland, but must be paid to those who lost
their lives to save it.

The ethics of law Rational judgment patriarchal criterion dominates, which is declined in

various dimensions: juridical, psychological, sociological, political,
philosophical and theological. The ethics of law basic principle is the socalled Freudian Super Ego ethics. It obeys opposites logic: so great is the
transgression, so great is the sanction. In legal framework this principle
is realized in retributive justice, in psychological field in the law of
retaliation, in sociological field in banishment, on philosophical level in
Kantian moral judgment, on theological level, finally, in Mosaic law
tables. Actually, as Bion acutely pointed out (…), the ethics of law obeys
Euclidean logic mathematical principle, intrinsic to the process of cause
and effect. From this point of view also causality, understood in its
mechanicalness, represents nothing else than moral principle transposition
into mathematical dimension. As Fornari points out (…) and for him Carli
(…), the Freudian Super Ego is nothing but Es derivative drive , in
particular aggressive drives, that is, Tanatos. These are death drives that,
taken out of the ES, subjected to parental prohibitions, are aimed at Es
transgressive impulses domination, repression and mortification towards
the law. Conversely, erotic impulses are subjected to Reward System
needs satisfaction , that is, reward, and become relationality fundamental
fuel as opposed to patriarchal principle. Indeed Antigone opposes her
incestuous bond with her brother to superego: today it might be defined
as a sort of amoral familism , as opposed to the State law represented by
Creon.

Postmodernity patriarchy and feminist matriarchy psychopathological
drifts.

Research showed that while psychopathology, as a shadow accordiag to
Jungian meaning, inherent in the patriarchal society setting was peculiarly
neurotic in nature, that is, produced by individual’s erotic and aggressive
removal / inhibition impulses and gave the Super Ego duties of
observance of the ethics of law. Feminist post-modern psycho-pathology
turns out to be, as a social shadow, primarily of borderline nature, that is
organized according to the principle of personality splitting in interactive
I-You islands archipelago without these islands reciprocally recognizing
and connecting by bridges in a unitary personality organization .

The Ethics of Care History

Matriarchal feminist thought development, over the decades from 1950/60
to today, evolves into three phases, with which three operational strategies
are correlated. All the phases are crossed by a common thread ( fil rouge)
which is the objective of eliminating vertical sense dimension ,truth,
sense, in their monolithic meaning in favor of relationality horizontal
dimension and connections ethics.

First phase: Difference and care (Gilligan, 1987)

There is no moral , universalistic and impartial, single model
development in which males are dominant, efficient and effective. There is
also an alternative, different model, expressed in a woman’s voice
(Gilligan, 1900), based on care. Care is feminine and by universalizing it
the patriarchal dehumanization is counteracted and we remain human.
This different women’s moral development is due to their greater trust in
relationships, and to their specific ‘reserve of empathy’ (Chodorow, 1978).
Care concerns each human being’s well-being and flowering in different
life and context particularities.

Second phase: Difference (Held, 1995)

Neutrality and the supposed human subject universality do not exist, as
requested by the patriarchy. There is a different women’s thought about
themselves, not only, but also a different women’s thought about humanity
… This ‘difference’ has to be removed from patriarchy negative judgment ,
and also re-explored and redefined.It is to be considered that men and
women are not equal, but rather that women are different from men, but
not inferior, and that the difference they represent has value and is worthy
of investigation. With the ‘duplication of the conscience on the world ‘,
compared to a supposedly universal model but in reality constructed only
by a part of humanity (the male one) female difference value has to be put
in alternative, characterized by neutrality criticism and human subject
pretended universality , as it was built in the patriarchy (Lonzi, 1980). This
type of feminism claims not only women’s different thought about
themselves or their wealth , but also women’s (and men’s) different
thought about humanity.

Third phase: Multiplicity of differences (Butler, 2006; Braidotti, 1995)

This multiplicity characterizes human beings as ‘inhabited’ by multiple
instances and divided in their own interior (Author’s Note: a sort of
diffusion of identity). Our identity, and therefore our needs, cannot be
closed in a complete, unitary and exhaustive description, but it can only be
expressed in temporary forms, appropriate to our relationships broad
context . Individuals’ empathic capacity and their relational nature are
morality ‘spring’ (Held, 1995). What is essential in ethics is the dedication
to the protection and conservation of the ‘fabric of connections’ (Gilligan,)
and the abstract resolution of monolithic-rule ‘patriarchal transcendence’-
founded dilemmas becomes unnecessary optional. The ethics of care,
indeed, has priority over the ethics of justice, because without care there
would be no living individuals (Held, 1995) (Author’s Note.: we wonder
if it could it be true in the other case and, if not, what the difference is.]

