Supervision in Psychoanalysis This book originates from a series of clinical supervisions that were held by Antonino Ferro at the São Paulo Institute of Psychoanalysis. Supervision in Psychoanalysis: The São Paulo Seminars reproduces in their entirety the dialogues in the seminars that followed these supervisions. The transcripts of eight supervised clinical sessions, along with the author’s comments, allow the reader to: • see the different styles of the presenting analysts first-hand; • understand the evaluation of Bion’s thinking, as developed by the author. With detailed exposure of clinical sessions, their supervision and clarification of the theoretical model of the supervisor, this book will be of interest to psychologists, psychotherapists and psychoanalysts. Antonino Ferro is President of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society and also Consultant Associate Editor of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis. He 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 received the Sigourney Award in 2007. THE NEW LIBRARY OF PSYCHOANALYSIS General Editor: Alessandra Lemma The New Library of Psychoanalysis was launched in 1987 in association with the Institute of Psychoanalysis, London. It took over from the International Psychoanalytical Library which published many of the early translations of the works of Freud and the writings of most of the leading British and Continental psychoanalysts. The purpose of the New Library of Psychoanalysis is to facilitate a greater and more widespread appreciation of psychoanalysis and to provide a forum for increasing mutual understanding between psychoanalysts and those working in other disciplines such as the social sciences, medicine, philosophy, history, linguistics, literature and the arts. It aims to represent different trends both in British psychoanalysis and in psychoanalysis generally. The New Library of Psychoanalysis is well placed to make available to the English-speaking world psychoanalytic writings from other European countries and to increase the interchange of ideas between British and American psychoanalysts. Through the Teaching Series, the New Library of Psychoanalysis now also publishes books that provide comprehensive, yet accessible, overviews of selected subject areas aimed at those studying psychoanalysis and related fields such as the social sciences, philosophy, literature and the arts. The Institute, together with the British Psychoanalytical Society, runs a low-fee psychoanalytic clinic, organizes lectures and scientific events concerned with psychoanalysis and publishes the International Journal of Psychoanalysis. It runs a training course in psychoanalysis which leads to membership of the International Psychoanalytical Association – the body which preserves internationally agreed standards of training, of professional entry, and of professional ethics and practice for psychoanalysis as initiated and developed by Sigmund Freud. Distinguished members of the Institute have included Michael Balint, Wilfred Bion, Ronald Fairbairn, Anna Freud, Ernest Jones, Melanie Klein, John Rickman and Donald Winnicott. Previous general editors have included David Tuckett, who played a very active role in the establishment of the New Library. He was followed as general editor by Elizabeth Bott Spillius, who was in turn followed by Susan Budd and then by Dana Birksted-Breen. Current members of the Advisory Board include Liz Allison, Giovanna di Ceglie, Rosemary Davies and Richard Rusbridger. Previous Members of the Advisory Board include Christopher Bollas, Ronald Britton, Catalina Bronstein, Donald Campbell, Sara Flanders, Stephen Grosz, John Keene, Eglé Laufer, Alessandra Lemma, Juliet Mitchell, Michael Parsons, Rosine Jozef Perelberg, Mary Target and David Taylor. ALSO IN THIS SERIES Impasse and Interpretation Herbert Rosenfeld Psychoanalysis and Discourse Patrick Mahony The Suppressed Madness of Sane Men Marion Milner The Riddle of Freud Estelle Roith Thinking, Feeling, and Being Ignacio Matte Blanco The Theatre of the Dream Salomon Resnik Melanie Klein Today: Volume 1, Mainly Theory Edited by Elizabeth Bott Spillius Melanie Klein Today: