The International Journal of Psychoanalysis

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Searching for the analyst’s reveries

Fred Busch

To cite this article: Fred Busch (2018) Searching for the analyst’s reveries, The International
Journal of Psychoanalysis, 99:3, 569-589, DOI: 10.1080/00207578.2018.1425875

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INT J PSYCHOANAL
2018, VOL. 99, NO. 3, 569–589
https://doi.org/10.1080/00207578.2018.1425875

Searching for the analyst’s reveries

Fred Busch
246 Eliot Street, Chestnut Hill, MA, 02467, USA

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Over the last 20 years the post-Bionians have begun nothing less Reverie; psychoanalytic
than to spell out the beginning of the metabolizing process technique; psychoanalytic
(reverie) in the analyst’s mind that takes place with under- theory
represented mental states. This bold attempt leading to new
discoveries, and its many possibilities for understanding patients,
seems to have obscured differences amongst leading post-
Bionians with regard to how they see the forms of reverie, and
how they might best be worked with. With Bion’s perspective as a
background, this paper explores three approaches, and how they
differ with regard to whether one follows the views of early or
late Bion. Technical issues associated with these views are raised.
A clinical example is offered as one way to use reverie.

The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best and therefore never scrutinize or
question.
Stephen Jay Gould

What happens when a psychoanalyst from one theoretical perspective tries to immerse
himself and discuss a concept from another tradition? Does this work? Can it be construc-
tive?1 Ferro’s (2015) criticism of attempts to understand his work from a Freudian perspec-
tive, believing the models were not comparable, is a typical reaction.2 Ogden (2011) offers
a different perspective in his discussion of a paper by Susan Isaacs.
The important thing is what one is able to do with the ideas Isaacs makes explicit in combi-
nation with the ideas that her language suggest … In addition, and probably more important, I
have a mind of my own, and that allows me to see in her work a good deal that she did not
see. The same is true for you the reader, in reading Isaacs and in reading what I write. (p. 4)

Ogden’s need to defend his understanding of Isaacs speaks to a larger issue in psychoana-
lysis of our tendency to dismiss critics from outside our circle, and thus lose whatever con-
tribution they might make to our understanding.

CONTACT Fred Busch [email protected]

1
In an article reviewing the concept of countertransference Jacobs (1999) wrote, “I will do so from my own perspective; that
is, from the viewpoint of one American analyst, trained in a classical institute.” (p. 575). My training was similar to that
described by Jacobs, and I have spent the last 20 years immersing myself in the literature not explored in my training,
which has led to my view that within certain areas there is a common ground amongst seemingly diverse theoretical
perspectives (Busch 2014, 2015).
2
Ferro and Nicoli (2017) expressed his view of Freud’s work recently when, after saying that there were many concepts in
psychoanalysis that have outlived their usefulness, he was asked what we need to dispose of. His first response was
“Freud’s work, as far as its clinical use today is concerned, it is useless: reading something from Freud is never going
to be helpful in a clinical situation” (p. 47).
© 2018 Institute of Psychoanalysis
570 F. BUSCH

One key finding in my attempt to understand what post-Bionians mean when they
describe a reverie is that there are important differences amongst them. I’ll explore these
differences, as it is my belief that in order for a psychoanalytic concept to be generally
useful it needs, within a certain degree of elasticity, some clarity and agreement with
regard to its meaning. Without such agreement our discussions can become our virtual
“Tower of Babel,” with support and enthusiasm for a concept that actually means different
things.
A further problem in discussing a concept like reverie is that, over time, certain terms
become reified. In countering such a view, I believe O’Shaughnessy (2005) said it best
when writing about Bion,
Bion’s writings are not sacred texts. They are open to criticism and his psychoanalytic writings
belong not to any one of us, but to the ‘systematic ensemble’ that is called psychoanalysis.
(ibid., p. 1527)