For a critical discussion on the Ethics of care

In this philosophical / psychological / sociological and historical postmodern thought context , substances use and addictions behaviour
develop and spread widely. From neuroscientific point of view it would
seem that many feminist theorizing aspects can be the expression of
prefrontal and frontal cortex rationalizations .These are subordinated to
the satisfaction of the instances, needs and desires of the underlying
Reward limbic system and, increase some deputed cortial areas for the
elaboration of the above mentioned rationalizations; in opposition to
prefrontal and frontal problem analysis,problem solving , decision making
activities cortical areas strong thickness reduction.
Many feminist theories, including those in the third phase, may be
criticized not only theoretically but more clinically due to linical method
implications and therefore on possible therapeutic iatrogenicity because
of the ethics of care-only-based -asset and devoid of any form of rule, ie
of law. Mere relationality principle dilemmas and paradoxes, and also
feminism, following meaning dimension demolition , are numerous and of
crucial existential importance.

The ethics of care dilemmas and paradoxes

The post-modern era has assumed the Hermeneutic Principle as an
anthropological dimension Fundamental and as metaphysical dimension
Dogma (fundamental Principle and incontestable Truth) .Word’s semantic
meaning loses specificity, uniqueness and limits. In fact in the Judaic
Christian tradition the word is universe creative act and giving names to
animals and things is a sacralized paternal function. The single word
meaning dilution seems to be equivalent to deicide implementation on
metaphysical level and paternal function demolition on anthropological
level.

Trauma concept dilemma

Every event that determines a break / relational wound is part of or can be
included in the concept of trauma. The word trauma derives from the
Greek and means to damage, to injure, it also contains a double reference
to a wound with laceration, and to a violent shock effects on the whole
organism. Originally pertaining to the medical-surgical disciplines, during
the 18th century. the term was used in psychiatry and clinical psychology
to indicate a stimulus overwhelming effect on the individual’s ability to
cope with it.
Childhood trauma can be defined as a mental consequence of an external
and sudden event or a series of highly stressful events that cause a
helplessness feeling in the child and that determine a rupture of his/her
habitual coping skills .
Thus, children can experience anxiety and emotions states such as anger,
guilt, sadness, lack and a sense of powerlessness. On the other hand, any
educational intervention ,carried out by educational function, produces a
relational wound, that is a trauma, which, according to neuroscience, is
indispensable for frontal and prefrontal cortex, as well as cingulate gyrus
development
Mere relationality dilemma: is the educational process, also made up of
traumatic events that structure limitation sense and reality examination ,
a traumatizing process? If frustration is a traumatic event in itself and the
ethics of care by its nature is devoted to fighting suffering, it can only
banish frustration from its universe because it is traumatic. The latter, in
fact ,generates anger, pain, aggression and damages dogmatically
assumed relationality principle as the sole criterion for evaluating
experiences whose care must be pervasively pursued in every life
relational situation .
Without, however, frustration trauma, ,limit sense cannot be generated in
the child . This sense is necessary for psycho-affective development and,
at the same time, frontal and prefrontal neocortex development and
growth. Both of them are indispensable for the definitive maturation of
brain structures dedicated to self-control activities, problem analysis,
problem solving and problem making cognitive processes. Due to its
intrinsic anthropological significance, it is not difficult to understand that
by adopting an ethic of care, deprived of paternal and vertical meaning
dimension , generations of young people will grow up less intelligent
and more superficial than the previous generations ones, less capable to
analyze, solve problems and implement consequent decisions: the more
superficial they will be ,the more the cortex in them will be reduced to a
mere coverage surface of the massive sub-cortical structures appointed to
the reward circuit, that is, to pleasure and violence, or rather to pleasure of
violence and the violence of pleasure.
For example, a study on the pleasure of violence was recently conducted in
Chicago. Observing brain activity by (MRI scan) magnetic resonance
imaging,University of Chicago researchers noted that, in abuse and
violence exposed bullies’ brains, unlike healthy young people, the
pleasures areas are activated.
The boys had to watch videos in which violence was consumed on people
or simply of suffering people with a hand crushed inadvertently.

