The analytic field as bipersonal and multidimensional container

Abstract

The title of this article encapsulates an approach to the notion of the analytic field where the contributions of the Barangers and Bion converge, opening up new perspectives that the author began to explore together with Antonino Ferro in the late 1980s and early 1990s. While the explicit formulation of a bipersonal field model should be credited to the Barangers, it is perhaps less widely known that the term “field” also features in Bion’s writings, with a meaning that is often generic but occasionally bears more specific connotations: for example, when he assimilates the analytic situation into a multidimensional field. In the light of Bion’s theory of thinking, the unconscious dynamics of the analytic field is determined not only by crossed projective identifications, but also by the dream-work of the couple, resulting from the alpha-function of both subjects. Thus, the Barangers’ concept of bastions can be combined with that of functional aggregates (Bezoari and Ferro), understood as animated holograms allowing a shared representation of the ongoing emotional experiences.

Key words:

• Baranger
• Bion
• bipersonal field
• multidimensional field
• emotional atmosphere
• functional aggregates

Notes

1 For example, the Italian translation published in 1971 rendered the expression “emotional field” with different phrases that attached no specific theoretical meaning to the term field. While in one occurrence it reads “atteggiamento emotivo” (emotional attitude; Bion, 1963; Italian edition, 1971, p. 53), it then becomes “stato affettivo” (affective state; p. 53) or “situazione emotiva” (emotional situation; p. 90)

2 A footnote where Bion associates multidimensionality to the mathematical concept of “vector space” suggests that the use of this particular metaphor is not coincidental.

3 Freud (1921) had already talked about a “group formation with two members” with reference to the hypnotic relationship. Ferenczi (1925) subsequently reused this phrase, deeming it relevant also to the analytic situation.

4 Meltzer underscores how, in analysis, “it is the mutual adaptation between the analyst’s attention and attitude, and the patient’s tendency to cooperate, that form and seal the container” (1986, pp. 265–266).

5 Just like Corrao (1981) devised the use of the notion of gamma-function (γ) as the group equivalent of the alpha-function, a specific term (such as, for instance, delta-function) could also be considered for the couple – much in the way the Ancient Greek language envisaged a dual form alongside singular and plural.

6 The notion of emotional atmosphere has been addressed with great clinical sensitivity and acute theoretical reflections by Dina Vallino Macciò (1992), who has shown its value as a tool (also in child analysis) to identify the “meteorological” characteristics of the emotional field.

7 “The classic psycho-analytic view supposed the mind or personality to be identical with the physical identity of a person. The object of my proposal is to do away with such a limitation” (Bion, 1992, p. 314).

8 See for instance pages 181–182, as well as the already quoted pp. 313–314.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michele Bezoari

Michele Bezoari, MD, is a psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst in private practice in Pavia, Italy. He graduated in medicine (1971) and specialized in psychiatry (1976) at the University of Pavia. For about twenty years he was a university researcher, working and teaching at the Psychiatric Clinic of the University of Pavia. In 1981 he started his training at the Società Psicoanalitica Italiana. In 1986 he became a member, and since 1995 he has been a full member of both the Società Psicoanalitica Italiana and the International Psychoanalytic Association. Even as a psychoanalyst he has continued to carry out research activities, dealing in particular with psychoanalytic conceptual research.