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Humans are highly social primates who naturally seek out groups in which to live. Our individual psychology is inherently intertwined with that of the group, forming an inextricable link between the two. In keeping with Bion's insights into group dynamics, we approach contemporary conflicts by examining them through both social and psychoanalytic lenses. Drawing on Foucault's and Deleuze's analyses of societies, as well as considering the impact of technology and the COVID‐19 pandemic, we illustrate how modern societies function under the influence of three behaviors observed by Bion. Activated as a result of a psychological disaster, the ruins consist of the symptomatologic triad of arrogance, stupidity, and curiosity. We have called this functioning Bion's disastrous triad. We suggest that when it is set in motion, it leads to a withdrawal from the beauty of life, as Bion well expresses with the phrase “Thus far and no further.” Using Meltzer's notion of aesthetic conflict, we suggest that while operating under the mandates of the triad, recognition of the other becomes an impossibility. A plea for relationships based on mutual recognition—namely, aesthetic relationships—is in order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is actually made up of a series of digressions representing the author's unique approach to engaging with J. Palmer's ideas and offering a response. Instead of constituting a formal discussion, they have evolved into marginal notes inspired by an occasional visit to Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum, which is world famous for the masterpieces it houses. This formula allows for the exploration of various issues related to representation in art and life, as inherently intersubjective. The problems of aesthetic experience overlap with those of psychoanalysis, and vice versa: themes such as distance and aura; the relationship between content and container, i.e., between form and content or between frame and artistic motif; the aesthetics of the sublime as a portrayal of the vicissitudes of the primary relationship with the object; the negative of the invisible as what enables vision; art as a thematization of intersubjectivity; the artistic gesture as the movement and expression of the body, or rather, of intercorporeality; the construction of meaning that occurs in the "carnal" intimacy with art; painting as meditation on perception as unconscious (Merleau-Ponty); the pictorial structure of the dream within the dream or mise en abîme: these are all themes touched upon in a fragmented manner but that refer to various other works in which the author has addressed them, giving the sense of an ongoing research endeavor, where what matters is not the destination but the process of traversing the path of art as access to the psyche. All are interwoven in a series of internal references, the final figure or figures of which are left substantially open. The importance of reflection on art in general is continually reaffirmed in the work, both explicitly and implicitly, in the lines and between the lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Intuition" is probably the most frequently used term in all Bion's writings. However, in order to understand its role in his thought it is essential to give it the clearest possible definition. The thesis of this article is that by intuition Bion means a "specific" psychoanalytic concept. It is thus possible to extract intuition from the vague and mystifying reading of it by some authors, whic runs the risk of falling into an empty "intuitionism". For Bion, intuition is a psychoanalytic function of the analyst, the principal factors of which are the various expressions of dream-thought and insight. Furthermore, within the frame of the post-Bionian theory of the analytic field, the author suggests adding to these factors the use of the "we" vertex (or we-ness), i.e. to regard virtually every fact of analysis as co-created. The aim is to make the very concept of "field" more accessible. Compared with the metaphor of the analytic field, the concept of we-ness has both greater clinical versatility and greater pregnancy on the metapsychological plane. Indeed, it more directly reflects a radically social conception of human subjectivity: what is known in contemporary speculative thought – in J-L. Nancy, for example – as the "ontology of we". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the concept of truth in Bion's theory and in the post-Bionian context of the analytic field. Truth is addressed on three levels: epistemological, metapsychological, and clinical. Bion criticizes positivism in psychoanalysis, and the same vertex when it appears in psychoanalysis itself, stating that the search for truth at all costs is similar to the arrogance and stupidity of the psychotic part of the personality. He revolutionizes the analytic concept of truth by orienting it to the function of the emotional linking between analyst and patient rather than to content. Post-Bionian analytic theory further develops these concepts. In a field or radically intersubjective perspective, the author emphasizes the shift from an "I/you" perspective to a "we" perspective. The treatment is less about the abstract search for supposed truths and more about the truth being expressed in the process of emotional and affective attunement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is an interview with Giuseppe Civitarese, a psychoanalyst, discussing his background and work in Italy. He talks about the psychoanalytic community in Italy, the diversity of theoretical perspectives, and efforts to make Italian psychoanalysis more internationally known. Civitarese's own interests and influences, such as Bion, Ferro, and the Barangers, are also discussed. The interview highlights the impact of Bion's ideas on Italian psychoanalysis and the changing paradigm of psychoanalysis as a tool for understanding human nature. [Extracted from the article]