Suffering concept dilemma

Furthermore, in our culture the trend is to protect children from pain and
suffering. Regardless of having been directly involved in the event, the
children realize and feel when something serious happens.
It emerged that the pain caused voluntarily induces activation of pleasure
centers in bullies; the same scene produces instead empathy and activation
of pain areas , linked to moral judgments in others. Since we are all
different, the reactions are varied and reflect our existential and
experiential experience, shown emotion or introversion that characterize
our character. However, it is not helpful to remove or ignore the pain as if
it were a damage from which to protect yourself at all costs.
There is life and its opposite, and great civilizations roots still teach us
that they are part of a natural cycle that is destined to repeat and always
renew .
Perhaps in pain, more than in happy moments, deep feelings can be
welcomed and shared with others. These feelings unite, if the moral weight
15
that derives from them is externalized and expressed spontaneously and
without filters.
The word ‘compassion’ literally means ‘to suffer together’ and is not only
an act of pity but a feelings osmosis that breaks people suffering and
living difficult moments isolation and loneliness.
There are many stories that make us understand how shared suffering can
become a strength that engages new energies of resilience.
Many scholars today argue, in opposition to the dominant anesthetizing
mentality for every form of pain, that children can and must learn that in
life there is pain as a tool for growth and change and that from it more
strength and courage can be drawn. (Psychology and Surroundings,
Published by Laura Alberico on 2/26/2019)

Civic education concept dilemma

It is discussed very widely today, as a teaching discipline to be
reintroduced in children’s and adolescents’ educational pathways. The
dilemma is generated by the conflict between educational cognition and
educational behaviour. Educational cognition is destined for failure
precisely because of the neuropsychological reasons known today,
anticipated by Freud’s brilliant intuitions about the repetition compulsion
psycho-behavioural phenomenon . The real change involves an
educational relationship in which the educator/ teacher /master/ professor ,
not only evaluates the cognitive performance on the pupil’s civic
education, but interacts with him so that the latter can carry out guide
figure’s behaviour introjective identification processes . The professor is
called, to put it in not specifically scientific terms, to give and be an
example. The dilemma is the following: how should educators and teachers
be selected? Based on their cognitive preparation or their personality
structure or their psychological maturity?

Responsibility concept dilemma .

According to the matriarchal ethics of care, affective deficiencies ,
abuses, violence suffered do generate maladaptive behaviours in minors .
Therefore these damages must be repaired by means of aid and relational
participation. It thus becomes clear that in the case of adolescent
maladaptive behaviors it is a state of immaturity, not only psychological,
but also neuropsychological, supported by an imbalance between pleasure
structures system and controls and cortical values one, violence pleasure
can be observed , for example in bullying, baby gangs and baby-ringing.
In this perspective, state intervention that lowers such behaviors legal
responsibility threshold (cut-off) becomes a necessary option, but poses a
dilemma. How legal responsibility age treshold lowering can be
reconciled with the related contextual increase in the age in which one
becomes effectively mature and, therefore, adults with the right to vote.
The first provision could serve as a Trojan horse to clear the second
provision within state walls . But in this way an oxymoron is created: the
more immature a subject is, also due to his neurobiological age, the more
the state recognizes him a legal responsibility . In substance: while
physiologically the age is lower and therefore responsibility category
development is minor (and therefore the minors are physiologically more
irresponsible), paradoxically the more irresponsible the minors are and the
more autonomy is recognized to them autonomy as a responsible adult.
What about psychological and social consequences of the behavior of
subjects who can exercise rights and duties as adults, being in fact not up
to the point of possessing their neuropsychological skills?

