Le ranz des vaches. Nostalgia and migration: A clinical criminological analysis

The present paper tries to show the utility of the analysis of the nostalgic feelings in nowadays’ clinical criminology of migrations: after having succinctly recalled the birth of the concept of nostalgia in the 17th century, the authors recapitulate its evolution and choose the field of the psychoanalytic conceptualizations of the relationship between nostalgia and migrations as an useful tool to analyse some literary and clinical cases. The analysis of the cases allows the authors to suggest the possibility of the existence of an evolutive continuum: from the absence of nostalgia in the melancholic implosion – in which no separation is possible-, passing through the denial of the separation in the delusional reactions and the irreversible acting out denying the separation in the pursuit of a reward through the criminal act, to the altruistic attempts at the concrete modification of reality, and finally to an example of therapeutic working-through of the traumatic situation in a group of delinquent juveniles.