The Bion Seminars at the A-Santamaría Association
The Bion Seminars at the A-Santamaría Association

Author: Howard Levine

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-07-16

Total Pages: 173

ISBN-13: 1040042023

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The Bion Seminars at the A-Santamaria Association offers readers insightful analyses and commentaries on Bion’s key papers and books, as well as providing a unique set of discussions and explorations of many of Bion’s central concepts and foundational texts. This diverse collection of essays brings together contributions from internationally renowned Bionian scholars and analysts, including Annie Reiner, Nicola Abel-Hirsch, Antònia Grimalt, Avner Bergstein, Afsaneh Kiany Alisobhani, João Carlos Braga, Tom Helscher, Tim Smith and Peter Goldberg. Readers will encounter expansions and extensions of contemporary and timeless themes and discover the originality with which psychoanalysts from different geographical regions take ownership of the ideas discussed. Chapters cover the early and late work of Bion, spanning topics such as arrogance, the theory of thinking, memory and desire, and the clinical importance of frustration. The authors reveal to us the elements of continuity and discontinuity in Bion's work, sharing open conjectures to allow new developments to evolve. This volume is essential reading for practicing psychoanalysts, analysts-in-training, analytic psychotherapists, and anyone interested in exploring Bion's work.

Autistic Phenomena and Unrepresented States
Autistic Phenomena and Unrepresented States

Author: Howard B Levine

Publisher: Phoenix Publishing House

Published: 2023-01-12

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 1800131402

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With contributions from Anne Alvarez, Joshua Durban, Jeffrey L. Eaton, Bernard Golse, Didier Houzel, Howard B. Levine, Suzanne Maiello, Sylvain Missonnier, Bernd Nissen, Marganit Ofer, and Jani Santamaria. The capacity to create psychic representations is now understood to be a developmental achievement. Without it, meaning cannot be ascertained and this can lead to "psychic voids" and "unrepresented states", which can contribute to the development of autism and autistic spectrum disorders (ASD). Unrepresented states are also implicated and encountered in other, non-autistic, non-neurotic conditions, such as psychosomatic disorders, addictions, perversions, and primitive character disorders. The affects that unrepresented states produce or are associated with are often those of terror, emptiness, annihilation and despair. The organisation of the psyche consists of psychotic - i.e. unstructured - as well as neurotic parts of the mind; unintegrated as well as integrated areas; and unrepresented areas with little meaning as well as represented states consisting of specific ideas imbued with affect. Given this organisation, we should expect to find both an unstructured and a dynamic unconscious in all patients. This implies that, to some degree, unrepresented and unintegrated states are universal and will exist and be encountered in all of us. Consequently, the opportunities and challenges presented by the understanding and treatment of autism and ASD, where the unrepresented and its consequences (e.g. defensive organisations employed to protect against annihilation anxiety and catastrophic dread) can be encountered may offer us metaphors and clues relevant to aspects of the treatment of all patients, no matter what their dominant diagnoses may be. Packed with theory and helpful case studies, this carefully edited collection from an international array of experts in the field is essential reading for all practising clinicians.

Bion and Intuition in the Clinical Setting
Bion and Intuition in the Clinical Setting

Author: Antònia Grimalt

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-06-09

Total Pages: 165

ISBN-13: 1000598802

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Bion and Intuition in the Clinical Setting focuses on Bion’s investigation of the intuitive approach to clinical data and lays out how Bion’s method encouraged constant effort by the analysts to relinquish its reliance on sensory and conceptual-verbal faculties to make room for intuition. Based on the work of the biannual Bion conference, this book includes contributions from the most eminent voices on Bion’s work. Spanning topics such as the primordial mind, intuitive comprehension and desire, the contributors in this volume illustrate how they incorporate the concept of intuition in their own clinical developments. Each chapter examines different elements of how Bion’s research approaches the difficulties faced by analysts in the approach and discrimination of primitive emotional levels in the patient-analyst communication. This book will be of key interest to analysts and analytic therapists of all schools and is an essential resource for those that follow the work of Bion.

