BION'S GRAPH OF "IN SEARCH OF EXISTENCE".

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.

Music beyond sounds and its magic in the clinical process.

This paper highlights the role of music in psychic change through a clinical case. A patient, who was initially distant and cold, started to talk about music. An enactment around the analyst's comment about a famous conductor, started an exchange of music "notes" that changed the course of treatment. For the analyst, it brought old memories and musical reveries. For the patient, music allowed him to be in touch with undiscovered parts of himself and losses that had not been mourned. There was a mutual personal transformation and expanding awareness of self and other for both participants.

[Bedtime ritual and ambivalence in the parent-child bond]. / Rituel du coucher et ambivalence dans le lien parents-enfant.

Parents express ambivalent feelings of love and hatred towards their baby. These feelings are particularly related to the child's night wakings and the resulting sleep deprivation. The occurrence of night-time childhood phobias constitutes an organiser of the child's psychic life in order to implement the separation from the mother. Parental psychic positions are therefore very important at bedtime.

THE HIDDEN VOICES: EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE AND UNCONSCIOUS COMMUNICATION IN THE ANALYTIC SPACE.

In a previous work I tried to show how a parent's traumatic experiences can weigh on the following generations, approaching these phenomena in terms of introjection and incorporation. Traumatized patients who inherited such burdens suffered a block of their vital abilities, and are then challenged to later acquire the ability to symbolize what had remained unelaborated by previous generations. Accidental impressions, foreign to the patient's story, possibly a result of a certain pre-understanding of the patient's unconscious communications, emerge in countertransference and may reveal hitherto unexpressed dimensions, dissociated psychic areas of the patient.

Unconscious perception and reverie: an intersubjective connection.

This paper discusses an intriguing topic for psychoanalysis: the concept of unconscious communication. Beginning with the concept of unconscious perception, it moves on to figurability and culminates with reverie. Auxiliary concepts, such as receptive unconscious, intersubjectivtiy, countertransferrence and empathy, are discussed in order to articulate the conceptual network on which theoretical arguments are based.

Bion's Transformations and Clinical Practice.

Wilfred Bion's contributions to psychoanalysis are numerous: his early work on the psychology of groups that grew out of his experiences in the first World War; theories and work on the treatment of psychosis with Melanie Klein and later psychoanalysis with her; and the beginning of his own theoretical and clinical ideas, which nurtured analytic thinking and treatment approaches beginning in the mid-1960's followed by his relocation to the United States (1967). Bion's thinking can be deceptively simple, such as his statement that his third book, Transformations (1965), considered by many as exceptionally dense, is about "the communication of both patient and analyst about an emotional experience" (p. 29).

Wondering and Wandering: In Defense of Free Association and the Fundamental Rule.

"Free association" and the "fundamental rule" are bedrock for psychoanalytic therapy and apply to what both patient and analyst should experience in the process. The article traces Sigmund Freud's revolutionary recognition of the importance of free association that began with his tribute to the works of Ludwig Börne and Friedrich Schiller. The author invokes other proposals akin to free association made by artists and scientists, including John Keats, Charles Dickens, Robert Frost, Thomas S. Kuhn, Arthur Koestler, and Albert Einstein. While emphasizing the importance and the liberatory potential of free association as it relates to effective treatment and discovery, the author contends that there is a "moral press" for both the patient and the analyst to permit free associative thoughts, particularly to question assumptions about how things are supposed to be.

Playing, Paradox, and Analytic Activity Between Knowing and Being.

The author explores some ways that we help patients to hold paradoxical realities intrinsic to transference and play in analytic work. He suggests that Winnicott's guardianship of the setting for the emergence of playing raises questions about the role of neutrality in an ontological analysis. The author tries to demonstrate some ways that the work of helping patients to hold paradox in play overlaps with a concept that he has earlier referred to as an activity of neutrality. He explores how in the analytic process, understanding and being are two dimensions of the analytic process that work in concert with each other. Often the analyst works quietly in spaces between epistemological and ontological approaches in the holding of paradox.

