1st Edition
Contemporary Bionian Theory and Technique in Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalytic theory has developed very rapidly in recent years across many schools of thought. One of the most popular builds on the work of Wilfred Bion. Contemporary Bionian Theory and Technique in Psychoanalysis provides a concise and comprehensive introductory overview of the latest thinking in this area, with additional contemporary theoretical influences from Freud, Klein, and Winnicottian thought.
Through explorations of the history, theory, and clinical practice of psychoanalysis, Ferro and contributors reveal the changes and developments it has undergone in the research laboratory of the consulting room. Contemporary Bionian Theory and Technique in Psychoanalysis brings together the theories, clinical practice, and techniques that have gradually been developed in a variety of cultural contexts, exploring how they are understood, clarified and enriched by various analysts in daily practice. The book is circular, opening many paths of access to the reader. It aims to revive an experience of creative dialogue exactly as occurs in analysis when two minds think and dream together to transform each other reciprocally. The book sets forth, for instance, a new model of the mind called the oneiric model, taking inspiration from Bion’s conceptualizations and field theory.
Covering central psychoanalytic concepts such as transference, dreams and child analysis, this book provides an excellent introduction to the most important contemporary features of Bionian theory and practice. Contemporary Bionian Theory and Technique in Psychoanalysis will appeal to ppsychoanalysts and psychotherapists in training and practice, as well as students of psychiatry and psychology.
Introduction
1.The Setting as a Locus of Possible Transformations Maurizio Collovà
2. Spectr-ums/es of Transference Giuseppe Civitarese
3. Psychoanalytic Interpretation and Clinical Dialogue Giovanni Foresti
4. Dream Model of the Mind Antonino Ferro
5. From Dream to Dreaming Pierluigi Politi
6. Variations on a theme: child and adolescent analysis Elena Molinari
7. The Vicissitudes of the Analytic Field Fulvio Mazzacane
Biography
Antonino Ferro is a training and supervising analyst in the Italian Psychoanalytic Society, the American Psychoanalytic Association and the International Psychoanalytical Association. He has been a visiting professor of psychoanalysis in various institutions in Europe, North America, South America and Australia. He received the Sigourney Award in 2007 and is the former President of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society.
"This volume reflects the passion, creativity and commitment of Antonino Ferro and his colleagues from Pavia as they strive to forge a psychoanalysis built upon a creative, intersubjective dialogue that emphasizes process and transformation in the service of helping patients develop the tools for thinking, dreaming and living a fuller, more vital life. It enlarges our appreciation of the unconscious not as 'the region where thoughts that have no right of access to consciousness are sent into internal exile; … [but instead as] a function of the personality appointed to digest reality and to replenish the mind with food.' As such, it is a testament and clinical guide to understanding and applying Bion’s assertion that in order to grow, the mind needs truth the way the body needs alimentation."–Howard B. Levine, MD, Co-Editor, Unrepresented States and the Construction of Meaning and Bion in Brazil: Supervisions and Commentaries.
"For some time now a small group working in Pavia, Italy has generated some of the most provocative, original, and influential thinking in psychoanalysis. This volume collects contributions from several of the most creative members of that group. Taken together these papers convey a sense of psychoanalysis as a living thing, a theory and a practice that blossom in the always unique encounter between patient and therapist. Readers of this book are sure to be impressed both by the depth of the authors’ ideas and by the exuberance they convey about doing clinical work; I can’t imagine anybody who will not be both challenged and inspired by the encounter."-Jay Greenberg, Ph.D., Editor, The Psychoanalytic Quarterly; Recipient, 2015 Mary S. Sigourney Award.
"This is a book put together by a very creative group. They believe the way psychanalysts conceive of the unconscious has radically changed. For them, it is not the region where thoughts that have no right of access to consciousness are sent into internal exile. Rather, it becomes a vital function of the personality, appointed to digest reality and to replenish the mind with food - a component of psychic organization that helps the mind to categorize, to forget differences and to keep hold of similarities, to draw models of things, and to "dream" them. It is a view with which every psychoanalyst should engage."-David Tuckett, Fellow, The Institute of Psychoanalysis; Professor and Director, Centre for the Study of Decision-Making Uncertainty, University College London.