Introduction
Grotstein (2009) noted, “Of all Bion’s new ideas, that of ‘reverie’ seems to be acquiring the
most cachet as an instrument of technique” (p. 69). I believe this is because reverie holds
the possibility of being a distinct form of the analyst’s mental activity that offers information
unavailable through any other source. It is my impression that da Rocha Barros and da
Rocha Barros (2016) capture the essence of reverie, which they describe as “a basic tool
for building an interpretation of the meaning of the emotional experience that happens
between the analyst-analysand” (p. 141). Yet, as Birksted-Breen (2016) indicated, the
“notion of reverie needs some discussion, as it is used to mean, in my view, somewhat
different things” (p. 29).
Given the outpouring of articles on reverie in the last 20 years that trace their roots to
Bion’s work, it is fascinating to note two facts: (1) how little Bion actually said about the
term; and (2) while Bion is most often referenced for introducing the term reverie, it
was Breuer (1893) who first coined the term to describe the hysteric’s hypnoid state.
Breuer also used the term “waking dream” to describe this state, which has come into
the Bionian psychoanalytic perspective on technique fairly recently via articles by
Ogden (2001) and Ferro (2002a). However, it was Bion who first used the term to describe
a state of mind in the analyst.
Bion’s primary writing about reverie appears in a few pages from his book, Learning
from Experience (Bion 1962a, pp. 36–37). Here he focused on the mother–infant relation-
ship, specifically the mother’s capacity for reverie as the key element in modulating the
storm of feelings the infant is bombarded with from inside and outside his body. This
“makes available to the infant what would otherwise remain unavailable for any
purpose other than evacuation as beta-elements … ” (ibid., p. 36).
Using it in this restricted sense reverie is that state of mind which is open to the reception of
any “objects” from the loved object and is therefore capable of reception of the infant’s pro-
jective identifications whether they are felt by the infant to be good or bad. In short, reverie is
a factor of the mother’s alpha-function. (ibid., p. 36)

As one can see, Bion used the concept of reverie to explain a process between mother and
infant where beta elements (primitive mental states of the infant) can be transformed into
alpha elements, and is a function of her alpha function.
INT J PSYCHOANAL 571

While in Learning from Experience Bion explains that what is basic to reverie is the
mother’s feeling of love for the infant (p. 36), earlier in this same book he describes the
analyst’s reveries as the result of a more abstract process:
To review the terms I have used so far: (1) the ego is a structure that, as Freud describes it, is a
specialized development from the id having the function of establishing contact between
psychic and external reality. (2) Alpha-function is the name given to an abstraction used by
the analyst to describe a function, of which he does not know the nature, until such time he
feels in position to replace it by factors for which he feels he has obtained evidence in the
course of the investigation in which he is employing alpha-function. It corresponds to that func-
tion of a number of factors, including the function of the ego that transforms sense data into
alpha-elements. (pp. 25–26, italics added)