Some patients tediously describe depictions of their sexual perversions. These can bring the analyst to feel intense boredom and frustration. This "almost unavoidable monotony" can be interpreted in various ways. It can be seen as an expression of the patient's compulsion to repeat, whether one considers it a product of the death drive, or the need to give meaning to the traumatic experience that caused the perversion itself. On the other hand, it may be seen as an aspect of the unconscious emotional function that binds the couple together in the analysis. Monotony, then, is no longer intrinsic to "the patient's" perversion, but becomes the search for "mono-tony" or "at-one-ment" in the here and now of the session. At the root of this may be the fear of the tensions that arise from confrontation and difference, which may cause the pair to stay rigidly on the same wave. Then, analyst and patient maintain an adhesive identification with each other to prevent separation, and they pay the price of boredom and immobility. The field theory point of view is distinguished by two important aspects. As the analyst listens from the perspective of a "narrative We," this protects the pair from a judgmental attitude and, consequently, from a form of perversion of the analytic relationship. Second, it detects precise and distinct signs of how the process of mutual recognition unfolds on the level of the third, intersubjective or "common," unconscious. The fundamental postulate is that psychic suffering, including that which is expressed in sadomasochism, stems from important deficits in this same process in the primal relationship to the object. Consequently, it is important to privilege the level of being-with rather than that of knowing-about. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the metaphor of the “Greek chorus” as an image of the position of the analyst who, in the analytic field model, reverberates and returns the emotional content, sometimes slightly modified, so that the patient can listen to his or her own voice and enact a movement of transformation. That of the chorus, a voice made up of several voices, is also an antimoralistic, non-superegoic position, in which the analyst recognizes that he/she can accommodate the most diverse perspectives, emotions, and thus emotional truths that belong to the human. The authors show the relationship of their model to tragedy and, through clinical vignettes of both adults and children, they illustrate the technique of the analytic field in the light of this metaphor. The chorus corresponds to the we, to the overcoming of the I/you split made possible by interpretation. The analyst’s interventions give voice the chorus he/she creates together with the patient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychoanalysis is not only a theory of the mind, a method of studying mental processes and a form of psychotherapy. It can be said to have founded critical theory and to still be an authoritative voice of it. On the one hand, it can be argued that there are no essential differences between individual and social psychology; on the other hand, after Freud, psychoanalysis has made great progress in the study of groups, for example with Bion. The thesis that I propose in this article, with a view to 'updating' Freud's diagnosis of the malaise of civilization, is that both individual and social suffering arise from mechanisms of splitting that are used to cope with distress. The spiritual needs of individuals and groups are sacrificed to the need for security and the satisfaction of material needs. Just as an internal critical agency is formed in the individual, so in society it can take the form of a power that no longer obeys ethical principles and becomes self-referential. What makes this kind of power particularly dangerous is that it uses advances in technology to exercise increasingly invasive and alienating forms of control. What psychoanalysis can do is to remain viable as a critical theory and thus contribute to the diagnosis of the 'bad present'. In this way, it can certainly represent a point of resistance to the degradation of our humanity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author responds to the critical remarks in the comments by Ferro & Riefolo (2023) and by Fornaro (2023). The main points are, in the first comment, the status of reality in psychoanalysis, enactment, the various conceptions of the unconscious, self-disclosure, and the dialogue between philosophy and psychoanalysis. As for the second comment, on the other hand, the issues addressed concern the interpretation of Husserl's contribution to a better definition of the concept of intersubjectivity in psychoanalysis and methodological aspects related to the use of notions derived from speculative thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Criticizing the interpretations that Civitarese (2023a, 2023b) has given of the philosophers he relies on in order to justify his idea of intersubjectivity, Fornaro (2023b) neglects the recent historiography which includes leading researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary psychoanalysis lacks a clear and distinct definition of intersubjectivity. For the most part, the term is used in reference to relational models and the exchanges that take place between two separate subjects. It then serves to indicate the deep involvement of the analyst in the process of the cure. The author argues that this usage, roughly as a synonym for interaction or interpersonal, is trivial and not true to its meaning in Husserl's philosophy. The German philosopher was the first to speak of intersubjectivity in order to explain that if the subject has access to the other and vice versa, it is because on the ontological level a dimension of mutual co-being and co-implication (a common transcendental field) already always exists. If, then, we wish to formulate a clear and distinct, but above all specific, definition of intersubjectivity, we must recover this intuition and translate it into coherent principles of technique. On the basis of these two simple rules, fidelity to the original speculative meaning of the concept and its translation into technical tools, it becomes possible to differentiate the various models of psychoanalysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Writing Attacks on Linking, it is as if Bion had listened to his former analyst. In a lecture on technique given the year before, Klein expressed the wish that someone would write "a book about linking [...] one of the essential points in analysis". Later taken up and commented on in Second Thoughts, Attacks on Linking, has become perhaps Bion's most famous paper and, Freud aside, the fourth most cited article in the whole of psychoanalytic literature. In the short and scintillating