Volume 2, Mainly Practice Edited by Elizabeth Bott Spillius Psychic Equilibrium and Psychic Change: Selected Papers of Betty Joseph Edited by Michael Feldman and Elizabeth Bott Spillius About Children and Children-No-Longer: Collected Papers 1942–80 Paula Heimann. Edited by Margret Tonnesmann The Freud–Klein Controversies 1941–45 Edited by Pearl King and Riccardo Steiner Dream, Phantasy and Art Hanna Segal Psychic Experience and Problems of Technique Harold Stewart Clinical Lectures on Klein & Bion Edited by Robin Anderson From Fetus to Child Alessandra Piontelli A Psychoanalytic Theory of Infantile Experience: Conceptual and Clinical Reflections E Gaddini. Edited by Adam Limentani The Dream Discourse Today Edited and introduced by Sara Flanders The Gender Conundrum: Contemporary Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Femininity and Masculinity Edited and introduced by Dana Breen Psychic Retreats John Steiner The Taming of Solitude: Separation Anxiety in Psychoanalysis Jean-Michel Quinodoz Unconscious Logic: An Introduction to Matte-Blanco’s Bi-logic and its Uses Eric Rayner Understanding Mental Objects Meir Perlow Life, Sex and Death: Selected Writings of William Gillespie Edited and introduced by Michael Sinason What Do Psychoanalysts Want?: The Problem of Aims in Psychoanalytic Therapy Joseph Sandler and Anna Ursula Dreher Michael Balint: Object Relations, Pure and Applied Harold Stewart Hope: A Shield in the Economy of Borderline States Anna Potamianou Psychoanalysis, Literature & War: Papers 1972–1995 Hanna Segal Emotional Vertigo: Between Anxiety and Pleasure Danielle Quinodoz Early Freud and Late Freud Ilse Grubrich-Simitis A History of Child Psychoanalysis Claudine and Pierre Geissmann Belief and Imagination: Explorations in Psychoanalysis Ronald Britton A Mind of One’s Own: A Psychoanalytic View of Self and Object Robert A Caper Psychoanalytic Understanding of Violence and Suicide Edited by Rosine Jozef Perelberg On Bearing Unbearable States of Mind Ruth Riesenberg-Malcolm Psychoanalysis on the Move: The Work of Joseph Sandler Edited by Peter Fonagy, Arnold M. Cooper and Robert S. Wallerstein The Dead Mother: The Work of André Green Edited by Gregorio Kohon The Fabric of Affect in the Psychoanalytic Discourse André Green The Bi-Personal Field: Experiences of Child Analysis Antonino Ferro The Dove that Returns, the Dove that Vanishes: Paradox and Creativity in Psychoanalysis Michael Parsons Ordinary People, Extra-ordinary Protections: A Post Kleinian Approach to the Treatment of Primitive Mental States Judith Mitrani The Violence of Interpretation: From Pictogram to Statement Piera Aulagnier The Importance of Fathers: A Psychoanalytic Re-Evaluation Judith Trowell and Alicia Etchegoyen Dreams That Turn Over a Page: Paradoxical Dreams in Psychoanalysis Jean-Michel Quinodoz The Couch and the Silver Screen: Psychoanalytic Reflections on European Cinema Andrea Sabbadini In Pursuit of Psychic Change: The Betty Joseph Workshop Edited by Edith Hargreaves and Arturo Varchevker The Quiet Revolution in American Psychoanalysis: Selected Papers of Arnold M. Cooper Arnold M. Cooper, Edited and Introduced by Elizabeth L. Auchincloss Seeds of Illness and Seeds of Recovery: The genesis of suffering and the role of psychoanalysis Antonino Ferro The Work of Psychic Figurability: Mental States Without Representation César Botella and Sára Botella Key Ideas for a Contemporary Psychoanalysis: Misrecognition and Recognition of the Unconscious André Green The Telescoping of Generations: Listening to the Narcissistic Links Between Generations Haydée Faimberg Glacial Times: A Journey through the World of Madness Salomon Resnik This Art of Psychoanalysis: Dreaming Undreamt Dreams and Interrupted Cries Thomas H. Ogden Psychoanalysis and Religion in the 21st Century: Competitors or Collaborators? David M. Black Recovery of the Lost Good Object Eric Brenman The Many Voices of Psychoanalysis Roger Kennedy Feeling the Words: Neuropsychoanalytic Understanding of Memory and the Unconscious Mauro Mancia Constructions and the Analytic Field: History, Scenes and Destiny Domenico Chianese Projected Shadows: Psychoanalytic Reflections on