Bion and Primitive Mental States

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000515214
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis Bion and Primitive Mental States by : Judy K. Eekhoff

Download or read book Bion and Primitive Mental States written by Judy K. Eekhoff and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-12-30 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This clinically focused book explores W. R. Bion’s thinking on primitive and unrepresented mental states and shows how therapists can work effectively with traumatized patients who are difficult to reach. The author illuminates how trauma survivors suffer from direct access to primal undifferentiated positions of the psyche that lie outside the symbolic order of the mind and are resistant to treatment. This access, unmediated by symbolic representation but represented in the body, disrupts the normal trajectory of development and of relationship. Integrating theory and clinical application, the book addresses processes of symbolization, somatic receptivity, and the use of countertransference when working therapeutically with undeveloped areas of the mind. It also demonstrates how primitive body relations and object relations include the body of the analyst as part of the analytic frame and are essential in establishing a therapeutic alliance. Illustrated with detailed clinical vignettes, Bion and Primitive Mental States is important reading for psychoanalysts, psychologists, social workers, and educators who wish to understand primitive states of mind and body in patients who have previously been considered untreatable.

Bion and Primitive Mental States

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781032149103
Total Pages : 184 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (491 download)

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Book Synopsis Bion and Primitive Mental States by : Judy K. Eekhoff

Download or read book Bion and Primitive Mental States written by Judy K. Eekhoff and published by . This book was released on 2021-12-31 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This clinically focused book explores W. R. Bion's thinking on primitive and unrepresented mental states and shows how therapists can work effectively with traumatized patients who are difficult to reach. The author illuminates how trauma survivors suffer from direct access to primal undifferentiated positions of the psyche that lie outside the symbolic order of the mind and are resistant to treatment. This access, unmediated by symbolic representation but represented in the body, disrupts the normal trajectory of development and of relationship. Integrating theory and clinical application, the book addresses processes of symbolization, somatic receptivity, and the use of countertransference when working therapeutically with undeveloped areas of the mind. It also demonstrates how primitive body relations and object relations include the body of the analyst as part of the analytic frame and are essential in establishing a therapeutic alliance. Illustrated with detailed clinical vignettes, Bion and Primitive Mental States is important reading for psychoanalysts, psychologists, social workers, and educators who wish to understand primitive states of mind and body in patients who have previously been considered untreatable.

Trauma and Primitive Mental States

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0429775873
Total Pages : 227 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (297 download)

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Book Synopsis Trauma and Primitive Mental States by : Judy K. Eekhoff

Download or read book Trauma and Primitive Mental States written by Judy K. Eekhoff and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-01-24 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trauma and Primitive Mental States: An Object Relations Perspective offers a clinically based framework through which adult survivors of early childhood trauma can re-engage with painful past events to create meaningful futures for themselves. The book highlights the use of the body and the mind in working with these early unmentalized and unrepresented states, illustrating the value of finding language that embodies emotions, and working in the here and now of transference and counter-transference. Including a range of examples of how early trauma can thus be re-presented and clinically understood, the book illustrates how patients can discover themselves and leave their repetitive patterns of suffering behind. Written by a clinician with over 30 years’ experience, this will be fascinating reading for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists as well as any mental health professional working with childhood trauma.

Primitive Mental States

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317723430
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (177 download)

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Book Synopsis Primitive Mental States by : Jane Van Buren

Download or read book Primitive Mental States written by Jane Van Buren and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-12-16 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traditional psychoanalysis relies on the presence of certain meaning-making capacities in the patient for its effectiveness. Primitive Mental States examines how particular capacities including those for symbolising, fantasising, dreaming, experiencing and finding meanings in those experiences, can be taken for granted. Many of us lack these capacities in certain dimensions of our minds making traditional psychoanalysis ineffective. In this book, international contributors are brought together to consider a radical evolution in contemporary psychoanalytic theory developed from a combination of ultrasound studies, infant analysis, and observation of mothers and babies. These findings demonstrate how much mental life exists even before birth and considers unevolved, unborn and barely born aspects of the self such as the birth of emotion and the birth of alpha functioning. Topics covered include: prenatal imprints on the mind and body difficult to treat patients non-verbal, non-symbolic, disembodied states of being early relational and attachment trauma. Illustrated throughout with original data and extensive clinical discussions from some of the biggest names in the field, Primitive Mental States will be a useful resource for students and seasoned analysts alike.

