Language and Psychiatry: the Contribution of Silvano Arieti Between Biography and Cultural History

Born in Pisa in 1914, the internationally renowned psychiatrist Silvano Arieti left Italy in 1939, owing to Italian racial laws. Without knowing a word of English he migrated to the United States, where, while carrying out his early studies, he had to learn a new language right from the beginning. Almost as a stepmother-tongue-reborn, in 1955 he finally succeeded in publishing his first “American book”, Interpretation of Schizophrenia, which immediately became a landmark in psychiatric literature and was translated into many languages. On the basis of an archival research on Silvano Arieti's Collection, held by the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, my contribution aims to combine the biographical approach with cultural history by means of an analysis of the role played by the themes of language and translation in Silvano Arieti's psychiatric work. More particularly, taking the cue from biographical issues, the first part will focus on the crucial role played by the themes of language and translation in the development of Arieti's scientific reflections, whereas the second part will take into account these themes in a perspective more oriented toward a cultural approach, showing the role played by different scientific traditions in the translation and diffusion of Arieti's works in Italy.