A Rhinoceros with a Butterfly Heart: Antonino Ferro in Conversation with Giuseppe Civitarese

ABSTRACT

At the time I was specializing in psychiatry in Pavia, Antonino Ferro was already a famous analyst. Although we lived in the same city, because of the age difference, I did not know him personally. He was no longer working in the clinical services of psychiatry, but only privately. I only really got to know him through his books. My first distinct memory of him, some thirty years ago, was when, in association with a dream of mine, I expressed to my analyst the enthusiasm I was experiencing from reading his book on the technique of child psychoanalysis.¹

¹ A. Ferro, 1992, The Bi-Personal Field: Experiences in Child Analysis, London: Routledge, 1999.

It was incredible the sense of freedom, creativity, humanity that I felt in that text and in others that I later got hold of. Afterward, it was the most natural thing in the world to ask him to be one of my supervisors for analytical training. We worked together for six years. Then, after becoming an analyst, a strong bond of collaboration and friendship developed, as evidenced, among other things, by the three books we published together.²

² The Analytic Field and its Transformations, 2015, London: Routledge, 2018; A Short Introduction to Psychoanalysis, London: Routledge, 2020; Playing and Vitality in Psychoanalysis, London: Routledge, 2022.

In both of us, curiosity and passion for psychoanalysis are more alive than ever, although there is also a hint of bitterness, because of the sometimes gratuitous difficulties that, as it is well known, you suffer in the life of psychoanalytic institutions everywhere. The idea that guided me in conducting the interview (perhaps, more of a conversation) was to bring out the figure of Ferro not so much as a scholar – for that there is an abundance of literature available – but as a person. I will say no more, so as to leave readers with the pleasure (I hope) of reading. I would just like to express my gratitude to Daniel Goldin, editor of this issue of Psychoanalytic Inquiry, for giving me the opportunity of being part of this very interesting project.

KEYWORDS:

• Bion
• dream
• drama
• narrative
• bidirectional field
• transference
• metaphor

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ A. Ferro, 1992, The Bi-Personal Field: Experiences in Child Analysis, London: Routledge, 1999.

² The Analytic Field and its Transformations, 2015, London: Routledge, 2018; A Short Introduction to Psychoanalysis, London: Routledge, 2020; Playing and Vitality in Psychoanalysis, London: Routledge, 2022.

³ S: Seligman, Relationships in Development. Infancy, Intersubjectivity and Attachment. London: Routledge, 2017.

⁴ “Animula vagula blandula” is the first line of a poem in the Augustan History attributed to the emperor Hadrian. It means: “wandering, graceful little soul” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animula_vagula_blandula).

⁵ See U. Eco, 1962, The Open Work, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989.

⁶ In Italian: “mangiadischi”, literally “records-eater”.

⁷ F. Brusati, director, 1974, Italy.

⁸ W. Baranger, La situazione psicoanalitica come campo bipersonale, Raffaello Cortina, Milano, 1990.

⁹ Italian Psychoanalytic Society.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Antonino Ferro

Antonino Ferro, M.D., psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, is a training and supervising analyst in the Italian Psychoanalytic Society, the American Psychoanalytic Association, and the International Psychoanalytical Association. He has been a visiting professor of psychoanalysis in various institutions in Europe, North America, South America, and Australia. He has authored numerous books and articles, which have been translated into many different languages. His published work includes Psychoanalysis and Dreams; The New Analyst’s Guide to the Galaxy; Avoiding Emotions, Living Emotions; and Torments of the Soul. He is the former President of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society (SPI). He received the Sigourney Award in 2007. Although born in Palermo, he now works in private practice in Pavia and Milan.

Giuseppe Civitarese

Giuseppe Civitarese, M.D., Ph.D., is a training and supervising analyst of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society (SPI), and a member of the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsaA). He lives and is in private practice in Pavia, Italy. He is the past-editor of the Rivista di Psicoanalisi, the official journal of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society. Among his books are: The Intimate Room: Theory and Technique of the Analytic Field (2010); The Violence of Emotions: Bion and Post-Bionian Psychoanalysis (2012); The Necessary Dream: New Theories and Techniques of Interpretation in Psychoanalysis (2014); Losing Your Head: Abjection, Aesthetic Conflict and Psychoanalytic Criticism (2015); The Analytic Field and its Transformations (with A. Ferro, 2015); Truth and the Unconscious (2016); Sublime Subjects: Aesthetic Experience and Intersubjectivity in Psychoanalysis (2018); L’ora della nascita. Psicoanalisi del sublime e arte contemporanea [The Hour of Birth: Psychoanalysis of the Sublime and Contemporary Art], 2020, and recipient of the Gradiva-Lavarone prize; Playing and Vitality in Psychoanalysis (with A. Ferro, 2022); Sull’arroganza. Saggio di psicoanalisi [On Arrogance: A Psychoanalytic Essay], 2022.