Parent concept dilemma

His/her maladaptive anthropological declensions in post-modern families:
– The adoptive parent
– The third parent
Let’s start with the term ‘Parent’ semantic value:
Parent: A sematic analysis of the term would define this as the one who
generated a child. Anthropologically generating means a living being
biological production and this meaning is univocal. The only parent is the
biological one. This definition is specific to parent meaning dimension ,
that is, an embodied role, conjugated with a relational function.
Adoptive parent: false definition in meaning dimension . Adoption has a
relational meaning (Adopt = Choose, prefer, etc) and not biological, which
today, however, extensively qualifies a biological relationship, that is, a
meaning that belongs to a different semantic dimension. A subject,
semantically adoptive, cannot be a parent, because father or mother
concepts belong to biology semantic dimension . Adoption belongs to a
relational function dimension , that is, a not-biological model or
relationship pattern. The obvious dispute of giving a cultural interpretation
of the term parent deserves an equally obvious answer: children are
generated (Parent = generate), at least up to now, only biologically, these
concepts transposition into the relational dimension represents at least a
semantic mystification. But the breaking down or multidimensional
meaning transposition is precisely one of the feminist war offensive
strategies against the paternal and anti-patriarchal function.
Third parent:
Adoptive parent concept paradoxicality is also overcome with this
concept.
In the third parent term, it is assumed, semantically, that he also
biologically generated that child. This is the falsifying negation of factual
reality, the biological one, because the third parent semantically does not
exist. With the third parent concept , a concept is transferred from the
biological dimension to the relational dimension, that is, more precisely,
from meaning dimension to relational function dimension . Not only! In
this purely relational dimension name, the concept of parent, stripped of its
dimension of univocal meaning, can extend to anyone, as long as he is an
adult who supports the biological mother (Caregiver). No account is taken
of the fact that children, with their healthy unconscious, rebel against the
presence of the so-called third parent, disregarding his authority. Deprived
of their biological father, they ignore the so-called third parent, and in
reality they end up having as their only parenting referent the biological
mother, with serious damages for their identity development (this is true
for the feminized male children, or with a weak virility and for masculine
female daughters with a phallic, sadistic or masochistic character setting)

Psychology of the Unconscious post-modernity- shadows metaphysical
and anthropological overcoming psychological analytical proposal

In the current cultural context a superior synthesis of this conflicting
polarization of opposites , which occurs in the patriarchate-matriarchy
dialectic, becomes indispensable. For this purpose, a return to the
Unconscious and its unfathomable subjectivity, can lead to a Sense of Care
Ethics proposal founded also on a recovered transcendent metaphysics .
Kalshed (2013) makes this metaphysics also a fundamental for analytical
psychology and for all the psychology of the unconscious. In fact the
author mentions , in this regard, Symington’s ‘vivifier’ (1993), identified
as a metaphysical-transcendent defender, ‘zero’ of the Divine by W. Bion
(1965) ineffable reality , as the ultimate transformation source into
psychotherapy, the ‘mysterious intelligence that runs through the mind’by
Christopher Bollas (1999), the unconscious ‘ineffable subject’ that sends
dreams for the ‘phenomenal subject’ benefit, by James Grotstein (2000),
psychoanalytic work definition as a religious and holy vocation , by
Micheal Eigen 1998). Even the most recent neuroscience research, in
particular neuroethics, has arrived at ethics naturalness. According to the
latest neuroethics elaborations, the latter, assumed as an ethical goal form,
produces a vision rooted in morality and moral values development
nature and leads to human beings and human nature more thorough and
articulated reflection (Farisco, 2012, page 38). This naturalistic
neuroethics epistemology refrains from scientism, technophobia and
technophilia. Precisely this reflection on the Tertium that transcends
opposites has led to propose two forms of ethics synthesis vision in the
meaning of the sense of care Ethics.

