Emilio Servadio

Italian psychoanalyst, author, and co-founder in 1937 of the Societa Italiana Di Parapsychologia (the Italian Society for Psychic Research, now Italian Society for Parapsychology). He was born on August 14, 1904, in Genoa, Italy. He studied at Genoa University (LL.D., 1926). In private practice for much of his life, he took special interest in the psychodynamic and psychoanalytic aspects of ESP. In 1932 he investigated the phenomena of the medium Pasquale Erto, and in 1957 he investigated the miraculous healers in Lucania, South Italy.

Highlighting his outstanding career, he was named president of the Psychoanalytic Center of Rome in 1962, and he was elected to terms as vice president of the Italian Society for Parapsychology (1955-56) and vice president of Italian Psychoanalytic Society (1953-55, 1958-60). He was a charter member of the Parapsychological Association and in 1982 was elected president of the Parapsychological Association of Italy. He was chairman of the International Committee for the Study of Methods in Parapsychology and a subeditor and contributor to the Enciclopedia Italiana and various scholarly and scientific journals. He is author of La Ricerca Psichica (Psychical Research, 1930, 1946), and contributed to Proceedings of an International Conference on Methodology in Psi Research: Psi Favorable States of Consciousness edited by Roberto Cavanna (Parapsychology Foundation, 1970) and Proceedings of an International Conference: Psi Factors in Creativity edited by Allan Angoff and Betty Shapin (Parapsychology Foundation, 1970).

Servadio died January 18, 1995.

Sources:

Berger, Arthur S., and Joyce Berger. The Encyclopedia of Parapsychology and Psychical Research. New York: Paragon House, 1991.

Pleasants, Helene, ed. Biographical Dictionary of Parapsychology. New York: Helix Press, 1964.

Servadio, Emilio. "Le conditionnement transferentiel et contre-transférentiel des événements 'psi' au cours de l'analyse" (Transference and counter-transference conditioning of 'psi' events during analysis). Acta Psychotherapeutica (1955).

——. "Freud et la Parapsychologie." Revue Francaise de Psychoanalyse 3 (1956).

——. "The 'Normal' and the 'Paranormal' Dream." International Journal of Parapsychology (1962).

——. "A Presumptively Telepathic-Precognitive Dream During Analysis." International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 1 (1955).

——. "Psychoanalyse and Telepathie" (Psychoanalysis and telepathy). Imago 4 (1935). Reprinted in Psychoanalysis and the Occult, edited by 1953 George Devereux.

——. "Transference and Thought-Transference." International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 4, no. 5 (1956).