Overview

Bion, Dreamwork and the Oneiric Dimensions of the Mind allows readers to examine one of the most significant areas of clinical psychoanalytic thinking, focusing on Bion’s idiom that dreaming is the central aspect of all emotional functioning and it is a full-time ongoing psychic activity. Including chapters from leading Bionian scholars and clinicians such as Nicola Abel-Hirsch, Rudi Vermote, Anne Alvarez, Giuseppe Civitarese and Howard Levine, this book elucidates Bion’s theory of the oneiric dimension and shows its importance in the development of psychoanalytic understanding of dreams. The global cohort of contributors provide a thorough and varied exploration of dreamwork alpha, nighttime dreams, transformational dreamwork, alpha function, container/contained, their manifestations and implications in the treatment situation, psychic development, and the arts (Cezanne and Frida Kahlo) and cultural surroundings. This edited collection will be of interest and value to psychoanalysts and therapists of all orientations and levels of experience who want to understand dreaming and the oneiric dimensions of the mind.

Full Product Details

9781032764597

Table of Contents

Reviews

‘It is the oneiric dimension of the mind that integrates our emotional experience with our bodily experience, thereby creating organizations of our psyche. In Bion, Dreamwork and The Oneiric Dimensions of the Mind, Jani Santamaría brings together leading Bion scholars, thinkers and practitioners to explore the dreaming dimensions of the mind. This beautifully edited book is carefully organized from the first to the last entry. As such, it presents a rich and creative backdrop for our understandings of the importance of allowing our minds to be free. When free, wild thoughts can enter. Unexpected links can surprise and inform us. Our premonitions, intuitions, and imaginative conjectures can come from our shared oneiric analytic experiences. This book is a must read for all who value the aesthetic expression of the dreamwork present in any analytic encounter. Even more than that, the book highlights the dream work that exists beneath any encounter with experience.’ Judy K Eekhoff, PhD FIPA, Training Supervising Psychoanalyst in Seattle, Washington, USA. She is the author of three books: Trauma and Primitive Mental States: An Object Relations Perspective; Bion and Primitive Mental States: Trauma and the Symbiotic Link; and Bion’s Emotional Links: Love, Hate, and Knowledge. ‘This book is itself a kind of dream—inviting the reader into an analytic experience where thought takes shape through the interplay of emotions and emerging meanings. Like a session in which patient and analyst co-create something new, the authors act as an alpha function, constantly 'alphabetizing' complex concepts and theories, making them dreamable and thus comprehensible. The book does not impose conclusions but opens spaces for transformation. It reminds us that psychoanalysis, at its core, is a generative act—producing narratives that allow us to think, feel, and dream anew. This remarkable work is highly recommended to anyone seeking to dream new dreams.’ Antonino Ferro, Pavia, member and former president of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society, member of the American Psychoanalytic Association and the International Psychoanalytical Association, author of Psychoanalysis and Dreams: Bion, the Field and the Viscera of the Mind. 'A book that opens the wonder of dreams and work of emotional realities in deepening life. It is a book that keeps giving us to ourselves in helpful ways. A variety of authors are guides for multiple dimensions of being, enabling greater appreciation of who we are, what we are up against and amazing unnameable supports within. You will relish phrase after phrase, line after line and feel more of the riches that help you grow.’ Michael Eigen, PhD, author of Contact with the Depths, Faith, The Birth of Experience, Emotional Storm, The Sensitive Self, The Psychoanalytic Mystic.

Author Information

Jani Santamaría Linares is Training and Supervisor Psychoanalyst of Children, Adolescents and Adults of the Mexican Psychoanalytic Association and Director of A-Santamaría Psychoanalysis Mexico A.C. She is a member of APsA, IPA and FEPAL and is co- author of Bion Seminars at the A-Santamaria Association: Clinical and Theoretical Explorations (2024).

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