The Post Bionian Field Theory Of Antonino Ferro

This exciting and original collection explores Antonino Ferro’s post-Bionian Field Theory, expanding upon the analytic work of Wilfred Bion to focus on the intersubjective development of psychic regulatory processes. Written by members of the Boston Group for Psychoanalytic Studies who have maintained a close and fruitful collaboration with Ferro and his colleagues, the book centers on understanding, engaging and treating primitive mental states. Ferro's Field Theory operationalizes Bion’s concept of an analyst who is not the repository of ‘the truth’, but is instead one who has the capacity to listen, to dwell in doubt, to utilize reverie, humor and play, and facilitate the transformation of previously unthinkable aspects of the patient’s experience into articulatable mental elements such as pictorial images, thoughts and dreams. Ferro’s contributions and their analysis are especially relevant to working with primitive character disorders, the difficulties of which lie beyond neurosis and the comfortable reach of the precepts of classical analytic technique. Each chapter features detailed clinical examples that explicate and apply post-Bionian Field Theory, making this book an interesting and useful read for analysts and analytic therapists of all orientations, who work with patients in all diagnostic categories.

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.

This book touches upon many of the key areas of contemporary psychoanalysis: setting, technique, theory, as well as post-Bionian models and the 'Bionian Field Theory'. It is meant to be a self-defence handbook for new, usually young, analysts.

"By inviting a 'conversation' between them, this book offers a nuanced introduction both to Câezanne - the 'father of modern art' - and perhaps the most vital body of theory in contemporary psychoanalysis: 'post-Bionian field theory', as it has been evolving in Italy in the hands of Antonino Ferro, Giuseppe Civitarese and others. Câezanne and Bion, each insisting on his own truths, spearheaded quite new directions in painting and in psychoanalysis. Both point us towards a crucial insight: far from being isolated, self-contained 'subjects', we fundamentally exist only within a larger interpersonal 'field'. Câezanne's painting can give us a direct experience of this. For the Italian field analysts, building on Bion's work, the field is accessed through reverie, metaphor and dream, which now come to occupy the heart of psychoanalysis. Here primitive 'proto-emotions' that link us all might be transformed - as Câezanne transformed his 'sensations' - into aesthetic form, into feelings-linked-to-thoughts that in turn enrich and expand the field. The book draws on the words of artists (Câezanne himself, Mann), philosophers (Merleau-Ponty, Bergson), art historians and theorists (Clark, Smith, Shaw), as well as psychoanalysts (Bion, Ferro, Civitarese and others), and it is the first to focus on one particular - and seminal - painter as a way of exploring this aesthetic and 'field' dimension in depth and detail. Aimed at psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, artists, art historians and the general reader, it suggests how far art and contemporary psychoanalysis are mutually generative"--

Wilfred Bion described "O" as "the unknowable and the unreachable ultimate truth". In this fascinating collection, a range of authors offer their own theoretical, clinical and artistic approaches to exploring this enduring but mysterious idea. Drawn from contributions from the 8th International Bion Conference in 2014, the book examines how "O" can be experienced in all aspects of internal and external reality and within all relationships, from an individual relating to the mother to their emotional relationship with their self. It features insights into "O" drawn from the area of faith as well as its manifestations in clinical practice, while also included is a chapter exploring the links between Bion’s ideas and those of Winnicott, Lacan, Green and Freud. Featuring contributions from some of the world’s leading Bion scholars, this will be essential reading for any psychoanalyst interested in exploring the concept of "O", as well as scholars in philosophy and theology.

'Until now no book has ever attempted to compare and contrast contributions on analytic field theory and at the same time to explore its clinical and technical implications. This volume is intended for the first time to link together many of these writings and to provide an initial wide-ranging survey of the subject - for it is our contention that a theory of the field in various of its loci can also be inhabited by different theories. A particular aim of this book is to present not only theoretical discussions of field theory, but also contributions on clinical work and technique. For this reason we have given preference to articles with a substantial clinical component which exemplify specific underlying technical theory. In the Babel of psychoanalytic languages, clinical practice is in our view the most effective way of comparing psychoanalytic models.'

The science of psychoanalysis is now more than a century old. During this period, it has been established as the instrument offering the most profound understanding of the human mind, and as the most effective tool for treating psychic suffering we have at our disposal. A Short Introduction to Psychoanalysis offers readers an introduction to this extraordinarily interesting discipline. In this short volume, Giuseppe Civitarese and Antonino Ferro explore psychoanalysis, which is at the same time a theory of unconscious psychic processes, a technique for investigating these, and a method for curing various forms of psychic suffering, by explaining some of its main themes and ideas. As the only introductory text to the increasingly popular post-Bionian theory of the analytic field, A Short Introduction to Psychoanalysis examines the theory of dreams, the concept of the unconscious, the psychoanalytic clinic, the analysis of children and adolescents, and the history of psychoanalysis. In seeking to give a broad idea of what psychoanalysis is, what it has become, and the direction it may take in the future, this book will appeal to all those curious about this fascinating discipline, and is particularly aimed at students of psychology, the humanities, and of psychoanalytic institutes, as well as qualified psychoanalysts and psychotherapists.

The Analytic Field and its Transformations presents a collection of articles, written jointly by the authors in recent years, all revolving around the post-Bionian model of the analytic field - Bionian Field Theory (BFT). Going hand-in-hand with the ever-growing interest in Bion in general, analytic field theory is emerging as a new paradigm in psychoanalysis. Bion mounted a systematic deconstruction of the principles of classical psychoanalysis. His aim, however, was not to destroy it, but rather to bring out its untapped potential and to develop ideas that have remained on its margins. BFT is a field of inquiry that refuses a priori, at least from its own specific perspective, to immobilize the facts of the analysis within a rigid historical or intrapsychic framework. Its intention is rather to bring out the historicity of the present, the way in which the relationship is formed instant-by-instant from a subtle interplay of identity and differentiation, proximity and distance, embracing both Bion's rigorous, and his radical, spirit.