Bits of Psyche
Bits of Psyche

Author: Michael Eigen

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-03-21

Total Pages: 92

ISBN-13: 1003859771

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This book includes material from Michael Eigen’s celebrated and long-running seminar series, to explore some of the classic and contemporary key concepts in psychoanalytic theory and practice. Drawing on the work of Winnicott, Bion and Lacan, Eigen explores key psychoanalytic themes which have risen to prominence over the last decade such as the place of politics in psychoanalysis, life, death and psychic deadness, and the role of lies and deception in the consulting room and our world. With over 50 years of experience in leading seminars and working psychoanalytically, Eigen's work is essential reading for all psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists.

Explorations in Bion's 'O'
Explorations in Bion's 'O'

Author: Afsaneh Alisobhani

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-01-25

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 0429814852

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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.

Antonino Ferro
Antonino Ferro

Author: Robert Snell

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-03-15

Total Pages: 197

ISBN-13: 100385348X

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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.

Bion
Bion

Author: Nicola Abel-Hirsch

Publisher: Phoenix Publishing House

Published: 2023-03-30

Total Pages: 164

ISBN-13: 1800130457

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Bion's life spanned key events in the twentieth century. Born in India in 1897, he came to boarding school in England aged 8 and at 18 fought in the tanks in World War One. He trained as a doctor between the wars and, in his World War Two work for the army, he was an innovator. After the war, he became a patient of Melanie Klein, qualified as a psychoanalyst, and was part of an extraordinary period in psychoanalysis of work with psychotic mechanisms in patients. In the late 1950s, he identified the configuration container/contained as being at the heart of human development. He looked outside of psychoanalysis to philosophers, scientists, mathematicians, and even theo-mystical thinkers. His work evolved radically throughout the 1960s and, at age 70 when many would be thinking of slowing down, he emigrated to California and began to travel internationally, giving lectures and supervisions across three continents. After Freud, Bion appears to be the most quoted psychoanalyst of our time and this book provides the opportunity, even for those familiar with his work, to gain insight into its sheer breadth, showcased so brilliantly in this slim volume. As author of Bion: 365 Quotes, Nicola Abel-Hirsch's immersion in Bion's vast oeuvre has enabled a comprehensive introduction to Bion and his work. Her lightness of touch, whilst retaining the necessary depth, makes it a joy to read. Bion and his work can be somewhat enigmatic but Abel-Hirsch's understanding offers the ideal introduction to the man and his work.

Bion’s Legacy in São Paulo
Bion’s Legacy in São Paulo

Author: Evelise Marra

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2022-02-25

Total Pages: 197

ISBN-13: 1000539911

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This collection illuminates the legacy of Wilfred R. Bion in Brazil, illustrating Bion’s continued influence on the work of the São Paulo Psychoanalytic Society (SBPSP), how Bionian ideas are applied in contemporary psychoanalysis, and how current practice has evolved over time. Evelise de Souza Marra and Cecil José Rezze bring together theoretical and clinical approaches to provide a thorough perspective on Bionian work in Brazil. The book includes chapters by senior analysts, well-respected teachers and analytic clinicians in contemporary Brazilian psychoanalysis, each of which explores a topic central to Bion’s formulations. With discussion of key themes including turbulence, emotional experience, transference, caesura and mental pain, this book demonstrates how Wilfred R. Bion’s thought has been developed, transformed and applied in Brazil since his visits there in the 1970s. Bion’s Legacy in São Paulo will be of great interest to psychoanalysts in practice and in training, particularly those looking to understand Bion’s influence in more depth, and for anyone interested in the practice of psychoanalysis in Latin America.

The Birth of a Political Self
The Birth of a Political Self

Author: Jean-Max Gaudillière

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-09-21

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 1000179443

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This book provides a psychoanalytic reading of works of literature, enhancing the illuminating effect of both fields. The second of two volumes, The Birth of a Political Self: The Jean-Max Gaudillière Seminars 2001-2014 contains seven of the "Madness and the Social Link" seminars given by psychoanalyst Jean-Max Gaudillière at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris between 2001 and 2014, transcribed by Françoise Davoine from her notes. Each year, the seminar was dedicated to an author who explored madness in their depiction of the catastrophes of history. Surprising the reader at every turn, the seminars speak of the close intertwining of personal lives and catastrophic historical events, and of the possibility of repairing injury to the psyche, the mind and the body in their wake. These volumes expose the usefulness of literature as a tool for healing, for all those working in therapeutic fields, and will allow lovers of literature to discover a way of reading that gives access to more subtle perspectives and unsuspected interrelations.