Gamblers psychotherapy treatment Theoretical and technicalprofessional proposal

Sense of care Ethics in GAP treatment

At this point it is taken note that the GAP, as addiction behaviour, is fully
part of the incestuous atmosphere that, as a psychopathological shadow,
animates postmodernity latent and patent attitude , and that its hidden
meaning, from a psychological analytical point of view, can also be read as
Oedipal incestuosity realization that permeates social structure. So ,in
order to get out of the opposition logic between the opposites, superegoic
justice vs incestuous relationality (Creon vs Antigone), it is necessary to
summarize them in a higher dimension that can be defined sense of care
Ethics. The gambler, precisely because of his Oedipal drive that drives his
transgressive behaviour and his rebellion against the rules, requires a form
of treatment that re-establishes for him both adherence to relational
indispensable limits , both a cognitive / emotional reality adherent
functioning . In analytical psychology the so-called justice finds its not –
superego alternative, in setting rules , whose rigor is indispensable to
bring the personality back to a reinforcement of self-control cortical
structures reinforcement.As these structures are indispensable for truths
meaning acquisition about oneself and the others ,communicated to the
ego by the unconscious through the latter derivatives (dreams,
symptomatic body language , etc.). In psychotherapy we define this ethics
is also defined as the Ethics of Images. In fact, the use of Sand Play
Therapy is particularly effective from clinical methodology point of view.
The latter, allowing the patient to construct scenes with miniatures which
symbolically represent the whole mineral, vegetable, animal, human,
fantastic and religious universe , allows the player to gradually approach
his oedipal instinctual world, up to the representation lived in session of
scenes of seduction and sexual abuse suffered in childhood and sedimented
in the unconscious of the ego. Thus, with less anguish, he manages to untie
here the drive nodes that keep him unconsciously tied to the pleasure of
incest. The images, related to right hemishere activation , actually convey
the player’s world feelings. The ethics of images is not produced by either
cortical inhibitory activation vs. pleasure system activation , as it happens
with the patriarchal ethics of the law, nor is it an instrument exclusively
devoted to the player’s conscious needs and desires care , as it happens
with the matriarchal ethics of mere relationality. Needs and desires pertain
to reward system subcortical dimension . Setting rules , precisely because
they belong to Basic Life Rules dimension , vice versa by containing
them , allow the player to get in touch with his emotions, affections,
feelings, anguishes. This way psychopathological- tranference and
countertransference components therapeutic relationship comes into play
and therefore this ethics aspect of care. Robert Langs deals extensively
with it about psychotherapy clinical method . This brilliant author, making
reference to the emotional world, maintains that the Ethics, defined as
the Sense of Care Ethics, comes from what he calls the Emotional Mind,
the mind of Care , (that is, the related mind, according to us, upon
activation not of specific brain areas, but of the cerebral hemispheres with
peculiar reference to the right hemisphere). Langs, not knowing them, does
not make this reference to neuroscientific studies that allowed to identify
in the right hemisphere -constructed macrostructure Emotional Mind
cerebral activation site elsewhere defined by the author also as Deep
Unconscious. In deep unconscious, that is in emotional Mind, Basic Life
Rules that in psychotherapy are the setting rules . These rules create a
context, a safe psychotherapeutic treatment framework that allows the
symbolic Spirit, as a superior dimension that sums up in itself relationship
and law, to find psychic expression in the conscience with the obvious
therapeutic consequences for the individual. However, these therapeutic
effects are due to an ethic that requires the individual to act in harmony
and not in contrast with the emerging truth concerning him/her. Of utmost
importance is the difference, also in anatomical terms, between the superego and the sense of care Ethics . A cognitivist author, Paquette (2003)
identified in the prefrontal dorso-lateral area the brain site activated by the
superego in a sample of patients with arachnophobia, while research by the
group related to Michael Gazzaniga showed that not only emotions and
feelings elaboration , but also and above all the truth, true memories and
their symbolic language are the right hemisphere prerogative From
psychoanalytic point of view, the superego receives energy and develops
starting from ES instinctual reservoir (a limbic cerebral site), with
aggressive drives particular reference.Emotional Mind Ethics develops
instead starting from emotions and feelings, therefore does not play
superego aggression role, and is characterized by the basic Rules of life
that provide healthy and meaningful behaviour secure framework. The
deep connection between a woman’s healthy menstrual cycle and the Basic
Rules of Life is particularly interesting with profound symbolic,and
therefore spiritual ,meaning . Monthly menstrual flow was once defined,
with women’s popular jargon (vox populi, vox dei) : ‘The Rules came to
me.’ This metaphorical expression provides the symbolic meaning of
intimate connection between Feminine Ethics of Care (sexuality belongs to
human being relational sphere ) and the male ethics of the Rules (the
temporal menstruation scan highlights neurobiological masculine
meaning procedures internal rhythm), that is between meaning and
relational ethics aspects and female and male roles among human beings

Conclusions

This work is intended to give a clinical methodology contribution to
gambler’s psychotherapeutic treatment. It is,however,supported by
sociocultural universe extensive examination as such dependence is
epidemically developing . In fact only today-gambling thorough and
articulated vision , and only postmodernity collective unconscious
psychopathological patterns knowledge ( realized in addiction suffering
individuals , particularly gambling,) can allow appropriate therapeutic
methodologies development. It is essential for everyone to know that
psychotherapy, both in its theoretical elaborations and clinical
methodologies, suffers greatly from the cultural and social environment in
which treatments are performed. It is necessary, but not sufficient,
evidence- based medicine to evaluate specific treatments effectiveness.
Symptomatic knots dissolution , in fact, especially in addictions and in
gambling, often proves to be ephemeral and temporary, especially if it is
operated only at the subject’s ego level. Personality structural
transformation requires time and assiduous contact with deep
unconscious dimensions which are, by their nature, not measurable with
the statistical techniques which exclusively evaluate symptoms
disappearance and only in a certain period of time. Nevertheless, in recent
decades there has also been a proliferation in analytical psychological
research carried out with specific statistical tools. In particular Robert
Langs’ communicative psychotherapy is considered to possesses
invaluable intra-clinical efficacy elements and validation criteria also for
statistical methodology research

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