Receptivity to the Weight and Heft of the Natural World in our Inner Selves.

Through the literary explorations and poetry of Alice Oswald, and through analysis of detailed clinical material from a Kleinian perspective, the authors expand the bounds of reverie as it is usually construed in psychoanalytic consulting rooms. The authors draw attention to the presence of a relationship to the more-than-human world as an integral aspect of our internal experience, and to the value of consideration of the quality and dynamic meaning of connections to the natural world in ordinary analytic work. The relationship to the primary object heavily influences the form taken by the relationship to the natural world, but once established, this connection has the possibility for a life of its own, that can provide a different kind of containment than the human variety, allow experimentation with new ways of being, and can strengthen the ego. The authors address the clinical implications of listening enhanced by an ear for affiliation to the natural world.

Intuition and we-ness in Bion and post-Bionian field theory.

"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".

The Process of Case Writing: A Fourth Pillar of Analytic Training.

The educational and clinical effects of the process of case writing during analytic training have not been extensively studied, even though the case report, as a product, has prompted attempts to make it a more revealing and accurate document. Countertransference experiences during an analysis can constrain both the candidate's writing and the analytic work, while examining them during the writing process can deepen the candidate's analytic work. Three overlapping resistances to the writing, and their underlying anxieties, are described. These are publication resistances: concerns about the anticipated reception of the candidate's work by potentially critical readers; transference resistances: feelings toward the analytic institute that requires the writing; and countertransference or reimmersion resistances: fears of reawakening reactions from the analysis. These can interfere with finding a safe internal space in which to write. Examples are given of writing through of these resistances during case supervision, resulting in more open writing and in a deepening of the analytic work. As the case writing process can have direct and potentially profound effects on the candidate's current and future analytic work, it is proposed that the process of case writing is a fourth pillar of analytic training, in addition to the candidate's personal analysis, case supervision, and didactic seminars.

Abolishing the Captivity of a Tyrannized Woman: Evidence of Bion's Concept of the Contact-Barrier as Manifested in Dreams.

Bion's notion of the contact-barrier formulates a semipermeable membrane responsible for preserving the distinction between the conscious and the unconscious. However, the question of how a newly established contact-barrier manifests itself in dreams remains unanswered. The author proposes that one such manifestation occurs when a patient sees themself asleep in a dream. A case of a severely traumatized woman who had difficulty thinking and being close to others is used to explore these clinical ideas. The author, in response to his reveries in a session, introduced a playful dream-like dialogue between a playwright and his reader. The nature of the communication, in functioning as a barrier, served to protect the patient from a tyrannizing reality: the therapist's sexuality. This intersubjective barrier helped the patient to contact dissociated and damaged parts of herself, and it also facilitated her ability to dream a sense of her own boundaries, femininity, and sexuality.

Raw reveries, polaroid reveries: Some hypotheses about possible functions and technical uses of reveries in the session.

The author tries to show how the epiphany of a reverie during a session can become a source of unexpected intuitions about the essence and possible figurability of the emotional experience which is flowing in the here-and-now of the analytic life. Reverie becomes an important analytic source above all when an analyst is in contact with primordial states of the mind, characterized by turbulences of unrepresentable feelings and sensations. In this paper the author outlines a hypothetical kit of functions, technical uses and analytic effects of a reverie in an analytic process, working through the idea of analysis as the transformation in dreaming of the nightmares and terrors which beset and trouble the patient's mind. In particular the author describes: (a) the use of reverie as a criterion of analysability in first consultation meetings; (b) the specificity of two different types of reverie, which the author names reveries polaroid and raw reveries; and (c) the possible disclosure of a reverie in case of a specific kind of reverie that the author calls polaroid reverie. Sketches of analytic life become living portraits of the hypothesis proposed by the author about these different possible uses of a reverie in analytic work, as a probe and resource for beginning and developing a course of analysis that engages with archaic and presymbolic areas of psychic functioning.

