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Giovanni Hautmann (1990, 2002) developed the links between the early formation of the Self – its birth – the beginnings of symbolic capacities and the birth of the ability of thinking. Hautmann emphasizes that the primitive mind is governed by an asymbolic matrix, in which sensory stimulations, perceptions, sensations, primitive emotions prevail. The development of the Self occurs through the progressive emergence from this original matrix, with an oscillation between an asymbolic, dispersed and disaggregated condition, and an initial impulse towards integration, towards progressive degrees of possible emergence of identification and symbolic expression. Taking a cue from Bion’s theories on the protomental apparatus, Hautmann defines the asymbolic matrix ‘protomental magma’ or ‘primitive group self’. In this protosymbolic matrix the elements, whether dispersed or aggregated, may belong both to the psychic and to the physical status and therefore are amenable to analytical approach, as, perhaps also, to biological approach. The oscillations of the primitive mind can also be intercepted in the analytic session, contained and understood by the analyst’s reverie and re- signified through his interpretative activity. Diego Napolitani (1987, 1991, 2005) proposes a model of formation of the individual Self, understood as a strong identity nucleus/central core, starting from the matrice gruppale (group/collective matrix), stratified in its cultural, social and family dimensions. Napolitani modeled his Self construct with the help of a graphic representation that he defined as the “map of the bipolar mind”, in which he indicates the “masculine” and the “feminine” components as two different ways of approaching knowledge and vision of the world. In the map of the ‘Bipolar Mind’ the author identifies three dimensions: 1. The IDEM (Latin for ‘sameness and identity’) is closely related to the original environment (individual’s past, from the most distant origins to the most recent relational experiences), the core of the roots of the identity; it is the complex of experiences in the history of each human being, from birth to the present moment , the world of traditions, the set of relational, affective, intellectual accumulated experiences in the history of each individual. The Idem is “my tradition and my culture”, and as such also “a prejudicial way of knowledge”. The formation of the Self coincides in the bipolar map with the IPSE (Latin for himself/herself, in person) and indicates the reflective dimension, the self- awareness through the emergence from the Idem. The Ipse coincides with the conscious Self, and it develops from linguistic, gestural, ethical codes, internalized as identification from the original environment. Finally, the author identifies a third place of the bipolar map that is AUTOS (Greek for He), the self-reorganizing device that reveals itself in the production of symbols, the symbol-poetic ability which represents the source of all these complex proceedings that connect the individual with his own original matrices on one side and his own becoming on the other; Autos maintains the Self in a condition of a permanently unstable equilibrium between the conservative dimension and the transformative dimension, thus passing from heteronomy (obedience to the law of the other) to autonomy (the construction of the symbol around which to articulate its own law). Stefano Bolognini (1991) has developed a theory of the Self focusing on the dyad patient-analyst at work. Bolognini underlines the differences between the terms “Ego and Self”. The Ego is defined according to Laplanche and Pontalis (1967) as: (1) nucleus of consciousness and bundle of active mental functions; (2) organizer of the defenses; (3) agency, mediating
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