In short, if the function of reverie is to change beta elements into alpha elements as a
result of alpha function, and this is an abstract process that can only be determined
some time after it occurred, then the feeling of love as basic to reverie would also have
to be an abstract process. This makes sense with regard to the analyst’s feelings toward
her patient, and the mother’s towards her infant. We all know that feelings of love can,
in certain circumstances, be still another beta element for the infant or patient to
contend with. In summary, it would seem to me that the feeling of love, and the way
its expression is received, is a highly complex process, and is revealed as a reverie or
not after some time.
My reading of Bion is that he left the process of reverie sufficiently abstract so that one
couldn’t tell from any one interaction whether a mother or analyst’s reverie occurred or if it
led to a transformation of beta into alpha elements. From this perspective, it is only over a
period of time that one could judge if a mother or analyst had been sufficiently engaged in
a process of reverie.
As we shall see, the term has shifted so that it now refers to a particular state in the ana-
lyst’s mind, usually a dream-like state that is supposed lead to a transformation in the
patient’s mind so she can dream her thoughts. Further, in contrast to Bion who saw
reverie as a process that occurred over a period of time, and could only be identified
after it happened, current Bionians have attempted to define reverie, and a method of
working with it, within a single analytic session. It is a bold attempt to elaborate a
concept in a new way.
It is interesting that in reviewing the notes of Bion’s many clinical seminars (1987, 1990,
2005; Aguayo and Malin 2013), I could find no evidence of Bion ever referring to his rev-
eries, nor does he ask those presenting clinical material about their reveries. Ferro and
Nicoli (2017) pointed out that Bion never overcame his Kleinian training in thinking
about working with patients, and one notices that in some of his clinical seminars
(especially those in Brazil), Bion could be quite confrontational about the patient’s aggres-
sion, which may have been typical of early Kleinian methods. Thus one is left with many
questions as to how Bion thought about reverie’s role when working clinically. It was up to
the post-Bionians to take this concept of reverie and apply it to the immediacy of the clini-
cal situation. In contrast, Taylor (2011) believes
Bion used his terms in a highly provisional way to explore hypothetical notions not yet fully
defined. However, out of their original usage terms ---(these terms) can easily begin to
sound like established entities with a real existence. Adopting them then begs many questions
572 F. BUSCH

concerning the nature of the phenomena to which they were supposed to refer. (pp. 1099–
1100, parenthesis added)

The post-Bionians’ attempts to define reverie

In looking through the references on reverie in Levine and Civitarese’s (2016) excellent
book, The W.R. Bion Tradition, one finds multiple views regarding what is happening in
the analyst’s mind that determines she is having a reverie, in contrast to other mental
activities, or what the analyst might do with her reverie that is transformational for the
patient. It leads to the conclusion that with regard to reverie there is a tradition waiting
to happen. That is, there is obviously something important these authors are trying to
get at, which may not have been elucidated before, but exactly what that is remains
elusive.
There are a vast number of analysts in the post-Bionian group, and I cannot do justice to
all of them. Therefore, I have chosen to focus on the work of analysts who represent three
distinct views of reverie, and how it might be used in the clinical setting. The analysts I
have chosen are: Thomas Ogden; Elias and Elizabeth de Rochas Barros;3,4 and Antonio
Ferro. Briefly, the Barros5 and Ferro have a very specific view of reverie, which requires
a dream-like image. It is a view of reverie similar to that of Cassorla (2013) and Civitarese
(2013) as well as many others. Ogden, who is the most widely quoted author of the last 20
years in this area, thinks of reveries as including a wide variety of psychic states. Further,
regarding the use of reveries, the Barros have a unique position in that they think it is
necessary to transform the analyst’s reveries into something that can be symbolized. Influ-
enced by the Barros, this view can be seen in the work of Cassorla (2013, 2016) and de
Cortiñas (2013). In contrast, Ferro and Ogden believe the analyst’s capacity to have a
reverie is transformative in itself (i.e. changing beta to alpha elements).6
In reviewing the work of the post-Bionians I start from two underlying premises:

(1) In evaluating the usefulness of any psychoanalytic concept there has to be a certain
reliability7 or consistency of meaning amongst those using the term. This is basic to
the development of any construct across fields of study. At its simplest level, it can
only lead to confusion if we think the post-Bionian we are reading or listening to
has one definition of reverie, but he has his/her own definition of the term.
(2) Freud gave us a method, free association, to help us understand not only what is on
our mind, but why that may be. The post-Bionians are brilliant in seeing what comes to
mind, but those like Ogden seem not to reflect on why what comes to mind comes to
mind, as he sees himself in a state of reverie8 where everything he thinks is a reverie.9
Self-reflection,10 with all of its problems as a source of information about what is on our
3
Writing together and separately.
4
While the Barros haven’t published extensively on reverie, they have a particular view of working with reverie that I believe
is a unique extension of the concept.
5
In the interest of simplicity, I will refer to de Rochas Barros as Barros.
6
Ferro’s position is consistent on this point.
7
I am using the term reliability here in its scientific sense.
8
This is in contrast to those post-Bionians who view reverie as a function of the analyst’s analysing instrument that becomes
available at certain moments in an analysis.
9
While it doesn’t appear in his written works that Ogden reflects on why what comes to mind comes to mind, I obviously
can’t say for certain that he doesn’t do this.
10
By self-reflection I mean musing and dreaming one’s thoughts, not thinking really hard about something.
INT J PSYCHOANAL 573