Wilfred Bion: His Life and Works

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Author :
Publisher : Other Press, LLC
ISBN 13 : 1635421306
Total Pages : 348 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (354 download)

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Book Synopsis Wilfred Bion: His Life and Works by : Gerard Bleandonu

Download or read book Wilfred Bion: His Life and Works written by Gerard Bleandonu and published by Other Press, LLC. This book was released on 2020-12-15 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wilfred Bion was one of the most original and influential thinkers in recent psychoanalysis. His ideas, which can be traced in direct line in the development of psychoanalytic theory from Freud to Melanie Klein, are difficult to grasp because his writing style was often enigmatic and ambiguous. This is the first full biography and the first comprehensive explication of his significant contribution to psychoanalytic theory and practice. Dr. Bleandonu takes us through Bion's personal and intellectual explorations and gives clear accounts of his key concepts, including work groups and basic assumption groups, psychotic processes, catastrophic change, abandonment of memory and desire, the mystic, and ultimate truth. In addition, the grid is carefully laid out and explicated; the emergence of the idea of links, and attacks on them, as a core theme for the rest of Bion's working life is given proper attention; and Bion's attempt to creat an extensive psychoanalytic epistemology is discusses. Finally Bleandonu guides the reader through the fantasy writings in Memoir of the Future, the masterpiece that is Bion's autobiography, and his final writings, including the posthumous Cogitations. Significant reading for anyone with an interest in psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and the development of psychoanalytic thought, this volume will be valued by professionals and students alike.

Primitive Mental States

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317723449
Total Pages : 241 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (177 download)

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Book Synopsis Primitive Mental States by : Jane Van Buren

Download or read book Primitive Mental States written by Jane Van Buren and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-12-16 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traditional psychoanalysis relies on the presence of certain meaning-making capacities in the patient for its effectiveness. Primitive Mental States examines how particular capacities including those for symbolising, fantasising, dreaming, experiencing and finding meanings in those experiences, can be taken for granted. Many of us lack these capacities in certain dimensions of our minds making traditional psychoanalysis ineffective. In this book, international contributors are brought together to consider a radical evolution in contemporary psychoanalytic theory developed from a combination of ultrasound studies, infant analysis, and observation of mothers and babies. These findings demonstrate how much mental life exists even before birth and considers unevolved, unborn and barely born aspects of the self such as the birth of emotion and the birth of alpha functioning. Topics covered include: prenatal imprints on the mind and body difficult to treat patients non-verbal, non-symbolic, disembodied states of being early relational and attachment trauma. Illustrated throughout with original data and extensive clinical discussions from some of the biggest names in the field, Primitive Mental States will be a useful resource for students and seasoned analysts alike.

Primitive Mental States

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781568216850
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (168 download)

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Book Synopsis Primitive Mental States by : Katina Kostoulas

Download or read book Primitive Mental States written by Katina Kostoulas and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first volume of an annual dedicated to the study of primitive mental states. We are drawn to and fascinated by the primitive, yet its meanings are multiple and complex. Primitive has been used synonymously with early, original, unorganized, organizing, random, deep, regressed, savage, fundamental, Dionysian, demonic, pregenital, and archetypal, among other terms. Primitive mental states are paradoxically described as highly sophisticated and deeply unsophisticated; as originating in culture or biology; as being spiritual, intrapsychic and intrasubjective. As is clear, though the meaning of primitive cannot be captured by a single definition, it does refer to something powerful, and that something is the subject of this series. With contributions from experts in many different fields, this first volume should be of interest to therapists, students of literature, and anyone interested in exploring the workings of the mind.

