Theorem: Pietro and Odetta in a Psychoanalytic Scheme for Psychotherapy and Clinical Psychology

Psychoanalytic psychotherapy is where one person's subjectivity meets another's in the hopes of freedom. The article interprets Pietro and Odetta from the film Theorem through a Freudian lens, using the stranger as a metaphor for the therapist. For this purpose, the metaphor of the outsider represents the therapist, who provokes internal movement that challenges the unconscious principles underlying the conflicts of both brothers and the entire family, revealing the truth of their inner world and their desire to bypass various defence mechanisms. In the same vein, the film suspends its characters in a dreamlike world from which they will wake up with the departure of the stranger (“the therapist”) to face their lives from a free and healing position.