mind, is the analyst’s one bullwork against self-deception. Diamond (2014) captured this
position when he stated,
The analyst’s reflections upon his/her mental processes often functions like an internal supervi-
sor that disrupts the dyadic fusional patient-analyst connection dominated by imaginary identi-
fication. This unique psychic activity on mind use by the analyst in relation to the patient, analyst,
and analytic couple-often facilitated by consultants when the capacity for it is lost or blocked-
remains a constant, essential factor in the complex process of therapeutic action. (p. 533)

Thus for those post-Bionians who believe everything in an analytic session is a co-construc-
tion, Cassorla (2013) reminds us that “It is important to note that even though the analyst’s
dream is part of a dream-for two it is a dream of his or her own”. (p. 204)

Definitions of reverie
I will start with the work of the Barros and Ferro since they define reverie similarly as a sur-
prising dream-like image that comes to the analyst’s mind and contains strong emotional
elements. Ferro uses the term pictograms and the Barros call these images affective
pictograms.
Da Rocha Barros (2000) defined the elements of these images most succinctly as “con-
taining powerful expressive-evocative elements” (p. 1094). He goes on:
I use the concept of pictogram specifically to refer to a very early form of mental represen-
tation of emotional experiences, the fruit of alpha function (Bion 1963), that creates
symbols by means of figurations for dream thought, as the foundation for and the first step
towards thought processes. (p. 1094, italics added)

In short, Barros presents the analyst’s affective pictograms as the first step in a transforma-
tional process, as one might approach analysing a dream symbol.
Ferro makes a similar connection between what he calls the analyst’s pictograms and
their potential for transformation of disturbing affects. Thus, he
postulates the centrality of the metabolizing activity we carry out on any and all sensorial and
psychological impressions (occurs via) … forming a visual pictograph or ideogram from every
stimulus, in other words a poetic image that synchronizes the emotional result of each stimu-
lus or set of stimuli. (Ferro 2002b, p. 185)

In short, what the Barros and Ferro suggest is that an emotionally charged image comes to
the analyst’s mind as a way of capturing a patient’s unmetabolized affect, and this image
has the potential to change a non-verbal symbol into a thought that can be symbolized in
words. In this way it has the possibility of fulfilling Bion’s concept of a reverie as an image
that transforms what is primitive to more integrated mental functioning (i.e. in Bion’s
terms, beta elements into alpha elements).
Ogden’s brilliance as a translator of Bion is unquestioned, along with his capacity for
observing his internal states while reporting them unflinchingly. His ability to use what
comes to his mind and the feeling states it leads to are models for how an analyst can
use his inner world to better understand his patients. However, in reviewing the work
of Ogden, I don’t think it has been so clear in the literature just how different his view of
reverie is from those of Ferro and the Barros. In contrast to these two authors, Ogden
(1997a, 1997b) suggests that a certain slippage in using reverie is useful, and thus he con-
siders a variety of mental and physical states as reveries. In short, Ogden views reveries as a
574 F. BUSCH

type of umbrella concept, which includes: somatic states; memories; associations; and coun-
tertransference reactions.11 As stated by Ogden (1997b), reveries
are our ruminations, daydreams, fantasies, bodily sensations, fleeting perceptions, images
emerging from states of half-sleep (Frayn 1987), tunes (Boyer 1992) and phrases (Flannery
1979) that run through our minds, and so on. (p. 568)

Recently Ogden (2017) has re-stated his 1997 view:

