Learning from experience in case conference: A Bionian approach to teaching and consulting

The 'community turn': Relational citizenship in the Psychoanalytic Community Collaboratory®

Drawn from five years of experience in the web-based Psychoanalytic Community Collaboratory, this paper explores implications of the 'community turn' in psychoanalysis for roles, methods, clinical theory, and training. With participants from many parts of the world, the Collaboratory has become a creative generator of projects including documentary films, community memorial initiatives, and mental health interventions in highly stressed communities. The Collaboratory's unique pedagogy offers valuable experiential learning about the complex intersubjective dynamics common to group and community life. Through reflection on the interpersonal dynamics of three critical incidents, we illustrate the interplay of intra-psychic and political aspects of identity--what we have termed 'relational citizenship', an intersubjective self-state in which the individual and the sociopolitical are psychically linked and where the challenges of identifying with and belonging to one or more collectivities are recognized and negotiated.

WHAT'S NEW IN PARALLEL PROCESS? THE EVOLUTION OF SUPERVISION'S SIGNATURE PHENOMENON

The concept of parallel process has played a central role in psychoanalytic supervision for the last 60 years, generating continuing interest in the power of the unconscious to create unexpected intersections between the analytic and supervisory relationships. I track the evolution of the concept, starting with its invention by an interpersonalist psychoanalyst, adoption by two ego psychologists, enrichment by object relations theory, and, finally, redefinition as a multi-directional dynamic by relational psychoanalysts. I then further elaborate the relational view of parallel process, illustrating its complex, multidirectional nature with an extended vignette. I discuss the relationship of enactment to parallel process and illustrate the usefulness of supervisory consultation when enactments that parallel into the supervisory relationship lead to impasse. Finally, I point to educational and neuropsychological research that suggests that working with parallel process is good pedagogy.

Dreaming as a 'curtain of illusion': revisiting the 'royal road' with Bion as our guide

One of Bion's most unique contributions to psychoanalysis is his conception of dreaming in which he elaborates, modifies, and extends Freud 's ideas. While Freud dealt extensively with dream-work, he showed more interest in dreams themselves and their latent meaning and theorized that dreams ultimately constituted wish-fulfillments originating from the activity of the pleasure principle. Bion, on the other hand, focuses more on the process of dreaming itself and believes that dreaming occurs throughout the day as well as the night and serves the reality principle as well as the pleasure principle. In order for wakeful consciousness to occur, dreaming must absorb (contain) the day residue, and transfer it to System Ucs. from System Cs. for it to be processed (transformed) and then returned to System Cs. through the selectively-permeable contact-barrier. Dreaming, consequently, allows the subject to remain awake by day and asleep by night by its processing of the day's residue. Bion seems to conceive of dreaming as an ever-present invisible filter that overlays much of our mental life, including perception, as well as attention itself. He further believes that dreaming is a form of thinking that normally involves the collaborative yet oppositional (not conflictual) activity of the reality and pleasure principles as well as the primary and secondary processes. He also conflates Freud 's primary and secondary processes into a single 'binary-oppositional' structure (Lévi-Strauss, 1958, 1970) that he terms 'alpha-function', which constitutes a virtual model that corresponds to the in-vivo activity of dreaming. He further believes that the analyst dreams as he or she listens and interprets and that the analysand likewise dreams while he or she freely associates.