In Session, on the Thread of Affect and Emotion

‘These essays, chosen for their originality, clarity, and honesty in self-evaluation and the dynamic of the analytical encounter, consider the intrapsychic relationship between patient and analyst that aims to transform and heal the voids, disintegrations, and primal traumatic disruptions of mental functioning. This important book guides psychoanalysts and psychotherapists often confounded by patients who are cut off from and therefore unable to put into words their emotional experience. It is through the process of projective identification and the awareness of the patient’s unconscious affect that the analyst can help the patient.’ -- Susan Finkelstein, Director, Understanding Primitive Mental States; Faculty Member and Training and Supervising Analyst, Contemporary Freudian Society and Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research ‘The book we have in our hands is like a work of art. It weaves a plot (recalled in the cover image) of solid theory, intertwining and retracing psychoanalytic thought from the origins to the most recent authors. But it doesn’t stop there. It dares to explore the unthought – fragments of plots that delve into the void of representation, the absolute white or black of the abyss. On this canvas of dense plot, each author paints emotional clinical experiences with tenderness, passion, and sincerity. The final sensation is akin to witnessing a dialogue between people unafraid of exposing themselves to judgement, reaffirming the creative authenticity of this book.’ -- Elena Molinari, Psychoanalyst; Member, Italian Psychoanalytic Society (SPI) and International Psychoanalytical Association ‘This book offers a unique opportunity to bring together analysts from different nationalities and psychoanalytic communities to explore the theoretical and clinical differences between Freud’s and Bion’s approaches to the metapsychology of affect and emotion. The stakes of “in-session” work reveal possible convergences between these two approaches. Indeed, the reference to the concept of negative capability emphasises the role of doubt and surprise in the analytical process, while the notion of enactment points to an emotional two-person work between analyst and analysand.’ -- Alain Gibeault, former President, European Psychoanalytical Federation; former Secretary General, International Psychoanalytical Association