This book provides a clear thorough and accessible introduction to the work of Antonino Ferro and draws on the clinical vignettes that punctuate his writings to show how Ferro has built on Bion’s revolutionary achievements to develop a distinctive game-changing version of field theory in psychoanalysis. The book clarifies the phenomenological insight that the analyst and the patient together generate an ever-evolving intersubjective field. Rather than the supposed psychology of the individual it is this populous and multidimensional field a co-created ‘in-between’ rich in characters and stories that is to be explored and elaborated. The primary points of access to this new ‘multiverse’ are dream reverie metaphor and imagination. A radical Negative Capability is called for not least to help dissolve co-constructed ‘bastions’ obstructing the field’s expansion. The book sketches out the Italian and international context in which Ferro developed his thinking and addresses some key critical questions. It concludes that Ferro’s life’s work which marries theoretical rigour with a revitalising increase in playfulness and freedom of response is a transformational force within psychoanalysis and a major catalyst in its evolution. This important volume is rewarding reading for beginning and seasoned analysts alike as well as for psychotherapists counsellors humanities scholars and anyone interested in psychoanalysis. |Antonino Ferro A Contemporary Introduction | Mental Health
