Identità e omofobia in Cosa Nostra: un contributo gruppoanalitico soggettuale

contribution proposes some reflections on identity, sexuality and homophobia in Mafia contexts. The studies on Mafia psychology have allowed so far to highlight how weak is the identity of people belonging to Mafia criminal organizations and the impossibility to conceive diversity in whatever form it presents itself. Homosexuality in particular represents in these contexts the terrifying fear of otherness and the dread of losing control of the impenetrable rigidity Mafia identity is based on.By using fragments of interviews to justice collaborators, the article highlights that what a man of mafia is really scared of is the essential experience of erotic possession (no matter whether heterosexual or homosexual). Each relationship that, like love, requires ability to get lost in the encounter with the other, terrifies the Mafia man who reacts to this threat of possession with the most primitive weapons of defense: submission and annihilation. The authors look at homophobia from a theoretical subjectual group-analysis perspective, which integrates both emotional, and cognitive and socio-cultural aspects.