The Publications Committee of the International Psychoanalytic Association continues, with this volume, the series Psychoanalytic Ideas and Applications.
The aim of these series is to focus on the scientific production of significant authors, whose works are outstanding contributions to the development of the psychoanalytic field and to set out relevant ideas and themes, generated during the history of psychoanalysis, that deserve to be known and discussed by present psychoanalysts.
The relationship between psychoanalytic ideas and their applications has to be put forward from the perspective of theory, clinical practice and research, so as to maintain their validity for contemporary psychoanalysis.
The Publication’s Committee’s objective is to share these ideas with the psychoanalytic community and with professionals in other related disciplines, in order to expand their knowledge and generate a productive interchange between the text and the reader.
Lawrence’s Brown book is a much-welcomed study of the concept of transformation in psychoanalysis. Anchored in Wilfred Bion’s theory and inspired by the work of different psychoanalytic cultures, in particular, the contemporary American psychoanalysts (James Grotstein and Thomas Ogden) and the work of South American psychoanalysts (José Bleger and Willy and Madelaine Baranger), the author offers an in depth and rich theoretical and clinical exploration of this concept. He stresses its important clinical implications, particularly in the way the analyst listens to the patient’s free associations which, the author suggests, should be understood as part of a transformational process of emotional experiences into meaningful representations. All throughout this book, Dr. Brown has as a referential frame six concepts that are, in one way or another, present in the development of his ideas related to the theory and technique of transformations. The first concept refers to the speed at which the mind transforms emotional experience. The other five notions are: the notion of unconscious work (spontaneous production of symbols and metaphors), the concept of inter-subjectivity, the centrality of affect, the inter-subjective field theory and the importance of the process of dreaming. These concepts are further elaborated, linking them to the various processes of transformation.
The 12 chapters present different facets, both clinical and theoretical, of the process of transformation. The study of these different aspects extends from defining key concepts such as the discovery of alpha function, to the illustration of transformations as seen in works of art, to
the clinical question of the type of receptivity necessary for the process of transformation to take place. Several clinical illustrations of adults and of children whose clinical picture rests within the autistic spectrum disorder, demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed theory of transformation.
Dr. Brown considers that the theory and technique of transformation suggests a new world view for psychoanalysis that, as he says, “emphasizes constant change, evolution and growth.”
Lawrence J. Brown has brilliantly put together this new volume that enriches the Psychoanalytic Ideas and Application Series. The result is an important contribution which will surely be of interest to the psychoanalytic community and to all people interested in the complexity of the process of psychic transformations and their unquestionable value in clinical work.
Gabriela Legorreta
Series Editor
Chair, IPA Publications Committee