Formless Infinity: Clinical Explorations of Matte Blanco and Bion

Author(s) : Riccardo Lombardi

Part of New Library of Psychoanalysis series - more in this series

Formless Infinity: Clinical Explorations of Matte Blanco and Bion

Book Details

  • Publisher : Routledge
  • Published : 2015
  • Cover : Paperback
  • Pages : 248
  • Category :
    Psychoanalysis
  • Catalogue No : 36201
  • ISBN 13 : 9781138018587
  • ISBN 10 : 1138018589
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In contemporary psychoanalysis, a key concept and aim of clinical practice is to distinguish the boundaries of any mental state. Without this boundary-setting, the patient has nothing but the 'formless infinite' of primitive mental states. Formless Infinity: Clinical Explorations of Matte Blanco and Bion draws on the work of these two authors to explore how analysts can work with patients to reveal, understand and ultimately contain their primitive mental states.

Riccardo Lombardi discusses the core concepts of the unconscious, the role of the body in analysis, time and death. He displays the clinical implications of Matte Blanco's theoretical extension of Freud's theory of the unconscious, presenting numerous clinical examples of working with psychosis and other severe pathologies.

Formless Infinity is a stimulating teaching text for students, trainers and seasoned mental health practitioners, is essential reading for psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists. It is particularly recommended to analysts interested in widening the scope of the analytic practice by exploring the functioning of the deep unconscious, primitive mental states, psychosomatic pathologies and psychotic conditions.

Contents: Introduction. Emotional Experience and Infinity. Symmetric Frenzy and Catastrophic Change: Bion and Matte Blanco. The Unfolding of the Unconscious Body. The Body Emerging from Formless Infinity. Body, Adolescence and Psychosis. Time in Primitive Mental States. Time, Music and Reverie. Stubborn Silences as 'Playing Dead'. Death, Time and Psychosis.

Reviews and Endorsements

Contents: Introduction. Emotional Experience and Infinity. Symmetric Frenzy and Catastrophic Change: Bion and Matte Blanco. The Unfolding of the Unconscious Body. The Body Emerging from Formless Infinity. Body, Adolescence and Psychosis. Time in Primitive Mental States. Time, Music and Reverie. Stubborn Silences as ‘Playing Dead’. Death, Time and Psychosis.

About the Author(s)

Riccardo Lombardi is a psychoanalyst, psychiatrist and doctor of medicine. He has a full-time private practice in Rome and teaches at the Roman Psychoanalytic Institute of the International Psychoanalytic Association (IPA). He is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Italian Psychoanalytic Society.

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