COUNTERTRANSFERENCE IDENTIFICATION AND FANTASY IN PSYCHOANALYTIC PROCESS

The development of more nuanced understandings of psychoanalytic process is among the primary tasks of contemporary psychoanalytic theorizing. One piece of this complex undertaking involves the examination of moments when the analyst's countertransference position changes. Shifts in the analyst's feelings and thoughts in relation to the patient are complex events in which experiences registered at many levels of organization and via many modes of perception combine to contribute to meaning‐making and furthering of the treatment process. The author explores the role of fantasy in giving form and meaning to alterations experienced as a change of attitude or affect, through close examination of one such moment of shift.     

ON THE BIRTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF PSYCHOANALYTIC FIELD THEORY,PART 1

Defining Psychoanalysis: Achieving a Vernacular Expression, by Ian Miller. London: Karnac, 2016. 116 pp. The Pioneers of Psychoanalysis in South America: An Essential Guide, edited by Nydia Lisman‐Pieczanski and Alberto Pieczanski. London/New York: Routledge, 2015. 537 pp. Reading Italian Psychoanalysis, edited by Franco Borgogno, Alberto Luchetti, and Luisa Marino Coe. London/New York: Routledge, 2016. 738 pp.     

POST‐BIONIAN DEVELOPMENTS IN PSYCHOANALYTIC FIELD THEORY: THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF ANTONINO FERRO AND GIUSEPPE CIVITARESE

The Bi‐Personal Field: Experiences in Child Psychoanalysis. By Antonino Ferro. New York: Routledge, 1992 (1999). 232 pp. The Intimate Room: Theory and Technique of the Analytic Field. By Giuseppe Civitarese. New York: Routledge, 2008 (2010). 240 pp. The Necessary Dream: New Theories and Techniques of Interpretation in Psychoanalysis. By Giuseppe Civitarese; translated by Ian Harvey. London: Karnac, 2013 (2014). 246 pp. The Analytic Field and Its Transformations. By Antonino Ferro and Giuseppe Civitarese. London: Karnac, 2015. 224 pp.     

W. R. D. FAIRBAIRN AND THE PROBLEM OF HOMOSEXUALITY: A STUDY IN PSYCHOANALYTIC PREJUDICE

W. R. D. Fairbairn believed that the psychoanalyst's motivations and theories must ultimately be rooted in a need to resolve personal conflicts. His self‐analytic and other records, now publicly available, indicate how his struggles with unacceptable sexual feelings and their symptomatic manifestations affected not only his theorizing, especially about sexuality, but also his clinical practice, as well as his personal and family life. Fairbairn's case affords a unique opportunity to document the effects of homophobia in a major psychoanalyst.     

NEUTRALITY IN THE FIELD: ALPHA‐FUNCTION AND THE DREAMING DYAD IN PSYCHOANALYTIC PROCESS

Analysts have interpreted the concept of neutrality in a variety of ways, beginning with Strachey's use of that word to translate Freud's (1915) term, Indifferenz. In this paper, neutrality is linked to Freud's notions of free association and evenly suspended attention. A history of psychoanalytic attempts to clarify the concept are presented, with special attention to issues of ambiguity and the patient's role in the determination of neutrality. Neutrality is further elaborated in relation to the bipersonal field as described by the Barangers and contemporary field theorists. Understood in terms of the field, neutrality becomes a transpersonal concept, here conceived in terms of alpha‐function and a dreaming dyad. Two clinical examples cast in the light of a Bionian perspective are discussed to suggest an alternative understanding of analytic impasses and their relation to alpha‐function and neutrality.     

BION'S “EVIDENCE” AND HIS THEORETICAL STYLE

The author discusses “Evidence” (1976), a brief but very intense and fascinating paper in which Bion provides a unique opportunity to see him at work in his clinical practice. In the story of a patient, Bion reconstructs two sessions that are all the more true for being imaginary—i.e., narrated (“dreamed”). The matter of language and style in psychoanalysis is of the utmost importance, according to Bion—one could say, literally, a matter of life or death. In Bion's discourse, writing, reading, and analysis converge in the same place, the author notes; all are significant if they involve an experience of truth and the ability to learn from experience.     

BION'S THINKING ABOUT GROUPS: A STUDY OF INFLUENCE AND ORIGINALITY

One of Bion's least‐acknowledged contributions to psychoanalytic theory is his study of the relationship between the mind of the individual (the ability to think), the mentalities of groups of which the individual is a member, and the individual's bodily states. Bion's early work on group therapy evolved into a study of the interplay between mind and bodily instincts associated with being a member of a group, and became the impetus for his theory of thinking. On the foundation of Bion's ideas concerning this interaction among the thinking of the individual, group mentality, and the psyche‐soma, the author presents his thoughts on the ways in which group mentality is recognizable in the analysis of individuals.     