The Primitive Edge of Experience

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Author :
Publisher : Jason Aronson
ISBN 13 : 0876682905
Total Pages : 255 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (766 download)

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Book Synopsis The Primitive Edge of Experience by : Thomas H. Ogden

Download or read book The Primitive Edge of Experience written by Thomas H. Ogden and published by Jason Aronson. This book was released on 1992-12 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'This is an extraordinary and exciting book, the work of a truly original and creative psychoanalytic theoretician and most astute clinician. Ogden continues to expand and to deepen his reformulations of the British object-relations theorists, M. Klein, W. R. Bion, D. W. Winnicott, W. R. D. Fairbairn, H. Guntrip, to illuminate further the world of internalized object relations. His concepts are evolutionary and at times revolutionary. Exploring the area of human experience that lies beyond the psychological territories addressed by the previous theorists, he introduces the concept of an autistic-contiguous mode as a way of conceiving of the most primitive psychological organization through which the sensory 'floor' of the experience of self is generated. He conceives of this mode as a sensory-dominated, presymbolic area of experience in which the most primitive form of meaning is generated on the basis of organization of sensory impressions, particularly at the skin surface. A major tenet in the book is a conceptualization of human experience throughout life as the product of a dialectical interplay among three modes of generating experience: the depressive, the paranoid-schizoid, and the autistic-contiguous. Each mode creates, preserves, and negates the other. No single mode of generating experience exists independently of the others. Psychopathology is conceptualized as a 'collapse' of the dialectic in the direction of one or another mode of generating experience. The outcome of such collapse may be entrapment in rigid, asymbolic patterns of sensation (collapse in the direction of the autistic-contiguous mode), or imprisonment in a world of omnipotent internal objects where thoughts and feelings are experienced as things and forces which occupy or bombard the self (collapse in the direction of paranoid-schizoid mode) or isolation of the self from lived experience and aliveness of bodily, sensations (collapse in the direction of the depressive mode). Ogden presents his unique development of the autistic-contiguous mode as the synthesis, interpretation, and extension of the works of D. Meltzer, E. Bick, and F. Tustin. He is careful to state that this psychological organization is a developing and ongoing) mode of generating experience and not a limited phase of development; an elaboration of this primitive organization is an integral part of normal development. All three modes are considered not 'positions' to be passed through, outgrown, or overcome, and relegated to the past, but as integral dimensions of present adult ego functioning. Sensory experience in an autistic-contiguous mode has rhythmicity that is becoming the continuity of being; it has boundedness that is the beginning of experience of the place where one feels things and lives; it has features such as shape, hardness, cold, warmth and texture, beginnings of the qualities of who one is. As his generous case examples aptly demonstrate, Ogden's theories are solidly grounded in his discerning work with a broad variety of patients. His brilliant pathfinding will enlighten and enrich the reader with invaluable insights. He will listen with new ears and with a fresh conceptual framework with which to comprehend the most primitive elements of human development and the complex interplay among the different modes of experience. This is a bold, important, instructive, and stimulating book of equally great clinical and theoretical applicability.' —The Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association A Jason Aronson Book

The Post-Bionian Field Theory of Antonino Ferro

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000505766
Total Pages : 214 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis The Post-Bionian Field Theory of Antonino Ferro by : Howard B. Levine

Download or read book The Post-Bionian Field Theory of Antonino Ferro written by Howard B. Levine and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-12-22 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Body-Mind Dissociation in Psychoanalysis

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317329260
Total Pages : 226 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (173 download)

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Book Synopsis Body-Mind Dissociation in Psychoanalysis by : Riccardo Lombardi