To Feel in My Flesh: Receptivity, Resonance, Representation, and The Beta Screen.

When we are confronted with the challenge of trying to fully convey or describe something about human life and emotional experience, we find ourselves up against the very limitations of language. This problem becomes especially relevant as we attempt to expand psychoanalytic theory so as to enable us to "approach a mental life unmapped by the theories elaborated for the understanding of neurosis" (Bion1962, p. 37). This paper seeks to aid in that expansion by revisiting Bion's early writings about the beta screen, extending his conclusions about communication from the psychotic part of the mind to the broad area of the unrepresented (the unstructured unconscious), suggesting that there is often a potentially communicative meaning, a mute plea for intersubjective regulatory assistance (alpha function), embedded in the unconscious evocation of emotions in the object and that this cry for help may be encrypted in even the most seemingly destructive, resistant and oppositional patients.

A Letter from Winnicott to Bion: An Imaginative Conjecture to Illustrate a Paradigm Transformation.

On the evening of October 5, 1955, Bion presented the paper Differentiation between the psychotic and non-psychotic personalities to the British Society of Psychoanalysis. Two days later, on October seventh, Winnicott commented on Bion's paper in a letter and in particular, discussed its clinical material. The author makes use of this exchange to examine how the transformations that took place in Bion's thought and Winnicott's contributions helped bring about a quantum revolution of the psychoanalytic paradigm. These may have facilitated the transition from an epistemological psychoanalysis (where what matters is what the analyst knows and what the patient comes to know about himself) to an ontological psychoanalysis (where the presence of the analyst becomes crucial-everything that the analyst is and the way in which he manages to become the patient's emotional experience). And what we witness in ontological psychoanalysis is a significant clinical transformation in which a theory of technique that focuses on interpretation can coexist with a theory of technique enriched, in the author's perspective, with new tools that make it possible to treat the most severely ill patients.

Working with patients with disruptions in symbolic capacity.

This article focuses on understanding and working with patients who have poorly developed symbolic capacity, or for whom symbolic capacity has been disrupted due to trauma, particularly as it pertains to the use of reverie and interpretation in the analytic process. Many patients who present for Jungian analysis will initially present with deficits in symbolic functioning. This situation results in necessary limitations or modifications in utilizing traditional Jungian techniques such as dream analysis, active imagination, sand tray and other expressive art techniques. The initial phase of analytic work with these patients requires a focus on developing their symbolic capacity before traditional Jungian techniques can be utilized effectively. During the paper Jung's concept of 'the symbolic attitude' will be examined as well as the conceptual models of Wilfred Bion and other post-Bionians who outline theories and method for cultivating symbolic capacity and reflective functioning in patients for whom these capacities are impaired or poorly developed.

Cet article se concentre sur la compréhension et le travail avec des patients dont la capacité symbolique est mal développée, ou pour qui la capacité symbolique a été perturbée par le traumatisme. Ceci concerne tout particulièrement l'utilisation de la rêverie et de l'interprétation dans le processus analytique. Beaucoup de patients qui viennent pour une analyse Jungienne montrent initialement des déficits dans le fonctionnement symbolique. Ceci a pour conséquence des limitations nécessaires ou des modifications dans l'utilisation de techniques traditionnelles Jungiennes telles l'analyse des rêves, l'imagination active, la thérapie par le jeu de sable et autres techniques d'expression par l'art. La phase initiale du travail analytique avec ces patients requiert de mettre l'accent sur le développement de leur capacité symbolique avant que les techniques Jungiennes traditionnelles puissent être utilisée de manière efficace. Dans l'article, le concept Jungien 'd'attitude symbolique' sera étudié ainsi que les modèles conceptuels de Wilfred Bion et d'autres post-Bioniens qui présentent des théories et une méthode pour cultiver la capacité symbolique et le fonctionnement réfléchi chez des patients pour qui ces capacités sont déficientes ou mal développées.