essay Bion presents the enigmatic and fascinating concept of invisible-visual hallucinations, which subsequently seems never to have been taken up and discussed as such by other scholars. The author's proposal is therefore to reread Bion's text starting from this concept. To try to give a definition that is as clear and distinct as possible, a comparison is made with those of negative hallucination (Freud), dream screen (Lewin), and primitive agony (Winnicott). Finally, the hypothesis is formulated that IVH could give us the model of what stays at the origin of any representation; i.e. a micro-traumatic inscription of the trace of stimuli (but which may come to be actually traumatic) in the psychic fabric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychoanalysis has founded critical theory and still is an authoritative voice of it. The thesis that I propose in this article, with a view to 'updating' Freud's diagnosis of the malaise of civilization, is that both individual and social suffering arise from mechanisms of splitting that are used to cope with anxiety and fear. The spiritual needs of individuals and groups are sacrificed to the need for security and the satisfaction of material needs. Just as an internal critical agency is formed in the individual, so in society it can take the form of a power that no longer obeys ethical principles and becomes self-referential. What makes this kind of power particularly dangerous is that it uses advances in technology to exercise increasingly invasive and alienating forms of control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the time I was specializing in psychiatry in Pavia, Antonino Ferro was already a famous analyst. Although we lived in the same city, because of the age difference, I did not know him personally. He was no longer working in the clinical services of psychiatry, but only privately. I only really got to know him through his books. My first distinct memory of him, some thirty years ago, was when, in association with a dream of mine, I expressed to my analyst the enthusiasm I was experiencing from reading his book on the technique of child psychoanalysis.1 It was incredible the sense of freedom, creativity, humanity that I felt in that text and in others that I later got hold of. Afterward, it was the most natural thing in the world to ask him to be one of my supervisors for analytical training. We worked together for six years. Then, after becoming an analyst, a strong bond of collaboration and friendship developed, as evidenced, among other things, by the three books we published together.2 In both of us, curiosity and passion for psychoanalysis are more alive than ever, although there is also a hint of bitterness, because of the sometimes gratuitous difficulties that, as it is well known, you suffer in the life of psychoanalytic institutions everywhere. The idea that guided me in conducting the interview (perhaps, more of a conversation) was to bring out the figure of Ferro not so much as a scholar – for that there is an abundance of literature available – but as a person. I will say no more, so as to leave readers with the pleasure (I hope) of reading. I would just like to express my gratitude to Daniel Goldin, editor of this issue of Psychoanalytic Inquiry, for giving me the opportunity of being part of this very interesting project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Playing in analysis has to do with a) listening to the discourse of the unconscious as if virtually everything reflected the dream of the couple or the analytic field, b) interpreting the process of analysis not as rectifying transference distortions but as promoting transformations, c) using a simple, direct and spontaneous style of conversation with the patient. In the new paradigm of psychoanalysis, which can be defined no longer as epistemic but as ontological, i.e., directed not so much to unveiling repressed contents as to promoting new psychic functions, the psychoanalysis of children, in which play has such an important place, serves as a model for the psychoanalysis of adults. The concepts of activity, vitality, intensity, curiosity, pleasure, exploration, spontaneity, openness, etc., become elements that ideally should be present in any analysis. In the game everything is fiction and it is played in two. Playing serves to make the mind grow through moments of emotional attunement (at-one-ment). Hence the need for the analyst to have up-to-date concepts in order to understand what is happening on the unconscious and shared level of the relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aesthetics of the sublime and the psychoanalytic concept of sublimation, properly re-read, can interact in a way that illuminates each other. What we gain is, on the one hand, a more penetrating understanding of the essence of aesthetic experience in art, and on the other, a more compelling view of how the process of becoming a subject unfolds. In fact, the first glimmer of self-consciousness is ignited in a purely aesthetic dimension, in the etymological sense of the term, that is, in a space made of sensations. This space, called chora semiotics by Julia Kristeva, is at the same time dynamic and intersubjective-in other words, although woven of sensoriality, can not ignore a symbolic framework. To illustrate this thematic area, the author examines two examples of contemporary sublime, Kim Ki-duk's film entitled Pietà, and some monumental works by Richard Serra. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Playing' in analysis within the frame of the post-Bionian theory of the analytic field has to do with a) listening to the discourse of the unconscious as if virtually everything reflected the dream of the couple or the analytic field, b) interpreting the process of analysis not as rectifying transference distortions but as promoting emotional transformations, c) using a simplestyle of conversation with the patient. In the new paradigm of psychoanalysis, which can be defined no longer as epistemic but as ontological, i.e. directed not so much to unveiling repressed contents as to promoting new psychic functions, the psychoanalysis of children, in which play has such an important place, serves as a model for the psychoanalysis of adults. The concepts of activity, vitality, intensity, curiosity, pleasure, exploration, spontaneity, openness, etc., become elements that ideally should be present in any analysis. In the play, everything is fiction and it is played à deux. Playing serves to make the mind grow through moments of affective attunement (at-one-ment). Hence the need for the analyst to have the conceptual instruments useful to intuit at the highest possible degree of resolution what is happening on the unconscious and shared level of the relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Transformations Bion deals extensively with the concepts of point and line. Investigating their origin and nature, he explores the process of symbolization that leads to the birth of the psyche—and to the continuous re-birth that occurs (or should occur) in analysis—as well its failures in psychosis. His thesis is that the point is equivalent to the perceptual and emotional experience of the no-breast, the line to the temporal evolution of the point. Here we attempt an introductory reading to these rich but difficult pages in the light of Bion's concept of attacks on linking and of clinical material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In their reply to Caron Harrang's commentary (this issue, 2022), the authors dwell on the problem of the difficulty that many people have in reading Bion, on his propensity to intertextual dialogue with other disciplines, and on the centrality of the concept of intuition in his thought. They take up and then expand Caron Harrang's beautiful image, inspired by Suzanne Simard's work, of the secret communication between plants to further illustrate the theme of the intersubjective constitution of the individual and therefore the need to develop a concept of common or third unconscious. On a different way of understanding the unconscious, such as the one adopted by Bion and the analytic field, an ethical refoundation of psychoanalysis can be based, consisting in the abandonment or relativization of "suspicious" listening, the overcoming of the I/you split and the adoption of a shared or we-perspective for the analytic couple. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to understand the 'late' Bion, i.e. his production from Learning from Experience onwards, the most difficult and controversial, it is worth re-reading not only the essays in Second Thoughts, but also Experiences in Groups. The hypothesis of this work is that Bion spent his life as a scholar - probably without even being fully aware of it, since he never talks about it - to transpose his theory of groups into his theory of individual psycho-analysis. To illustrate this thesis, the author systematically compares some of the principles of both. Going back to Experiences in Groups, then, is also useful for another reason. Bion revolutionises theory but still works as a Kleinian. Despite brilliant suggestions, he does not fully develop a new technique. To have a tool box that anyone can use, we have to wait the analytic field theory, which is an original development of his thought. In this model the analyst sees in the analytical pair not two isolated subjects that interact, but a group. There is no 'fact' of analysis that cannot be heard as unconsciously co-created. Here then, highlighting the group inspiration of late Bion's helps us to grasp the meaning of this technical principle, so easily misunderstood, and vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If we want to understand Bion's psychoanalysis and analytic field theory, its most creative development, there is one point we must always bear in mind. Bion conceives individual therapy as group therapy. Consequently, he invites the analyst to put the patient's past and related causal theories in the background. Rather she should focus on the emotional transformations that occur in the here and now. This is very different from observing the Freudian principles of oneiric and transference distortion, on the one hand, and the (re)construction of the patient's past history, on the other. It is also different from paying attention to so-called deep unconscious fantasies or enactments. Such a crucial aspect, though, is often misunderstood. Here the concepts of the grid and of the regression or "in search of existence" graph are employed as a way of clarifying it. Trying at any given moment to grasp the direction of the vector that represents the sum of the emotional turbulences affecting the field, whether regressive or progressive (in other words, whether reflecting the growth of the mind or its destruction), implies using a radical technique to achieve receptiveness to the unconscious. The analyst treats all narratives in the session as if they were the recounting of a dream dreamt by the analytic dyad or group of two. A few clinical vignettes are presented by way of illustration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to understand the "late" Bion, i.e. his production from Learning from Experience onwards, the most difficult and controversial, it is worth re-reading not only the essays in Second Thoughts, but also Experiences in Groups. The hypothesis of this work is that Bion spent his life as a scholar - probably without even being fully aware of it, since he never talks about it - to transpose his theory of groups into his theory of individual psycho-analysis. To illustrate this thesis, the author systematically compares some of the principles of both. Going back to Experiences in Groups, then, is also useful for another reason. Bion revolutionises theory but still works as a Kleinian. Despite brilliant suggestions, he does not fully develop a new technique. To have a tool box that anyone can use, we have to wait the analytic field theory, which is an original development of his thought. In this model the analyst sees in the analytical pair not two isolated subjects that interact, but a group. There is no 'fact' of analysis that cannot be heard as unconsciously co-created. Here then, highlighting the group inspiration of late Bion's helps us to grasp the meaning of this technical principle, so easily misunderstood, and vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theory of dreams has changed fundamentally since Freud's time, when their primary function was seen as protecting sleep by distorting and hiding repressed material from consciousness. Many contemporary psychoanalysts emphasize the transformative function of dreams, to create sense and meaning for lived experience. Consequently, the way we use dreams in our daily clinical