The Post-Bionian Field Theory of Antonino Ferro: Theoretical Analysis and Clinical Application

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.