Download or read book Body-Mind Dissociation in Psychoanalysis written by Riccardo Lombardi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-11-25 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The conflict and dissociation between the Body and the Mind have determinant implications in the context of our current clinical practice, and are an important source of internal and relational disturbances. Body-Mind Dissociation in Psychoanalysis proposes the concept as a new hypothesis, different from traumatic dissociation or states of splitting. This approach opens the door to a clinical confrontation with extreme forms of mental disturbance, such as psychosis or borderline disorders, and strengthens the relational power of the analytic encounter, through a focus on the internal sensory/emotional axis in both analyst and analysand. The book details this importance of the analyst’s intrasubjective relationship with the analysand in constructing new developmental horizons, starting from the body-mind exchange of the two participants. Body-Mind Dissociation in Psychoanalysis will be of use to students, beginners in psychotherapy, mental health practitioners and seasoned psychoanalysts.

Reading Bion

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0429959532
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (299 download)

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Book Synopsis Reading Bion by : Rudi Vermote

Download or read book Reading Bion written by Rudi Vermote and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-07-17 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wilfred R. Bion is considered a ground-breaking psychoanalyst. His thinking is rooted in Freud and Klein from where it takes an original flight. Reading Bion shows the evolution of his seminal insights in psychic functioning and puts them in a wider context. Rudi Vermote integrates a chronological close reading and discussion of Bion’s texts, with a comprehensive approach of his major concepts. The book is divided in two main parts: Transformation in Knowledge: Bion’s odyssey to understand psychic processing or the mind Transformation in O: in which Bion reinterprets his former concepts from the dimension of the unknown and unknowable The running text is put against a background of biographical data and scientific, artistic and philosophical influences on his work, which are highlighted in boxes and separate chapters. Bion’s concepts are important for anyone dealing with the mind. His ideas have an ongoing deep impact on psychoanalysis, psychotherapy and psychopathology. His concepts help to understand psychic change, creativity, individual psychodynamics and small and large-group phenomena. The discovery of their value for studies on art, literature, sociology, religion, economics has just begun. Reading Bion starts from the very beginning so that it is instructive for people who are new to his work, but the close reading and background information make it a meaningful companion for experienced psychoanalysts and psychotherapists studying his work.

Explorations in Bion's 'O'

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0429814852
Total Pages : 332 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (298 download)

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Book Synopsis Explorations in Bion's 'O' by : Afsaneh K. Alisobhani

Download or read book Explorations in Bion's 'O' written by Afsaneh K. Alisobhani and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-02-13 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Formless Infinity

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317395123
Total Pages : 238 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (173 download)

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Book Synopsis Formless Infinity by : Riccardo Lombardi

Download or read book Formless Infinity written by Riccardo Lombardi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-07-16 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In contemporary psychoanalysis, a key concept and aim of clinical practice is to distinguish the boundaries of any mental state. Without this boundary-setting, the patient has nothing but the 'formless infinite' of primitive mental states. Formless Infinity: Clinical Explorations of Matte Blanco and Bion draws on the work of these two authors to explore how analysts can work with patients to reveal, understand and ultimately contain their primitive mental states. Riccardo Lombardi discusses the core concepts of the unconscious, the role of the body in analysis, time and death. He displays the clinical implications of Matte Blanco’s theoretical extension of Freud’s theory of the unconscious, presenting numerous clinical examples of working with psychosis and other severe pathologies. Formless Infinity, a stimulating teaching text for students, trainers and seasoned mental health practitioners, is essential reading for psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists. It is particularly recommended to analysts interested in widening the scope of the analytic practice by exploring the functioning of the deep unconscious, primitive mental states, psychosomatic pathologies and psychotic conditions.

