<scp>II</scp>. A Brief Introduction to the thought of <scp>A</scp>rmando <scp>B</scp>. <scp>F</scp>errari

Carvalho, Richard

doi:10.1111/j.1752-0118.2012.01300.x

Cited by 14 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…My original trainings were as an SAP Jungian analyst and simultaneously as a Tavistock psychoanalytic psychotherapist which at the time came with a distinctly Kleinian flavour. This changes the therapeutic emphasis to facilitating the relationship of the patient's thus impaired mind with his bodily and affective processes (this being in particular Ferrari's contribution, for which see a summary in Carvalho, 2012) without of course negating the importance of other relationships in different contexts. Because these, like the unconscious, obliterate the distinctions upon which time, space and identity are based, they are experienced as annihilating and profoundly disorganizing (Matte Blanco, 1975Blanco, , 2005; and see Carvalho, 2014 for a summary).…”

Section: Commentary By a Training And Supervising Analyst Of The Socimentioning

confidence: 99%

Clinical Commentary 41

Budden¹,

Horne²

2019

Brit J Psychotherapy

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We are delighted to present the sixth Clinical Commentary of this series and are very grateful to the psychotherapist who has offered clinical material and to the three commentators. Mark Budden [markbudden@talktalk.net] Ann Horne [annhorne44@gmail.com] CLINICAL MATERIALI have been seeing Suli for four months, initially once weekly. He is 21 and the referral was straightforward. His mother pays for his therapy but I have had no direct contact with her. Suli told me that he was failing to produce the work expected of him on his college course and that he was feeling 'very down'.The young man I met was friendly, open and sensitive, but there was something else that made me wonder if he would resist whatever I said. In the second session he moved onto the couch, and I remember this seeming sudden, as if he was impelled or propelled to lie down. I wonder if lying down simultaneously represents a wish to 'stay in bed and not get up' (frequently reported) thus avoiding direct contact, and a hope that, freed from the need to adapt to, accommodate and simultaneously resist the other, he might discover a part of himself which can speak his own words, and find his own mind and his own desire.Whilst I have his permission to write about him and am disguising key details, I will only give a light sketch of Suli's family and his history. He was born to professional parents, has an older brother and sister, and then his father dies suddenly when Suli is 3 years old. He is not sure what he remembers and what he has been told; perhaps the lights of an ambulance or police car through the windows, on off on off. Perhaps the body being carried out of the house?Since then his mother has held her career, her family and her home together. Suli describes the family as close, remembering the three children in bed with their mother, comfortably watching television together.Suli seemed very stuck, not getting any of his college work done, while buying off his tutors (and trying to buy off himself and me) with promises. It seemed as if my job was to excavate the desperation below the surface of his intractable refusal to do

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Section: Commentary By a Training And Supervising Analyst Of The Socimentioning

confidence: 99%

Clinical Commentary 41

Budden¹,

Horne²

2019

Brit J Psychotherapy

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“…In her theories of early development, Bick () explored how lack of maternal containment can produce in the infant the fear of annihilation, disintegration and nameless dread that Bion (), Carvalho (2002), Ogden (), Tustin () and others describe and that Emanuel (), linking psychic retreat states to such anxieties, describes as ‘fear of the void’ (p. 1069). Much of what Bick says about the patient who has no sense of being held together psychically, as the body is held together by the skin, also applies to psychic retreat patients who use their retreats as a containing cocoon to hold themselves together in the face of uncontained affective ‘turmoil’ (Carvalho, , p. 416) and to fend off the fear of falling apart, of letting life ‘leak away like a liquid substance’ (Bick, , p. 293).…”

Section: The Second Skin Defencementioning

confidence: 99%

Some Thoughts on Psychic Retreats

Tamas¹

2016

Brit J Psychotherapy

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This paper explores connections between psychic retreats, particularly of the kind described in Richard Carvalho's paper, and certain other defences rooted in early relational trauma (Schore ). After distinguishing between Carvalho's theory and John Steiner's () original formulation, the paper describes Schore's () work on infantile dissociation and draws attention to the pre‐symbolic processes that could form the basis from which the symbolic content of the psychic retreat develops. The paper underlines the connection between psychic retreats and secondary dissociative states of which psychic retreats constitute a distinctive class. It investigates the relationship between psychic retreats and Bick's () concept of the second skin defence. The paper goes on to explore theories that suggest that understanding the level at which patients are functioning is the key to the level of work we engage in. It provides clinical examples to illustrate some of the points made.

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“…The work of Ferrari (, see also Carvalho ) is helpful when dealing with lost and unprocessed affect. Ferrari, proposing a biological model, suggests that initially there is only body, with a mind in the body, ready to develop.…”

Section: Early Pioneersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early trauma and affect: the importance of the body for the development of the capacity to symbolize

Willemsen¹

2014

J Analytical Psychology

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In this paper I aim to outline the importance of working clinically with affect when treating severely traumatized patients who have a limited capacity to symbolize. These patients, who suffer the loss of maternal care early in life, require the analyst to be closely attuned to the patient's distress through use of the countertransference and with significantly less attention paid to the transference. It is questionable whether we can speak of transference when there is limited capacity to form internal representations. The analyst's relationship with the patient is not necessarily used to make interpretations but, instead, the analyst's reverie functions therapeutically to develop awareness and containment of affect, first in the analyst's mind and, later, in the patient's, so that, in time, a relationship between the patient's mind and the body, as the first object, is made. In contrast to general object-relations theories, in which the first object is considered to be the breast or the mother, Ferrari (2004) proposes that the body is the first object in the emerging mind. Once a relationship between mind and body is established, symbolization becomes possible following the formation of internal representations of affective states in the mind, where previously there were few. Using Ferrari's body-mind model, two clinical case vignettes underline the need to use the countertransference with patients who suffered chronic developmental trauma in early childhood.

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II. A Brief Introduction to the thought of Armando B. Ferrari

Cited by 14 publications

References 28 publications

Clinical Commentary 41

Clinical Commentary 41

Some Thoughts on Psychic Retreats

Early trauma and affect: the importance of the body for the development of the capacity to symbolize

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