the Representation of Loss in European Cinema Edited by Andrea Sabbadini Encounters with Melanie Klein: Selected Papers of Elizabeth Spillius Elizabeth Spillius Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow Hanna Segal Psychoanalysis Comparable and Incomparable: The Evolution of a Method to Describe and Compare Psychoanalytic Approaches David Tuckett, Roberto Basile, Dana Birksted-Breen, Tomas Böhm, Paul Denis, Antonino Ferro, Helmut Hinz, Arne Jemstedt, Paola Mariotti and Johan Schubert Time, Space and Phantasy Rosine Jozef Perelberg Rediscovering Psychoanalysis: Thinking and Dreaming, Learning and Forgetting Thomas H. Ogden Mind Works: Techniques and Creativity in Psychoanalysis Antonino Ferro Doubt Conviction and the Analytic Process: Selected Papers of Michael Feldman Michael Feldman Melanie Klein in Berlin: Her First Psychoanalyses of Children Claudia Frank The Psychotic Wavelength: A Psychoanalytic Perspective for Psychiatry Richard Lucas Betweenity: A Discussion of the Concept of Borderline Judy Gammelgaard The Intimate Room: Theory and Technique of the Analytic Field Giuseppe Civitarese Bion Today Edited by Chris Mawson Secret Passages: The Theory and Technique of Interpsychic Relations Stefano Bolognini Intersubjective Processes and the Unconscious: An Integration of Freudian, Kleinian and Bionian Perspectives Lawrence J. Brown Seeing and Being Seen: Emerging from a Psychic Retreat John Steiner Avoiding Emotions, Living Emotions Antonio Ferro Projective Identification: The Fate of a Concept Edited by Elizabeth Spillius and Edna O’Shaughnessy Creative Readings: Essays on Seminal Analytic Works Thomas Ogden The Maternal Lineage Edited by Paola Mariotti Donald Winnicott Today Edited by Jan Abram Symbiosis and Ambiguity: A Psychoanalytic Study Edited by John Churcher, José Bleger and Leopoldo Bleger Psychotic Temptation Liliane Abensour Supervision in Psychoanalysis: The São Paulo Seminars Antonino Ferro Transference and Countertransference Today Robert Oelsner TITLES IN THE NEW LIBRARY OF PSYCHOANALYSIS TEACHING SERIES Reading Freud: A Chronological Exploration of Freud’s Writings Jean-Michel Quinodoz Listening to Hanna Segal: Her Contribution to Psychoanalysis Jean-Michel Quinodoz Reading French Psychoanalysis Edited by Dana Birksted-Breen, Sara Flanders and Alain Gibeault Reading Winnicott Lesley Caldwell and Angela Joyce Initiating Psychoanalysis: Perspectives Bernard Reith, Sven Lagerlöf, Penelope Crick, Mette Møller and Elisabeth Skale Infant Observation Frances Salo Reading Anna Freud Nick Midgley TITLES IN THE NEW LIBRARY OF PSYCHOANALYSIS ‘BEYOND THE COUCH’ SERIES Under the Skin: A Psychoanalytic Study of Body Modification Alessandra Lemma Engaging with Climate Change: Psychoanalytic and Interdisciplinary Perspectives Edited by Sally Weintrobe Research on the Couch: Single Case Studies, Subjectivity, and Psychoanalytic Knowledge R.D. Hinshelwood Psychoanalysis in the Technoculture Era Edited by Alessandra Lemma and Luigi Caparrotta Supervision in Psychoanalysis The São Paulo Seminars Antonino Ferro Translated by Ian Harvey First published 2013 by Routledge 27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex BN3 2FA Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2013 Antonino Ferro The right of Antonino Ferro to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Ferro, Antonino, 1947- Supervision in psychoanalysis : the Sao Paulo seminars / Antonino Ferro. pages cm. -- (The new library of psychoanalysis) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Psychoanalysis--Study and teaching. I. Title. RC502.F47 2013 616.89'170076--dc23 2012047853 ISBN: 978-0-415-58754-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-415-58755-6 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-38005-5 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Saxon Graphics Ltd, Derby Contents Foreword by Maria Olympia de A. F. França xi Acknowledgements xiii Introduction 1 Thematic Seminar I 7 Clinical Seminar I 21 Clinical Seminar II 41 Clinical Seminar III 57 Clinical Seminar IV 69 Thematic Seminar II 83 Clinical Seminar V 97 Clinical Seminar VI 113 Clinical Seminar VII 129 Clinical Seminar VIII 143 ix