El presente artículo se focaliza en la comprensión y trabajo con pacientes que han tenido un desarrollo limitado de su capacidad simbólica, o para quienes, la capacidad simbólica se ha visto perturbada debido a un trauma, particularmente en lo que se refiere al uso del reverie y de la interpretación en el proceso analítico. Muchos pacientes que se presentan para un análisis Junguiano, presentan inicialmente deficitis en su funcionamiento simbólico. Esta situación tiene como resultado limitaciones necesarias o modificaciones en la utilización de técnicas Junguianas tradicionales como el análisis de sueños, la imaginación activa, la caja de arena y otras técnicas artísticas y expresivas. La fase inicial del trabajo analítico con estos pacientes requiere hacer foco en el desarrollo de su capacidad simbólica antes de que técnicas Junguianas tradicionales puedan utilizarse efectivamente. Durante el escrito se examina el concepto de Jung de `actitud simbólica`, así como los modelos conceptuales de Wilfred Bion y otros post-Bionianos quienes describen teorías y métodos para cultivar la capacidad simbólica y el funcionamiento reflexivo en pacientes para quienes estas capacidades se encuentran perturbadas o poco desarrolladas.

Becoming a mother when suffering from a chronic illness.

Introduction: The critical period of early motherhood when facing serious health problems constitutes a major public health issue. The disease may interfere with, influence, and compound the difficulties experienced over the course of pregnancy and during the parenthood processes. These processes are to be understood as a passage involving so many changes and fraught with difficulties leading to a series of psychological mobilizations. Illness also needs to be considered as a moment of transition, sometimes of severance, marking the lives of the people concerned in a more or less lasting way. Various developments are possible, some of which can be envisaged as leading to more positive outcomes, while others appear as if blocked or doomed to failure. Clinical data and method: This clinical study is the result of twelve analytically oriented psychotherapeutic follow-ups. The sessions took place weekly over periods ranging from 1 to 6 years. Some of the patients we met had become pregnant while they had a declared but not yet chronic nephropathy. The other patients were already on dialysis and had become mother before starting dialysis. There is also one instance of a pregnant patient on dialysis. In the background, there are also many women who talked about giving up fertility and motherhood. After an in-depth study of each follow-up, a cross-sectional study was conducted to identify the main themes. Results and discussion: Main considerations on the psychotherapeutic treatment: We regularly observe people who find it impossible to muster the internal resources that would enable them to deal with the trials they undergo in such situations. For the psychologist, there is a need to listen to archaic remnants. Gradually, in the space of psychotherapeutic work, possibilities of "reanimation" of the psyche emerge, an internal space that renews fantasmatic activity as it begins to be able to project into the external space and into the space of the sessions.

Stance, Set, Transference: The Differentiation of Two Modes of Clinical Technique.

Comparative approaches to psychoanalytic theory are a major source of exposure to different theoretical orientations and clinical technique. However, it is not always clear what the analyst actually does when translating theory into practice. As an attempt at clarification, descriptions are provided of two listening stances or attentional sets that are associated with different modes of analytic listening. These modes reside at a relatively low level of abstraction and are experience-near. The two listening stances are (1) a directed attentional set aimed at the identification of conscious or unconscious repetitious patterns, and (2) a diffuse attentional set receptive to emergent phenomena for the purpose of elaborating unconscious fantasy. These listening modes are combined in everyday practice and usually occur in an oscillating fashion; thus, separation of these listening modes in this discussion is for heuristic purposes. At the same time, these modes are prioritized differently among various theoretical models depending on the analyst's intention and goals. They also can be correlated with different types of transferences, evoking different types of clinical material that correspond to the analyst's goals and/or to phases in treatment. Because these attentional modes are governed by different neurophysiological substrates, it is helpful for analysts to have these modes clearly differentiated in their minds, even though engaging these modes tends to be spontaneous and rapidly oscillating. Two clinical vignettes are provided that illustrate the use of these two modes of listening where one or the other is prioritized.