work has changed radically. The dream is no longer viewed as belonging exclusively to the analysand. We listen to virtually any verbal and nonverbal communication as a joint dream of the analytic couple, dreamed in the here-and-now. The author discusses this paradigm shift in light of analytic field theory and the phenomena of hallucinosis, dreaming, and reverie (both visual and somatic). Clinical examples are provided to illustrate the theory and the application of this approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When re-read today, "On arrogance", a very brief paper Bion wrote in 1958, reveals its extraordinary topicality. We can think of it both as a commentary on Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and as an essay on the "disease" of psychoanalysis. In both cases, lying at its centre is the triad of curiosity–stupidity–arrogance that drives us to know the truth "at any cost". In this paper Bion redefines the crime of Oedipus (and therefore of psychoanalysis) around epistemic instinct and no longer around sexuality; he unveils the objectifying attitude of the analyst he revolutionizes the understanding of negative therapeutic reactions. The analyst's "psychosis" (or that of psychoanalysis) finds expression in the phenomena of wanting to become a psychoanalyst, of aspiring to be "scientific" (as opposed to gaining a hermeneutical understanding), of wanting to tell the patient what he believes to be the truth, and finally of looking "down upon" his patients and colleagues. Anticipating the themes of Transformations and A Memory of the Future, "On arrogance" lays the groundwork for a cogent criticism of the ideology of psychoanalysis and an effective ethical re-foundation of the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bion hardly ever mentions the concept of regression in the classical sense. However, he uses it to understand whether the direction taken by the therapeutic relationship in the here and now of the session is towards psychic growth or rather in the opposite direction. Therefore, asking oneself what it represents for Bion implies inscribing the concept of regression in the framework of the grid, the kind of conceptual compass that he has built to map the possible evolutions of the unconscious emotional climate (O) that pervades the session at a given moment. The author then reports an entire session with a psychotic patient and illustrates the use that can be made of this notion, paired with that of progress, in the post-Bionian theory of the analytic field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author re-approaches the differentiation made by Bion between neurotic and psychotic personalities, discussing them under the light of the subsequent developments of his thoughts. The hypothesis of this paper is that Bion progressively mitigated the distinction between neurosis and psychosis, since this distinction no longer works as a shield for the search for the unknown in psychoanalysis, instead leading to the hurried adoption of causal theories. In order to demonstrate such hypothesis, the author approaches the concepts of transformation in hallucinosis as one of the media, this is how Bion wrote it, for the transformations into rigid motion (neurotic) and into projective transformations (psychotic). Above all, this paper highlights the meta-theoretical role of Transformations: deconstruct the classic oppositions is a way of treating the patient in the analytic space as much as a way of treating the disease of psychoanalysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The way in which interpretation is conceived in the post-bionian model of the analytical field is very different from the traditional one: it is no longer considered as the expression of the analyst's knowledge about the patient, but as a multidimensional offer of meaning intended to bring new ideas and emotions to life at an intersubjective level. It is not so much about conveying pre-packaged contents but about developing functions. A good interpretation does not have to be labelled ›interpretation‹ any more. It is ›good‹, if it reflects the quality of the analyst's listening, his receptivity to the unconscious. In its manifest form, it might be an interjection, a gesture, a moment of silence, a trivial or even a very complex and sophisticated comment, etc. From this point of view, the classic way of bringing together transference, infantile neurosis, trauma, etc. is often seen as a tell-tale sign of the deafness of an analyst who is tragically incapable of a 360 degrees listening to the unconscious, i.e. incapable also of listening to his own unconscious and to what is happening in the here and now. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to Peter Goldberg's (this issue) critical remarks, the author proposes to differentiate between the semantic plane of communication and the semiotic plane, but to place both in the more general category of the symbolic. In humans, non-linguistic communication is always influenced indirectly, if not directly, by the common belonging to the realm of the symbolic and language. The second part of the text contains a commentary on the clinical vignette of Beth Steinberg from the point of view of the theory of the analytical field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of Bion of O is both essential and elusive like few others. By its ambiguous nature it gives rise to the most disconcerting interpretations and many misunderstandings. Among these is the idea of inaugurating a "mystical" psychoanalysis. To refute this thesis, the author proposes a path of reading that is certainly personal and at times even impervious, but that aims to insert this notion within a theoretical framework that is as clear, logical and coherent as possible. The meaning of the concept of O is only delineated in the relationship with other key concepts (mainly: transformation, invariant and at-one-ment). It therefore escapes us if we do not take into account the dialectical tension that arises from this fruitful trade and if we do not pay attention to the always different discursive contexts in which it is found. But above all it is important to realize that the concept of O is peculiar also in comparison to other more clearly specified and circumscribed concepts of Bion. In fact, it itself consists of a constellation of concepts, as many names or partial definitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A complex and subtle theory of time is at the heart of Bion's 1962 text "A Theory of Thinking." The central point is the differentiation of "conception" and "thought," psychic elements that in the infant are born respectively from experiences of satisfaction and frustration. These mnestic inscriptions should be understood as in dialectic relation with each other. From this matrix, within which originary temporality is established, lived time derives, but only when it is inserted in the symbolic order through the function of language, which gives access to the "concept." Our feeling of time is therefore based on the rhythm of presentation of the breast and thus on the primary relationship with the object, as well as on a broader symbolic network. The meeting of a preconception of the breast with the mere absence of the breast is not able to generate a "thought" and establish time. That is why Bion distinguishes between absence of breast or non-breast and nothing (noughtness), a state of nameless dread. Bion's concept of time provides an empirical idea, i.e. based on clinical cases where the destruction of time is observed, both of the origin of time and of what Heidegger called—as opposed to "linear" or objective conceptions of time—the ontological structure of temporality. An accurate and orderly critical reading of Bion's article is essential to reach these conclusions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The mechanism and implications of the BiOS are reported. • BiOS links the deep thermohaline cell to the circulation of the North Ionian Gyre. • The inversions of the North Ionian Gyre affects the properties of the Mediterranean Sea. Over the past four decades, the understanding of Mediterranean oceanography has evolved considerably. From a purely stationary view, there has been a shift to a concept that considers the Mediterranean as a highly dynamic sea in which ocean-typical processes occur on smaller spatial and temporal scales. The recent discovery of the mechanism called BiOS (Adriatic-Ionian Bimodal Oscillating System) has further highlighted the highly variable nature of Mediterranean oceanography and the interconnectedness of its sub-basins. The BiOS is a mechanism by which the deep thermohaline cell of the eastern Mediterranean, originating in the southern Adriatic, is connected to the upper circulation of the Northern Ionian Gyre via positive feedback, causing a decadal circulation change that leads to a redistribution of salt throughout the Mediterranean. The effects of this variability are manifold: decadal modulations of the intensity of winter convection in the southern Adriatic, with variations in the volume and thermohaline properties of the dense water produced; variations in preconditioning in the eastern Mediterranean, affecting the salinity of the intermediate Levantine waters; influence on biodiversity in the Adriatic due to the import of Lessepsian organisms or those of western Mediterranean and Atlantic origin; variations of the trophic regime in the Ionian Sea due to the different vertical dynamics of the nutricline during the cyclonic or anticyclonic circulation of the Northern Ionian Gyre; significant contribution to the preconditioning of the northwestern Mediterranean Sea by the salinity variability of the Levantine Intermediate Water. In this study, the BiOS mechanism, the underlying theory, and the implications for the oceanographic features of the Mediterranean Sea are presented, based on the extensive literature published in the last three decades and some new analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Terms such as vitality and authenticity are difficult to define. Moreover, they cannot be considered true psychoanalytic concepts. If, however, as is happening, psychoanalysis tries to theorize in a more fine-grained manner the non-specific aspects of treatment, such as those related to the person of the analyst, then it becomes inevitable to refer to them. The thesis of the article is that vitality should emerge from its vagueness and be transformed into a precise psychoanalytic concept. This can be done if we discuss it in light of Bion's concept of negative capability and the post- Bionian theory of the analytic field. Every time the analyst rediscovers to his surprise the dreamlike dimension of the session, he becomes vital gain and reinvests the patient, the analysis and the psychoanalytic method.Then he realizes that he is always a character in the stories of the analysis and has the chance to try to guess what happens by relying on his intensified bodily or emotional reaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike Ogden's concepts of "sensory reverie," which is perceived as such almost immediately, and "interpretative action," which is characterized by obvious intentionality, body reverie is neither intentional nor conscious. Rather, it is an action or sequence of actions to which the meaning of an acted-out performance can be attributed only in retrospect: a performance that is a kind of understanding through the body or of dreaming in the body what is unconsciously going on in the analytic field at a given moment or over a longer period of time. I would not even use the term enactment, a word too closely identified with the idea of the unreflective offloading of instinctual drives or proto-emotions, and not necessarily through behaviour. Moreover, the concept of enactment is still framed within a theory that sees two separate subjects in interaction and that, strictly speaking, is not authentically intersubjective. Of course in order to use the concept of somatic reverie we need to adopt Bion's view of the unconscious as a "psychoanalytic function of the personality," his new theory of dreaming as a way of giving meaning to emotional experience, and the subsequent development that these ideas had in the so-called post-Bionian theory of the analytic field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Translations of summary Although it encapsulates the Freudian theory of art, the theory of sublimation has become outmoded. What is more, since its inception there has always been something ill-defined about it. Does it use sexualized or de-sexualized drive energy? Is it a defence or an alternative to defence? Does it serve Eros or Thanatos? Is it useful in clinical work or is it unusable? The only, albeit uncertain, aid to a