“If something happens, it happens ’between’ A and B, not only in A or only in B. In the consulting room, this implies a precise conception of what may be the key factor: to make a mind, another mind is needed. If one mind is struggling to grow, the other is failing in the task of nourishing it.” (Civitarese, 2014, p.6)
Throughout his theoretical and clinical writings, Giuseppe Civitarese develops a psychoanalytic aesthetic paradigm based on concepts introduced by Bion. At the centre of the change brought about by Bionian thinking is the function of transformation and symbolic creation. Within this approach, Bion’s waking dream thought is central to Civitarese’s focus on ‘dreaming the session’.
The overall objective of this course is to have introduced the participant to the work of Civitarese and to his unique manner of exploring the complexity of unconscious meaning by the end of the series. Each seminar will begin with a discussion of the assigned readings. During the second half of each seminar the class will experience the presented clinical material and search for new ways to “dream the session” while developing a deeper appreciation of the transformative power of the psychoanalytic encounter.
Schedule & Location:
The seminars will be held on Fridays 4 pm – 7 pm at the Arbutus Club.
There will be a theoretical component in the first half, followed by a break, and a clinical segment in the second half in which participants will present case material on the dates they have signed up for with the class representative.
Dates:
November 24 & December 8, 2017
January 5 and 19, February 9 and 23, and March 23, April 13, 2018
Organizing Chair:
Coleen Gold, MA, BCATR, FIPA
Instructors:
Coleen Gold, Endre Koritar, Judy Setton-Markus, Taki Caldis,
Janet Oakes, Karin Holland-Biggs, Catherine Young.
Class representative:
Joseph Eliezer
Cost:
$320 General Registration
$200 Students, Residents and Candidates
Readings: All readings will be made available through an online link to PDFs upon registration.
Course Outline
Session 1: November 24, 2017
Next to Boardroom – Coleen Gold
Learning Objectives – At the end of this seminar, participants will:
1. Recognize the emphasis that analytic field theory places on metaphoric discourse which is open, unsaturated, conveys emotions and creates meaning.
2. Begin to appreciate how metaphors appear to analysts as narrative transformations.
Readings:
1. Civitarese, G. and Ferro, A. (2015). The meaning and use of metaphor in analytic field theory. In: The Analytic Field and Its Transformations. London: Karnac Books Ltd, pp.1-28.
Session 2: December 8, 2017
Boardroom – Endre Koritar
Learning Objectives – At the end of this seminar, participants will:
1. Become more aware of the distinctive qualities of the internal setting in which an analysis takes place and the importance of the analyst’s creation of a ‘dream space’.
2. Learn to recognize that when an action enters the scene unconsciously during an analytic session it is often an attempt to reinstate or heal the setting.
Readings:
1. Civitarese, G. (2013). The analyst’s internal setting and its discontents. In The Violence of Emotions. New York: Routledge, pp. 158-172.
2. Civitarese, G. (2016). Embodied Field and Somatic Reverie. In: Truth and the Unconscious in Psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge, pp. 40-52.
Session 3: January 5, 2018
Boardroom – Judy Setton-Markus
Learning Objectives – At the end of this seminar, participants will:
1. Appreciate that it makes no sense to exclusively attribute the images generated during a session to either the analyst or the patient but rather experience them as an opportunity to sense the emotions present in the field.
2. Have thought about how the impact of the emotions that register on the psyche of drives are really thoughts waiting for a thinker but may not necessarily be transformed into emotions felt with the clarity of consciousness.
Readings:
1. Civitarese, G. (2016). Beneath, behind or inside? The un/conscious in clinical work. In: Truth and the Unconscious in Psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge, pp.111-120.
2. Civitarese, G. (2016). The un/conscious as a psychoanalytic function. In: Truth and the Unconscious in Psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge, pp. 84-110.
Session 4: January 19, 2018
Boardroom – Taki Caldis
Learning Objectives – At the end of this seminar, participants will:
1. Have considered the foundation of the analytic relationship to exist not as two separate subjectivities but as the simultaneous dialectic of oneness and twoness.
2. Be familiar with Civitarese’s version of Ferro’s concept of the analytic field and some of its unique properties.
Readings:
1. Civitarese, G. (2016). Intermediarity as an epistemological paradigm in Psychoanalysis. In: Truth and the Unconscious in Psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge, pp.174-191.
Session 5: February 9, 2018
Boardroom – Janet Oakes
Learning Objectives – At the end of this seminar, participants will:
1. Be introduced to how Ferro uses the theories of Bion and the Barrangers to work clinically with someone exhibiting “severe pathology”.
2. Become more familiar with the concept of ‘characters’ appearing in the analytic space as an expression of the combined group formed by the patient, the analyst and the third (the interaction between) and as an articulation of the emotional dynamic in the here and now of the session.
Readings:
1. Civitarese, G. and Ferro, A. (2015). Clara’s panic attacks. In: The Analytic Field and Its Transformations. London: Karnac Books Ltd., pp. 171-190.
Session 6: February 23, 2018
Strathcona Room – Karin Holland-Biggs
Learning Objectives – At the end of this seminar, participants will:
1. Be introduced to the idea of the dynamic interplay of circular time (mental time) and linear time as essential in the construction of the mind in analytic field theory.
2. Deepen clinical awareness of the use of reverie as a catalytic element in the technique of analytic field theory.
Readings:
1. Civitarese, G. and Ferro, A. (2015). Spacings. In: The Analytic Field Theory and Its Transformations. London: Karnac Books Ltd., pp.69-85.
Civitarese Conference, March 9-10, 2018
Session 7: March 23, 2018
Boardroom – Coleen Gold
Post-conference Debrief #1
Learning Objectives – At the end of this seminar, participants will:
1. Have considered the requirement that the analyst offer authentic hospitality which requires taking responsibility for one’s own numerous selves, the constitutional otherness of the ego and of everything that is human.
2. Be able to view the problem of hypochondria within the context of the subject as a social entity and the ego as a product of discourse of power.
Readings:
1. Civitarese, G. (2013). The burning body. In: The Violence of Emotions. New York: Routledge, pp. 50-73.
Session 8: April 13, 2018
Boardroom – Catherine Young
Post-conference Debrief #2
(Spontaneous case vignettes in the place of a clinical case presentation)
Learning Objectives – At the end of this seminar, participants will:
1. Have compared the concepts of transformations in dreaming, reverie and transformations in hallucinosis.
2. Begin to recognize the importance of transformations in hallucinosis in its capacity to lead us to hallucinate reality and to live what can be defined as waking sleep.
Readings:
1. Civitarese, G. (2016). Transformations in hallucinosis and the receptivity of the analyst. In: Truth and The Unconscious in Psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge, pp. 53-83.