First translation into English of work by Ferro - very distinguished Italian Analyst His work is very original, draws on Bion / The Barangers to develop his own conceptual system of clinical child analysis There are similarities between his work and popular US schools of analysis such as self-psychology, relational analysis, social cobnstruction and intersubjectivism
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.
Is the analyst's mind a factor in the analytic process? In Mind Works Antonino Ferro uses clinical material such as detailed reports of sessions, together with client's analytic histories, to develop Bion’s original findings and illustrate complex concepts in the field of psychoanalytic technique. These concepts include: interpretive modalities the end of analysis psychosomatic pathologies narcissism. Mind Works: Technique and Creativity in Psychoanalysis also suggests that dreaming is a fundamental moment in analytic work, and Ferro discusses how dreams can go beyond the present to become a continuous act of the mind in the waking state, allowing internal and external stimuli to be transformed into thoughts and emotions. Focusing on how the minds of the analyst and the analysand work in psychoanalysis, this book will appeal to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, and psychiatrists and will be helpful in psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic work on a day-to-day basis.
'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.'
In Torments of the Soul, Antonino Ferro revisits and expands on a theme that has long been at the heart of his work: the study of dreams during sleep and in the waking state, and the psychoanalytic narrative. Following Bion, he focuses on the importance of what he sees as the task of contemporary psychoanalysis for generating, containing and transforming previously unmanageable emotions with a clinical psychoanalytic context. Antonino Ferro explores the concepts of 'transformations in dreaming', the session as a dream, individuals transformed into characters, the interpretation of these characters, and readings of them as the functioning of a single mind or as an analytic field created by the meeting of two minds: the client's and the analyst's. Here, a new identity, the analytic field, is formed from the reverie of both participants, which makes it possible to work on complex, nonlinear phenomena in a radical way, creating a 'royal road' to the unconscious communication of the patient. Torments of the Soul contains a plethora of clinical vignettes from the author's extensive psychoanalytic work with adults and children to illustrate the substantial theoretical progression he advocates here. Offering significant and important new interpretations of theories and ways of working with patients, this book will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, psychologists, students of these fields and those interested in the human sciences.
Is psychoanalysis a type of literature? Can telling 'stories' help us to get at the truth? Psychoanalysis as Therapy and Storytelling examines psychoanalysis from two perspectives - as a cure for psychic suffering, and as a series of stories told between patient and analyst. Antonino Ferro uses numerous clinical examples to investigate how narration and interpretation are interconnected in the analytic session. He draws on and develops Bion's theories to present a novel perspective on subjects such as: psychoanalysis as a particular form of literature sexuality as a narrative genre or dialect in the analyst's consulting room delusion and hallucination acting out, the countertransference and the transgenerational field play: characters, narrations and interpretations. Psychoanalytic clinicians and theoreticians alike will find the innovative approach to the analytic session described here of great interest. Winner of the 2007 Sigourney Award.
Psychoanalysis and Dreams explores some of the cornerstones of Antonino Ferro’s theoretical model but also attempts to extend the dreamlike boundaries of the model. Based on Bion’s theory of alpha function and the analytic field, Ferro has developed his own original theorization of transformations in dreams and of work in the analytic session as a waking dream. Clearly highlighted in the book is Ferro’s theory that transformation in dreams is the activity which is constantly carried out in the mind of the analyst, who nullifies the reality-status of the patient’s communication and considers the patient’s narrative as a dream which must be constructed in real time in the encounter between the two minds at work. At the centre of Ferro's theoretical proposal stands the transition from a psychoanalysis of contents to a psychoanalysis which develops the apparatus for thinking, based on the conception of an unconscious in a perennial state of construction and transformation, which must be dreamed, and which continuously expands as it is dreamed. Psychoanalysis and Dreams is written for practicing and training psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and psychiatrists and will be helpful in everyday psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic work.
This book provides a clear, thorough, and accessible introduction to the work of Antonino Ferro and draws on the clinical vignettes that punctuate his writings to show how Ferro has built on Bion’s revolutionary achievements to develop a distinctive, game-changing version of field theory in psychoanalysis. The book clarifies the phenomenological insight that the analyst and the patient together generate an ever-evolving, intersubjective field. Rather than the supposed psychology of the individual, it is this populous and multidimensional field, a co-created ‘in-between’ rich in characters and stories, that is to be explored and elaborated. The primary points of access to this new ‘multiverse’ are dream, reverie, metaphor, and imagination. A radical Negative Capability is called for, not least to help dissolve co-constructed ‘bastions’ obstructing the field’s expansion. The book sketches out the Italian and international context in which Ferro developed his thinking and addresses some key critical questions. It concludes that Ferro’s life’s work, which marries theoretical rigour with a revitalising increase in playfulness and freedom of response, is a transformational force within psychoanalysis and a major catalyst in its evolution. This important volume is rewarding reading for beginning and seasoned analysts alike, as well as for psychotherapists, counsellors, humanities scholars, and anyone interested in psychoanalysis.
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.