definition relies on the extrinsic criterion of concrete artistic realization. My aim here to revisit and possibly 'reinvent' sublimation in the light of certain principles of the pre-Romantic aesthetics of the sublime. Both are theories of spiritual elevation, in other words, elevation that moves towards abstract thinking, and of man's 'moral' achievement; and both attempt to explain the mystery of aesthetic experience. On the one hand, the aesthetics of the sublime offers a modern myth that helps us articulate a series of factors occasionally referred to by various authors as constitutive of sublimation but which have not been incorporated into a single organic framework: loss and early mourning work; the earlier existence of a catastrophic factor - to be regarded, depending on the situation, as either traumatic or simply 'negative'; the correspondence with a process of somatopsychic categorization which coincides with subjectivity. On the other hand, it also helps us grasp the experience of negative pleasure empathically, living it 'from the inside'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considered a brilliant tool due to its simplicity and adherence to the experience of practical life. Bion's concept of the container-content effectively describes the dialectic identity/difference upon which the process of psychic growth rests. The mind develops if, thanks to another mind, it becomes capable of transforming proto-emotions and proto-sensations, the newness that bears news of internal and external environment in continuous evolution, through forms of thought which are both "semiotic"/corporal and logical- rational. The author illustrates this dialectic with examples taken from cinematography and with a clinical vignette. The central thesis of the article is that the emotional work required from the analyst is to "suffer" understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the basis of some clinical examples, we try in this article to show how confrontation should be subordinated to the principle of the patient’s emotional sustainability. Confrontation can also be carried out in an indirect way, by using the characters of the analytic dialogue, and certainly by responding to the signals coming from the emotional LEDs that light up continuously in the field. In fact, we argue that especially the restricted classical concept of confrontation seems to put too much emphasis on rational understanding. On the contrary, from a field perspective, what one is interested in is not a discussion of presumed truths, but an expansion of the degree of emotional unison and so the patient’s ability to give a personal meaning to experience. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A response from the author of the article "Transformations in Hallucinosis and the Receptivity of the Analyst" is presented.

An introduction to the articles published within the issue is presented, including "In-between: Shapes of subjectivities in the analytic situation," by Paolo Fabozzi, "Post-Cartesian psychonanalysis and the sociocultural turn: From cultural contexts to hermeneutic understanding," by Roger Frie and "Psychoanalysis in Postmodern times: Some questions and challenges," by Juan Pablo Jiménez.

Bion describes transformation in hallucinosis ( TH) as a psychic defence present in elusive psychotic scenarios in which there is a total adherence to concrete reality: as the hallucinatory activity which physiologically infiltrates perception and allows us to know reality, setting it off against a background of familiarity; and then, surprisingly, as the ideal state of mind towards which the analyst has to move in order to intuit the facts of the analysis. When hallucinosis is followed by 'awakening', the analyst gains understanding from the experience and goes through a transformation that will inevitably be transmitted to the analytic field and to the patient. In this paper I illustrate Bion's concept and underline its eminently intersubjective nature. Then I differentiate it from two other technical devices: reverie, which unlike hallucinosis does not imply the persistence of a feeling of the real, and Ferro's transformation in dreaming, i.e. purposeful listening to everything that is said in the analysis as if it were the telling of a dream. Finally, I try to demonstrate the practical utility of the concept of transformation in hallucinosis in order to read the complex dynamics of a clinical vignette. Though not well known (only two references in English in the PEP archive), TH proves to be remarkably versatile and productive for thinking about psychoanalytic theory, technique and clinical work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In constructing his theory Bion drew on a number of symbolic matrices: psychoanalysis, philosophy, mathematics, literature, aesthetics. The least investigated of these is the last. True, we know that Bion cites many authors of the Romantic period, such as Coleridge, Keats, Blake and Wordsworth, as well as others who were held in high esteem in the Romantic period, such as Milton. However, less is known about the influence exerted on him by the aesthetics of the sublime, which while chronologically preceding Romanticism is in fact one of its components. My working hypothesis is that tracing a number of Bion's concepts back to this secret model can serve several purposes: firstly, it contributes to the study of the sources, and, secondly, it makes these concepts appear much less occasional and idiosyncratic than we might believe, being as they are mostly those less immediately understandable but not less important (O, negative capability, nameless dread, the infinite, the language of achievement, unison etc.). Finally, connecting these notions to a matrix, that is, disclosing the meaning of elements that are not simply juxtaposed but dynamically interrelated, in my view significantly increases not only their theoretical intelligibility but also their usefulness in clinical practice. In conclusion, one could legitimately argue that Bion gradually subsumed all the other paradigms he drew on within the aesthetic paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors comment on Stern's characterization of differences between interpersonal and relational psychoanalysis and Bionian field theory. The critical points on which a consensus is not, for the time being, readily possible concern the relationship