Reverie, as I understand it, comes unbidden in mundane forms, such as thoughts about an
argument with one’s spouse, the lyrics of a song, thoughts and feelings about a fall taken
by one’s two-year-old child, childhood memories grocery lists and so on. (p. 5)

In Freudian terms these thoughts that drift into the analyst’s consciousness would have
been called his associations, already in a verbal form, and a valuable tool in understanding
the developing transference–countertransference once the analyst was able to centre
them in the interpsychic field (Bolognini 2010; Diamond 2014).
At times Ogden views reveries as
a state of mind in which the two are, to a large degree, free to engage in an unimpeded stream
of consciousness, a type of consciousness generated by means of a relatively unencumbered
interplay of the conscious and unconscious aspects of their two minds working/dreaming sep-
arately and together. (Ogden and Ogden 2012, p. 249)

At other times Ogden (2007, 2009) sees talking about plays, movies, or books in a particu-
lar way as “talking as dreaming” (Ogden 2007, p. 575).
Ogden sees his reveries coming from his own unconscious, but also the “unconscious
experience co-created with the analysand” (Ogden 2001).12 Birksted-Breen (2016) has
suggested that Ogden’s form of mental activity is not consistent with Bion’s view of reverie.

On the technique of working with reverie13

One way to conceptualize the differences in technique amongst these authors, within a
Bionian context, revolves around whether one follows the views of early or late Bion. As
captured by Vermote (2011),
Bion moved away from focusing on how something becomes represented (the so-called early
Bion), and began to consider what happens at an unrepresented, undifferentiated level and
how changes at this level can be initiated or at least not be inhibited by the analyst (the
so-called late Bion). (p. 1090)

Bion believed these primitive mental states could not be known, only experienced. This
has led to different approaches where Ferro and Ogden believe the analyst’s capacity for
reverie is transformative by itself, while for the Barros it is necessary to symbolize the
meaning of the reverie in the context of the patient’s associations, language action,14 and
affects. Thus, for Ogden and Ferro, the analyst’s experience of reverie, which they believe
11
In contrast Ferro (2016) views somatic states as “the evacuation of ‘pure’ beta elements that have not gone undergone
incipient processes of mentalization or metabolization” (p. 196).
12
While this is a position accepted by many Bionians, it seems worthy of a full study in its own right.
13
In this section I am focusing on the essence how these authors use reverie, and therefore will not go into the full complex-
ity of their thinking about psychoanalytic technique.
14
When words are primarily used as actions (Busch 2009, 2014).
INT J PSYCHOANAL 575

is unconsciously co-created, is indicative of a change in the patient, while for the Barros the
analyst’s reverie needs to lead to something known that can be transformed into symbolic
thinking in order to stimulate psychic change in the patient’s mental functioning.

Ferro
Ferro theoretically eschews the significance of the role of symbolization in the change
process, yet it’s my impression that many of his interventions do just that, as we will
see in one of his clinical examples below.
In brief, there are two key elements in Ferro’s stated approach to reverie. The first seems
based on Bion’s original view of reverie, i.e. a mind/feeling state in the mother that allows
her to change beta elements into alpha elements. In conjunction with this, Ferro sees
growth in the patient’s capacity to think, feel, and dream in treatment as based on
what is going on in the analyst’s mind, rather than interpretive work per se. In this he is fol-
lowing Bion’s late views that one can only experience undifferentiated states, and this is
what analysis is about. Thus Ferro (2002c) notes
What matters is how far the analyst’s mind receives and transforms the patient’s anxieties in
the present; the extent to which the analyst’s theory includes this is irrelevant. The essential
point is what the analyst does in reality from the standpoint of the micro-transformations occur-
ring in the session, irrespective of what he thinks he is doing or of the dialect he thinks he is doing it
in. (p. 9)