Hot Feelings: Sexual Transference and Countertransference with Male Mid-Adolescents and a Female Psychoanalyst.

The author focuses on the workings of the female analyst-male pair in the consulting room when sexual feelings emerge as part of the adolescent storm. The need for open-bodiedness in relation to the perception of the bodily states of both the analyst and analysand is described and discussed. The author shows how somatic countertransference, reverie, and projective identification are harnessed creatively in the service of transformation. The importance of the third to help provide an analytic space for thought and meaning, rather than enactment and impasse, is discussed. The trajectory from the analyst's wish to silence sexual transference and countertransference in the consulting room, followed by the analyst's initial reluctance to discuss the hot feelings with colleagues, and then the impact of publication anxiety when writing through the experiences and revising this paper is described.

Whispering at the edges: engaging ephemeral phenomena.

This paper conceptualizes the analyst's capacity to recognize and engage ephemeral phenomena in the analytic setting as an essential pillar of deep analytic engagement. It proposes that the analyst's capacity to engage the ephemeral is an ongoing developmental progression which complements and deepens the other areas of analytic knowledge acquired during analytic training such as theory, technique, archetypal patterns, psychopathology and development. The paper provides a working definition of the ephemeral and focuses on the phenomenological experience of the ephemeral. It also discusses the use of reverie in ephemeral engagement and the use of poetry to develop the analyst's sensitivity and responsivity to ephemeral moments.

Cet article conceptualise la capacité de l'analyste à reconnaitre et à collaborer avec les phénomènes éphémères dans le cadre analytique comme un pilier essentiel pour une implication analytique profonde. L'article propose que cette capacité de l'analyste à impliquer l'éphémère est une progression, développementale et continue, qui vient compléter et approfondir les autres domaines de la connaissance analytique, acquis durant la formation analytique comme la théorie, la technique, les schémas archétypaux, la psychopathologie et le développement. L'article fournit une définition basique de l'éphémère et se concentre sur l'expérience phénoménologique de l'éphémère. Il aborde aussi l'utilisation de la rêverie dans la collaboration avec l'éphémère et l'utilisation de la poésie pour développer la sensibilité de l'analyste et sa réceptivité aux moments éphémères.

El presente trabajo conceptualiza la capacidad del analista para reconocer y captar fenómenos efímeros en el espacio analítico como un pilar esencial del compromiso analítico profundo. Propone que la capacidad del analista para captar lo efímero en una progresión continua en desarrollo, complementa y profundiza otras áreas del conocimiento analítico adquiridas durante la formación analítica como teoría, técnica, patrones arquetipales, psicopatología y desarrollo. El trabajo ofrece una definición en progreso de lo efímero y se focaliza en la experiencia fenomenológica de lo efímero. También examina el uso del reverie en la captación de lo efímero y el uso de la poesía para desarrollar la sensibilidad del analista y su receptividad a momentos efímeros.

Este artigo conceitua a capacidade do analista de reconhecer e envolver fenômenos efêmeros no ambiente analítico como um pilar essencial do profundo engajamento analítico. Propõe que a capacidade do analista de envolver o efêmero é uma progressão contínua do desenvolvimento que complementa e aprofunda as outras áreas do conhecimento analítico adquiridas durante o treinamento analítico, como teoria, técnica, padrões arquetípicos, psicopatologia e desenvolvimento. O artigo fornece uma definição funcional do efêmero e se concentra na experiência fenomenológica do efêmero. Também discute o uso do devaneio no engajamento efêmero e o uso da poesia para desenvolver a sensibilidade e a responsividade do analista a momentos efêmeros.