Biography

Luca Caldironi is an Italian licensed MD and clinical psychiatrist. He is a member of the Italian Society of Psychoanalysis (SPI), and also holds memberships in APsaA, CIPS and in the IPA. He is a professor at the Martha Harris School of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy in Bologna, Italy and a lecturer at the Padova University, Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Pedagogy and Applied Psychology (FISPPA). Caldironi’s numerous publications and presentations reflect an emphasis on Bionian thought, especially around the concept of “creativity”, which he also incorporates as director of the Venetian art exhibition space Castello925 (www.castello925.com). He has a private practice in both Modena and Venice.

Over time as Caldironi straddled the intersection of the arts and psychoanalysis, he increasingly felt the need to use his knowledge, gained through his clinical work, in other fields. From this need he birthed a new concept called “K-Now-L-Edge” – the study of creativity and its connection between art and psychoanalysis. K-Now-L-Edge is written this way to express certain elements of knowledge – ‘K’ is “to know” – in the “here and
now” (‘Now’) vitalized by passion (‘L’) leading us to proceed always on the (‘Edge’) of speech.

More than simply the sum of the fields art and psychoanalysis, the ambitious purpose of “K-Now-L-Edge” is to give life to a creative space and international movement to realize this possibility.

Caldironi is now start working abroad as “Individual and Groups Professional Consultant in the Emotional Development” (trough art and psychodynamic approaches). He leads group and/or individual consultations offer a reflective space to expand creativity and inner exploration. Participants are invited to connect with selected evocative images and share their internal resonances. As W. Bion maintains, emotional contact enhances the birth of proto-emotions and proto-sensations, which, through a process of transformation, gives rise to thought. In our group we want to offer an experience of individual and group process that combines the imaginative skills of the mind with the ability to build meanings with respect to the reality that surrounds us. The group is led to a meditative relaxed state. Then, everyone is invited to free associate on the images offered (video, paintings, photographs, and other media). The experiences of each participant can emerge and

become part of the group process. This group is open people in the helping profession and to anyone seeking better contact with their internal experiences and with other people.

This group work facilitates a wider access to fantasies, iconographies, and associative and creative thinking. It allows participants and the group as a whole to understand, transform and rework the images into shared symbolic and mythical elements. This process not only stimulates curiosity and activates emotions, but also helps to face and unlock internal conflicts, encouraging more creative and collaborative relational situations in life.

The groups will be held on a monthly basis lasting two hours. There are plans to expand the number of participants on occasions in which the moderators of the group decide to plan visits to artistic or museum spaces (art fairs as well). Part of the fee will be allocated to fundraising for an initiative to promote artistic workshops in which young artists will work with children in order to encourage dialogue between generations and different cultures through the art.

This movement continuously evolves and progresses involving the senses, reason and intuition. Forming ‘ties’ and ‘associative networks’ between our historical roots in Venice (www.castello925.com) and the evolving spaces in NY.