ATTACKS ON LINKING OR A DRIVE TO COMMUNICATE? TOLERATING THE PARADOX

The notion of attacks on linking, as described by Bion, may depict a patient's drive to communicate the internalization of a destructive relationship between a primary object and an infant. This may be enacted between patient and analyst in the here and now of the analysis, whereby fragmentation and numbing of thinking may point to a primitive catastrophe relived in the psychoanalytic setting. The patient's material may seem incoherent, but incoherence might be the communication the patient is unconsciously trying to convey. Thus, the notion of attacks on linking depicts a paradoxical, caesural experience in which the attack on linking is itself a link.     

RETHINKING THE ROLE OF SMALL‐GROUP COLLABORATORS AND ADVERSARIES IN THE LONDON KLEINIAN DEVELOPMENT (1914–1968)

The authors historically situate the London Kleinian development in terms of the small‐group collaborations and adversaries that arose during the course of Melanie Klein's career. Some collaborations later became personally adversarial (e.g., those Klein had with Glover and Schmideberg); other adversarial relationships forever remained that way (with A. Freud); while still other long‐term collaborations became theoretically contentious (such as with Winnicott and Heimann). After the Controversial Discussions in 1944, Klein marginalized one group of supporters (Heimann, Winnicott, and Riviere) in favor of another group (Rosenfeld, Segal, and Bion). After Klein's death in 1960, Bion maintained loyalty to Klein's ideas while quietly distancing his work from the London Klein group, immigrating to the United States in 1968.     

FROM EXTENSION TO REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE IN CLINICAL PSYCHOANALYSIS: THE RADICAL INFLUENCE OF BION AND WINNICOTT

This paper addresses the radical departure of late Bion's and Winnicott's clinical ideas and practices from traditional psychoanalytic work, introducing a revolutionary change in clinical psychoanalysis. The profound significance and implications of their thinking are explored, and in particular Bion's conception of transformation in O and Winnicott's clinical‐technical revision of analytic work, with its emphasis on regression in the treatment of more disturbed patients. The author specifically connects the unknown and unknowable emotional reality‐O with unthinkable breakdown (Winnicott) and catastrophe (Bion). The author suggests that the revolutionary approach introduced by the clinical thinking of late Bion and Winnicott be termed quantum psychoanalysis. She thinks that this approach can coexist with classical psychoanalysis in the same way that classical physics coexists with quantum physics.     

THE STUDY AND TREATMENT OF MOTHERS AND INFANTS,THEN AND NOW: MELANIE KLEIN'S “NOTES ON BABY” IN A CONTEMPORARY PSYCHOANALYTIC CONTEXT

This paper draws on Melanie Klein's (unpublished) observational notes of her infant grandson, written primarily in 1938 and 1939. Apart from moving glimpses into a young family's life, the notes contain astute observations of an infant's behavior and emotions. Compared with Klein's published writings, the style is less theoretical and polemical. Later, in his latency years, Klein's grandson was in analysis with Marion Milner, who in 1952 published a paper drawing on the treatment. The present paper focuses on (1) how observations and treatment of the same child and his family by clinicians in close relationships with each other (Klein, Milner, and Winnicott) fertilized reciprocal influence but also brought into question the validity of Klein's observations, and (2) the relative merits and contributions of various modalities in understanding the infant's psyche, including experimental research, direct observation, parent–infant psychotherapy, and reconstructions from older patients—as occurs, for example, in psychoanalysis.     

FINDING THE SOMETHING IN NOTHING

Formless Infinity: Clinical Explorations of Matte Blanco and Bion. By Riccardo Lombardi. Translated by Karen Christenfeld, Gina Atkinson, Andrea Sabbadini, and Philip Slotkin. London/New York: Routledge, 2016. 282 pp.     

ONE BRAIN,TWO MINDS: AN ESSAY ON PRIMORDIAL AND ADVANCED MENTAL ACTIVITY

The Primordial Mind in Health and Illness: A Cross‐Cultural Perspective. By Michael Robbins. London/New York: Routledge, 2011. 240 pp.     

“THESE ANXIETIES ARE NOT MINE”: ADOLESCENCE,THE OEDIPAL CONFIGURATION,AND TRANSGENERATIONAL FACTORS

Part 1 of this paper draws on the film Back to the Future (1985) to highlight various aspects of adolescence, the oedipal situation, and transgenerational factors. The authors then discuss the Oedipus myth and its themes of adolescence, narcissism, identity, acting out, repetition, aggression, and the parent–child relationship, among others. Comments drawn from Winnicott's writing on oedipal issues are discussed as well. As an illustration of some of these issues, in Part 2, the authors present the clinical case of Osvaldo, age sixteen. Transference‐countertransference issues in this treatment are explored in depth.