In various clinical examples one gets the impression that Ferro believes that the analyst’s
ability to transform undigested elements even after a session can affect how the patient
responds the following session.
I shall here apply this Bionian principle (the patient as one’s best colleague) to a dream, which I
shall present as evidence that the α-function is constantly at work. A kind of satellite naviga-
tion system dreams in real time what takes place in the analyst’s consulting room after an
interpretation need not in my view necessarily be interpreted, but it can be used to facilitate
the development of the field. (Ferro 2008, p. 199, italics added)

Certainly, many analysts would agree that having a thought, image, or feeling state could
help us understand a patient in a new way, leading to a change in atmosphere in a session.
Our understanding doesn’t have to lead to an interpretation for this to take place, but
rather there may be a change in the timbre of our voice, or phrasing that communicates
a greater empathy for the patient’s difficulties. However, the question remains, as to whether
such a state of changed attitude in the analyst leads to the type of psychic change associated
with interpretations that change what has been insufficiently represented into symbolic think-
ing, and its containing function. I think Ferro would argue that he is working with psychic
states that can’t be known, but can only be experienced. Does he suggest that a pictogram
links words and symbolic thinking with what has loosely been called unmentalized states?
My impression is Ferro believes that with more primitive thinking the analyst’s capacity for
a pictogram is sufficient for metabolizing the beta elements associated with such states.
Ferro has published innumerable clinical vignettes, although rarely do we get a glimpse
of the pictograms he sees as basic to reverie. However, in the case of Lisa (Ferro 2005) he
does have a spontaneous image, and it is instructive to see how he works with it.15
15
My thoughts will be presented in italics.
576 F. BUSCH

Ferro describes a heroic treatment with Lisa, where she moves from being seriously dis-
turbed, with fragile boundaries, that at times necessitated hospitalization, medications,
and broadening of the frame, to finishing her studies, getting married, having a job,
and two children by the 10th year of analysis. Ferro’s admirably open and detailed presen-
tation of what he did and what he struggled with in four widely spaced sessions raises
many interesting questions regarding psychoanalytic technique, but I will focus on the
session where he has an image and how he works with it.
In the session before the one reported, Lisa talked about her shame over people finding
out that she goes to psychoanalysis. Ferro’s attempts to understand more about this leads
Lisa to associate to an elementary school teacher who made her read things she didn’t
know how to read. Ferro, by now familiar, with Lisa’s “persecutory” crescendos, leaves
off further investigation on this topic. When Lisa described her fear of neighbours
seeing the mess in her house, he “interpreted this in the transference” (ibid., p. 1253),
but this interpretation isn’t reported. She then talked about her husband who, seeing
her undressed, commented, “What horrible big legs you have” (ibid., p. 1253). Ferro then
reports that the image of “an enormous gorilla appeared to me in reverie” (ibid., p. 1253).
The brief summary of the previous session stops there.
(The complex question of what a reverie is can be seen in Ferro labelling his “enormous
gorilla” image a reverie. In non-Bionion language this would probably be called an associ-
ation, possibly helping the analyst understand how the patient experienced her husband’s
remark. Birksted-Breen (2016) delineated reverie from other forms of thinking in the fol-
lowing manner:
Reverie is also not the same as an image that might come to mind to represent, as a metaphor,
what is taking place. The single image I am referring to be closer to dream images than
“thoughts”, and may seem quite unconnected with anything conscious occurring in the
material … (p. 30)

Within this definition, the closeness of Ferro’s image to Lisa’s husband’s remark would lead
to further questions as to whether this was a reverie.)
In Ferro’s account the next session takes place on a Monday, after Ferro cancelled the
previous session. The patient comes in saying she was “bad,” reporting panic attacks,
wanting to run away, but being unable to move. With prompting the patient indicated
this wasn’t about analysis, but about her husband and being glad he was away and frigh-
tened he wasn’t there. Ferro mirrors the patient’s ambivalence, staying away from a trans-
ference interpretation for the moment. Lisa then talked about two movies she saw the
previous evening, King Kong and Krakatoa East of Java,16 saying one was in black and
white.
Ferro: It’s as though in certain situations a volcano starts moving, or a gorilla, and you flee or
remain paralyzed, in both cases terrorized. I have the impression that the volcano and gorilla
correspond to a series of emotions that you haven’t been able to “read moment for moment”
and that arriving all together they terrified you. I thought this was the meaning of your words
in the last session about the elementary teacher who forced you to read things that you didn’t
know how to read, as I did in insisting on trying to get you to say why it was monstrous that
someone knew that you were in analysis.

