From the Limit to the Gift of the Self. Learning From the Limit

All psychological theories, though with different emphasis, claim that the person grows up and develops itself in the relations with the others, within a mutual exchange of inter-subjective recognition. Through the actions of allowing and consenting to both the effective presence of the other and the complexity of emotions that the other spreads, it can be established a space in which new meanings of life are found and other aspects of the self are experienced. On the other hand, relations are characterized by the act of experiencing the limit of the self and of the others: can this experience represent an opportunity of growth? When the difficulties and the conflicts can present some aspects of relational maturation? In which conditions is it possible to undergo both the meaning of one’s own subjectivity and the capacity of personal action as well as the chance of equally recognizing the other as a subject, endowed with autonomy and worth? Furthermore: what can the Spirituality of Unity of Chiara Lubich tell us about this topic? In 1999 the University of Malta conferred her a doctorate . in Psychology (PhD) claiming that she afforded “a model of life based on a positive evaluation of grief as well as of the negative aspects in personal and common history”. We therefore conducted an exploratory research on this topic – i.e. 24 individual interviews which were analyzed in their contents with the software Atlas. Ti – in order to understand how persons depict themselves the concept of limit, what kind of strategies they use for this purpose, which parental model they have learnt with regard to this topic. Moreover, the research investigated on how, for those who knew the Spirituality of Unity, this kind of knowledge offered specific instruments for its functional handling.