In The Bi-Personal Field Antonino Ferro sets out his new conceptual system for analysis, considering not only the inner world of the patient but the continued interaction of that world with the inner world of the analyst.
The book takes a fresh look at the main aspects of theory and technique in psychoanalysis in the light of Kleinian developments. It reflects the drastic changes due to the thinking of Bion. Illustrated with numerous detailed clinical examples, the author claims that the basic focus of the analytic relationship is the conscious and unconscious interpersonal/ intersubjective processes going on between the analyst and patient.
Biography
Antonino Ferro is Training Analyst of the Italian Psychoanalytical Society, President of the Milanese Centre of Psychoanalysis and a Full Member of the IPA. He is Supervisor at the 'Dosso Verde' Child Psychotherapy Centre, Pavia University. He was also Visiting Professor of Child Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis at Milan University.
'The author considers that the psychoanalytic dialogue is an encounter of two minds: that of the patient and that of the analyst. This encounter produces a new story that is different in Ferro's eyes from that gained from classical Freudian analyses, where he sees the emphasis on the patient's 'network of historical, factual relationships'(p2). However, Ferro's approach interprets the psychoanalytic dialogue as taking place in the 'intersubjective field', which focuses on a shared emotional experience based on the relationship between patient and analyst. The patient's emotional growth is dependent on new affective interpersonal experiences within the analytic dialogue that 'facilitates an emotional realisation thus far unknown and inaccessible to thought' (p. 113). From such interchanges transformations can take place that open new pathways towards understanding.' - Athol Hughes, IJPA 81 (2) 2000