between the external and internal worlds and the various conceptions of unconscious experience. They believe that, before forging a link with the external world (whose role we would be foolish to deny), it is clinically more useful to apprehend this internal world as rigorously and over as wide a range as possible—which they do by radically transforming the external world into a dream of the field. Conversely, in their view we may be reassured but partly misled by the concept of a dialectic between the external and internal worlds that fails to take account of the utter pervasiveness of the unconscious and the fact that it speaks even when seemingly silent—not onlynegativelyin micro- and macroenactments but alsopositivelyin waking dream thought, which is an expression of its poetic activity that unceasingly confers meaning on experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Le thème de la temporalité, si important en psychanalyse, représente un de ces carrefours où se croisent d'autres concepts extraordinairement importants tels que le setting, la subjectivité, les théories du travail clinique, l'interprétation et la conception des facteurs thérapeutiques, l'institution psychanalytique. Nous abordons ici le concept de l'espace-temps en relation avec la théorie du champ analytique de Bion. L'hypothèse que nous avançons est que le champ est l'instrument conceptuel qui permet de moduler de façon plus fine et plus sûre la distance qui s'établit entre le patient et l'analyste pour atteindre et étendre l'unisson émotionnel qui, selon nous, est le facteur thérapeutique central. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Each of the principal psychoanalytic models is underlain by certain key metaphors. For example, the archaeological and surgical metaphors, as well as that of the analyst-as-screen, all throw light on some of Freud's basic concepts. In classical psychoanalysis, however, metaphor still tends to be an illegitimate or secondary element. Analytic field theory, on the other hand, reserves a completely different place for it, both as an instrument of technique in clinical work and as a conceptual device in theoretical activity. Metaphor and the field are linked in a chiasm: The field metaphor transforms Kleinian relational theory into a radically intersubjective theory, which, in turn, places metaphor at a point along the spectrum of dreaming—to paraphrase Bion, it is the stuff of analysis. For the sake of illustration, we examine first the origins and meaning of the field metaphor in analytic field theory; we then consider the mutual implications of this particular development of post-Bion psychoanalysis and the modern linguistic theory of metaphor; and, finally, we put the theoretical hypotheses discussed in the first part of this contribution to work in the clinical situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dr. Rachael Peltz stresses the aesthetic dimension of analysis. In fact the aesthetic experience can serve as a model for all that is deepest and truest in our lives and in the analytic encounter. We all have an “inner painter” which transforms primitive sensoriality into images or pictograms and then tie them up into oneiric thoughts, dreaming and thinking in order to give a personal meaning to experience. This model gives us the possibility in the clinical work to be more attentive to the musical, rhythmic, or semiotic aspects of the interaction between patient and analyst. Dr. Peltz shows in a beautiful vignette how, equating analysis to the aesthetic experience, it is possible to help the patient to reach a fuller sense of consonance and contact between mind and body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commenting on recently discovered letters sent by Bion to Rickman, the author highlights the influence Bion's first analyst had on him. It is strikingly evident that both shared very similar points of view about key matters in psychoanalysis, including clinical theory, epistemology, scepticism, antiauthoritarianism, the intersubjective conception of the subject, the concept of analytic field, epistemology, the 'truth drive,' and what can be called an ethics of responsibility. A special emphasis is put on the 'principle of evidence,' which leads Bion to stress that what counts in the session is the unknown and what is happening in the present. In this regard, his writings assume an almost militaristic tone. He reveals the 'tankishness' that was a feature of his character and a legacy of his dramatic war experiences. Like the soldier engaged in a battle, the analyst's task is to remain alive and attentive to what is going on around him at any given moment, and to maintain the capacity to think clearly when faced with violent emotions. For both Rickman and Bion, the goal of psychoanalysis is to help patients to take responsibility for their inner world, to dare think courageously with their own mind, and to struggle against the enemies of arrogant stupidity, of bigotry of certainty, and of mental narrowness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the film "Nightmare Detective," directed by Shinya Tsukamoto.

Words that “touch' are closely related to words that “jar.” This article faces the problem of micro- and macrotraumatic effects in psychoanalytic interpretation, using the theme of resistance as a guideline. If it is true that resistance is what blocks psychoanalytic comprehension and progress in clinical work, it is equally true that it provides elements for clinically organizing the psychoanalytic dialogue. Being attentive to the signals in the field, and making use of a greater dose of attention to communicating with the patient, one can try to reduce the “jarring” effect of interpretation. On the other hand, it is also true that this is probably a phenomenon that follows ineluctably from the very nature of psychic experience. To interpret resistance correctly, we must therefore view it not as negative viscosity opposing change but as a safety valve for the individual's identity, enabling one to negotiate between old and new patterns of experience. In this sense, it is not something concerning only the patient but is also a bi-personal problem that requires both intra- and interpsychic conceptualizing. Resistance is a problem that can only be effectively faced by recognizing that it is inevitably present in the couple. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]