The Bion Seminars at the A-Santamaría Association Clinical and Theoretical Explorations

Introduction

Jani Santamaría Linares 

1. Reading the Child and Adolescent Bion

Tim Smith

2. On Arrogance

Peter Goldberg

3. A Theory of Thinking

Tom Helscher

4. Differentiation of the Psychotic from the Non-Psychotic Personality: A Link between Early and Late Bion

Afsaneh Alisobhani

5. The Limitations of Language in the Psychic Realm

Annie Reiner

6. The Clinical Importance of Frustration

Nicola Abel-Hirsch

7. Attention and Interpretation

Howard Levine

8. Memory and Desire

Antonia Grimalt

9. Caesura

Avner Bergstein

10. Transformations

Joao Carlos Braga

11. Negative Capability: Navigating the Paradox in the Language of Achievement and the Language of Substitution

Afsaneh Alisobhani

Biography

Howard B. Levine is a member of APSA, PINE, the Contemporary Freudian Society and Pulsion; he is on the faculty of NYU Post-Doc’s Contemporary Freudian Track, on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Inquiry, editor-in-chief of the Routledge Wilfred Bion Studies Book Series and in private practice in Brookline, Massachusetts, USA.

Jani Santamaría Linares is a member of APSA, APM, FEPAL, IPA and the International Advisory Committee of the Routledge Bion Studies Book Series, director of A-Santamaría Psychoanalysis Mexico A.C., a training and supervising analyst for children and adolescents, a member of the International Committee of Spanish Language Psychoanalysts and in private practice in Mexico City.

'This book is a wonderful addition to the numerous volumes dealing with the work of Wilfred Bion. It offers a wide array of contributions and clinical illustrations written by an impressive international group of authors and will deepen the reader’s understanding and breadth of Bion’s writings. I highly recommend it to clinicians on all levels of training who are interested in the study of Bion’s works and their application to psychoanalytic practice and theory.'

Lawrence J. Brown, Ph.D, editor of On Freud’s Moses and Monotheism (2023) and author of Transformational Processes in Clinical Psychoanalysis (2019)

'The Bion Seminars at the A-Santamaria Association: Clinical and Theoretical Explorations is an enlightening and stimulating collection of chapters that delve deeply into the complexities of the human psyche as reflected in some of Wilfred Bion's most beautiful writings. Each chapter offers unique insights and perspectives that contribute to a comprehensive exploration of psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice. From the concept of the imaginary twin to negative capability and the concept of "transformation," this book navigates the intricacies of Bion's psychoanalysis with expertise and finesse. The contributors, Peter Goldberg, Tom Helscher, Afsaneh Alisobhani, Annie Reiner, Nicola Abel-Hirsch, Howard Levine, Antonia Grimalt, Avner Bergstein, and Joao Carlos Braga, offer perspectives and intuitions that challenge conventional wisdom and expand our understanding of the human experience. Whether exploring Bion's issues about the limits of language or the meaning of frustration, these chapters invite readers on a journey that will leave them with a passionate picture of one of the most original and thought-provoking writers in the history of psychoanalysis. This book is a valuable resource for clinicians, researchers, and anyone in the field of humanities interested in what psychoanalysis can tell us about the essence of our humanity.'

Giuseppe Civitarese, author of Psychoanalytic Field Theory: A Contemporary Introduction (2022)