Le dimensioni silenti del legame familiare come oggetto di riflessione pedagogica. L' esperienza dei giovani adulti tra culture di origine e processi di costruzione identitaria

The topic of investigation belongs to the family as a training experience, inside which the process of transmitting cultural and social values and the structuring of personal identity, in the relationship with each other. The aim of this research is investigating, in particular, the elements underlying verbal communication and behavioural practices, as an affective and emotional level that seems to be instrumental in preserving the bond, even in moments of crisis and deep transformation that characterise family experience. After a first reconstruction of the current reality of the family through a historico-cultural horizon, mediated by contributions not only coming from pedagogy, but also sociology and psychology, we focused on studies about unconscious dynamics in the group by analysing works in group-analysis, which allowed us to formulate the hypothesis that the primordial experience of fusion in the context of family delivers a silent heritage to its members, comprising hidden signs related not only to the ways of living the relationships, but also to the ways of representing them. In order to investigate this issue, the research continued with the structuring of a qualitative fieldwork oriented to a constructivist perspective, choosing, as its methodological paradigms, micro- pedagogy and autobiographical approach, and selecting a sample of young adults, as privileged witnesses of a possible state of tension between membership in the original context and openness to new forms of relationship. The proposal directed to them consisted of an initial moment of writing about themselves, followed by a nondirective interview and, finally, an operation of symbolic representation. The two clinical ways of analysing the collected material, individual and comparative, were instrumental in showing that the unknown aspects of family experience tend to transmit values, rules about the relationship and the roles within the group, and affect the idea of future ties. The analysis of the material revealed the presence of silences designed to protect others, oneself or the relationship and, at the same time, it identified communication as a tool capable of bringing out the resources and potentials of the family and, therefore, of preserving the tie. In the accounts of young adults, however, the opportunity to access a deeper form of dialogue and exchange with each other, allowing the sharing of intimate feelings and emotional experiences, emerged as silent educational demand. This demand could be considered as an object of pedagogical design, identifying counselling as a tool promoting self-awareness in one’s ways of living the bond and in his transformation potential.