A Long Road to Clinical Discovery: Bion and Psychosis (Online Presentation)

2 CE Credits for Psychoanalysts, Psychologists, and Social Workers

This presentation builds on and goes beyond Bion’s rich reflections on psychosis to a consideration of more recent investigations into the nature of this form of psychopathology.  First, there will be a brief overview of Klein’s approach to psychosis.  This will be followed by a synthesis of Bion’s insights on psychosis, from his early writings (Second Thoughts) to his theory of thinking.  The presentation will then address possible directions for the therapy of psychosis, inspired by the richness of Bion’s insights yet grounded in a different genetic perspective—one that does not place the destructive processes of the psychotic mind at its center.

Franco De Masi is a training and supervising analyst of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society and former president of the Centro Milanese di Psicoanalisi.  After working for twenty years in psychiatric hospitals, he is in full-time psychoanalytic practice in Milan.  His main interests are the theory and treatment of severely ill patients.  His books include Working with Difficult Patients (Karnac, 2012), A Psychoanalytic Approach to Treating Psychosis (Routledge, 2020), and Beyond the Dynamic Unconscious (Karnac, 2025).

Practitioners and General Public: $50
Students: Free

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