Ring of Fire

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134919077
Total Pages : 327 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (349 download)

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Book Synopsis Ring of Fire by : Malcolm Pines

Download or read book Ring of Fire written by Malcolm Pines and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-09-02 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A Beam of Intense Darkness

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Author :
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1003804284
Total Pages : 380 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (38 download)

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Book Synopsis A Beam of Intense Darkness by : James S. Grotstein

Download or read book A Beam of Intense Darkness written by James S. Grotstein and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-12-06 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by pioneering analyst and creative thinker, James Grotstein, A Beam of Intense Darkness offers a thorough overview and illuminating insight into the often-complex work of W. R. Bion. This psychoanalytic classic sees Grotstein introduce over 30 key Bionian theories, comprehensively explaining them to the reader before offering his own insight and commentary. Grotstein first encountered Bion as his analysand and, later, as his friend. This book offers a level of insight only possible through such a close relationship, and offers a dialogue between Bion and Grotstein as they delve into the inner workings of the human psyche. Throughout, Grotstein offers his own original thoughts on topics such as projective transidentification, transcendent position and the truth drive. With a new introduction from Nicola Abel-Hirsch, this book is an essential read for anyone interested in Bion’s work and legacy.

Growth and Turbulence in the Container/Contained: Bion's Continuing Legacy

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135102848
Total Pages : 326 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (351 download)

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Book Synopsis Growth and Turbulence in the Container/Contained: Bion's Continuing Legacy by : Howard B. Levine

Download or read book Growth and Turbulence in the Container/Contained: Bion's Continuing Legacy written by Howard B. Levine and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-02-11 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wilfred Bion remains the most cited author in psychoanalytic literature after Sigmund Freud. His formulation of alpha function, waking dream thoughts, his theory of thinking and of the container/contained have proven seminal for the elaboration of psychoanalytic theory and practice, as well as the exploration of psychic functioning and the primordial mind. Growth Turbulence in the Container/Contained is based on papers presented at the 2009 International Bion Conference held in Boston, Massachusetts. It represents the state of the art thinking of an outstanding international group of Bion scholars and experts. This book includes the most current trends in Bion scholarship, covering topics that range from the historical/biographical, to the clinical, the theoretical, the developmental, to the cultural and aesthetic. Proving a vital stimulus to further creative explorations in the field, Growth Turbulence in the Container/Contained will be of particular interest to psychoanalytic practitioners, graduate psychoanalysts, analytic candidates, psychoanalytic therapists, advanced therapy trainees,and scholars of all schools.

The Violence of Emotions

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Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0415692121
Total Pages : 242 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (156 download)

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Book Synopsis The Violence of Emotions by : Giuseppe Civitarese

Download or read book The Violence of Emotions written by Giuseppe Civitarese and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Violence of Emotions the author marries an ability to introduce the reader to the intimate climate of an analytic session with a passionate rereading of Bion. To emphasize both the empirical nature of psychoanalysis and its extraordinary capacity to engender illuminating hypotheses concerning the functioning of the mind, clinical examples alternate with theoretical argument. The psychoanalytic model espoused by Giuseppe Civitarese in his approach to both is analytic field theory. Developed by various authors, including Ferro, commencing with Bion and continued with contributions from the Barangers, Grotstein and Ogden, the theory of the analytic field reveals the social nature of subjectivity and, in clinical work, the intersubjective and dreamlike climate in which a psychoanalytic session unfolds. This leads to a new way of interpreting the facts of analysis. As such, topics of discussion include: transcending the caesura as Bion’s theoretical method hypochondria as de-subjectivation and narrative genre in analysis the aesthetic conflict and alfa function Bion’s search for ambiguity the casting of characters in the analytic dialogue metaphor of text and translation in Freud and Bion. Yet the book has an even more specific objective, focusing attention as it does on the central importance of emotions in mental life and of aesthetic experience as the model of what truly happens in analysis. This is an aspect which the author rediscovers and explores in the thought of Bion and his successors, and which he regards as a way of investigating the deepest and most primitive levels of mental life. This book will be of great interest to psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, and psychotherapists.