The Clinical Thinking of W. R. Bion in Brazil Supervisions and Commentaries

Foreword

Introduction: A route into the supervisions

NICOLA ABEL-HIRSCH

1 Supervision A13

Supervision A13 commentary

MARLI CLAUDETE BRAGA

2 Supervision A12

Supervision A12 commentary

GISÈLE DE MATTOS BRITO

3 Supervision D2

Supervision D2 commentary

CELSO ANTONIO VIEIRA DE CAMARGO

4 Supervision D10

Supervision D10 commentary

EVELISE DE SOUZA MARRA

5 Supervision D4

Supervision D4 commentary: Entering and leaving the mine

RUGGERO LEVY

6 Supervision D6

Supervision D6 commentary

JOSÉ RENATO AVZARADEL

7 Supervision D1

Supervision D1 commentary

CLAUDIO CASTELO FILHO

8 Supervision D9

Supervision D9 commentary

ALTAMIRANDO M. ANDRADE

9 Supervision A19

Supervision A19 commentary

CECIL JOSÉ REZZE

10 Supervision A15

Supervision A15 commentary

DEOCLECIANO BENDOCCHI ALVES

11 Supervision A35

Supervision A35 commentary

JUAREZ GUEDES CRUZ

12 Supervision S24

Supervision S24 commentary

MARTA FOSTER

13 Supervision D7

Supervision D7 commentary

ALDO LUIZ DUARTE

Biography

Howard B. Levine is a private practitioner in Brookline, Massachusetts, USA. He is editor-in-chief of the Routledge Wilfred R. Bion Studies Book Series, the author of Affect, Representation and Language: Between the Silence and the Cry (2021) and has edited and co-edited Unrepresented States and the Construction of Meaning (2013), André Green Revisited: Representation and the Work of the Negative (2018), The Post-Bionian Field Theory of Antonino Ferro (2021), and The Freudian Matrix of André Green (2023).

Gisèle de Mattos Brito is a Training and Supervising Analyst of the Psychoanalytic Society of Minas Gerais (SBPMG), Brazil, a full member of the Psychoanalytic Society of São Paulo (SBPSP), Brazil, and a former President of SBPMG. She co-edited the first volume of Bion in Brazil (2017) and is the author of many book chapters and scientific papers published in regional, national, and international psychoanalytic journals. Since 2009, she has coordinated the study of Bion's Supervision Seminars at the Society of São Paulo.

José Américo Junqueira de Mattos is a member and Training and Supervising Analyst of the Brazilian Society of Psychoanalysis of São Paulo and the Brazilian Society of Psychoanalysis of Ribeirão Preto. He has published many papers both in Brazil and abroad and is responsible for the preservation of Bion’s Brazilian Supervisions. Since the beginning of his career, he has been interested in the ideas of Bion, who was his analyst.

'This is an extraordinary book. These encounters with Bion and his interlocutors, followed by a rich panoply of commentaries, are thrilling, moving, sometimes funny, occasionally dangerous and deeply wise.'

Anne Alvarez, author of The Thinking Heart (Routledge, 2012)

'Levine, de Mattos Brito and Junqueiro de Mattos have given us an invaluable gift - an additional collection of seminars, accompanied by perceptive commentaries, which take us into the heart of Bion's clinical thinking, providing us with another vertex from which to observe the complexity of his thinking. Bion does not agree to take on the role of the one who knows, but rather takes us on an excursion through his mind, in the attempt to listen and find words for the ineffable emotional experience. Bion allows himself to be stimulated by the material presented to him, guided by his faith in the psychoanalytic method. If we agree to surrender to this way of listening, we too can be suddenly struck and moved by a new thought that dawns on us. Bion illustrates his way of working, always deeply aware of the immense difficulty in being an analyst, in finding "a language which conveys what you want it to convey, and at the same time, which the patient could understand", struggling against the perpetual "pressure to become insensitive, to grow a crust".'

Avner Bergstein, Israel Psychoanalytic Society; author of Bion and Meltzer's Expeditions into Unmapped Mental Life (Routledge, 2018)

'It is impossible not to be enthusiastic about this book. These fully recorded events offer readers the opportunity to follow Bion, as he expresses his ideas across 13 supervisions during his four visits to Brazil. Bion’s comments reflect his evolving interest in working with the undifferentiated layers of the mind and the application of his intuitive approach. Additional layers of thought are added by the accompanying commentaries of senior Brazilian psychoanalysts, along with a precious Introduction by Nicola Abel-Hirsch.'

João Carlos Braga, Full Member, Supervisor, and Training Analyst at São Paulo’s Brazilian Psychoanalytic Society and Psychoanalytic Group of Curitiba.