16
A disaster movie from the late 1960s about an erupting volcano.
INT J PSYCHOANAL 577

One may wonder about Ferro’s idea that transformations of beta to alpha is that “what
matters is how far the analyst’s mind receives and transforms the patient’s anxieties in
the present” (2002c, p. 9), i.e. a silent process in the analyst’s mind. Further, it is worth
noting that after Ferro has the image of the gorilla the patient has a weekend filled
with panic and feeling paralyzed. Unmetabolized beta elements seem to remain promi-
nent. Ferro cancelling the previous session might likely have been complicated Lisa’s reac-
tion. However, one might also think that Ferro’s gorilla image allowed Lisa to seek out the
two movies that expressed her terror. However, this is only my impression, as Ferro doesn’t
offer an explanation for how the gorilla image was transformative.17 Most striking to me
was how Ferro’s response to the movies was primarily an attempt to put the fears embo-
died in the movies into words; in essence providing symbols when there were none. The
session then continues:
P: I have the impression now that you haven’t spoken to me like this for a long time; I think
you’ve understood me … that you are close to me.

P: I also had three dreams: in the first I was on the motorway, going from one place, I had to
reach another, but there were flyovers, crossroads, junctions; I couldn’t understand anything
any more—I was panicking; in the second dream, there was Angela, my maid, who had taken
sheets covered in shit to the laundry; I was so ashamed; it wasn’t possible; and then the
laundry didn’t clean them; they sent them back dirty; in the third dream, there was the coun-
tryside and they were cutting a tree down; it was the tree of life; it wasn’t possible, it was excru-
ciatingly painful and yet they were doing it, I was desperate. (ibid., p. 2005, pp. 1253–1254)

Ferro then asks Lisa what these dreams make her think of, and she replies, “Nothing. Once I
knew how to interpret my dreams, lots of ideas came to me, now no longer; I don’t know
what to say … it’s as though I had got lost in Rwanda;18 I don’t know which way to go.”
(ibid., p. 1254)
What follows is that Ferro, using the dreams as metaphors, attempts to dream Lisa’s
dream for her, with varied success. It seems that Ferro felt, at that point, she primarily
needed a “teacher” (i.e. the alpha function of the analyst).
Can one see in this example how Ferro’s image of the gorilla was transformative?
Impressionistically one can see the possibility that the gorilla image might have led Lisa
to watch the movies she watched, using them to express her fears. It also may have
allowed her to have a dream and remember it. While beta elements infused her experi-
ence of the break and the dream, it may have been enough that this very disturbed
woman was able to dream. However, ultimately I find the connection between Ferro’s
image of the gorilla, and the subsequent session, vague and difficult to pin down. It is
my sense that Ferro’s use of an image, along with his capacity to put Lisa’s fears into
words, is what leads to her feeling closer to him, leading to her reporting her dream
where she is able to show him what she fears most (i.e. what a mess she can make).
Thus, one comes away with questions about Ferro’s example. Was his gorilla image a
reverie? What does it mean?19 Is a reverie in the analyst’s mind enough for a transform-
ation to take place? Does Ferro attempt to change the under-metabolized into words
17
In this article Ferro was only reporting clinical data.
18
Ferro explains, “Lisa calls her old way of functioning by the name of ‘Europa’, and her new way without drugs that
exposes her to new violent emotive states that no longer belonged to her ‘Ruanda’” (ibid., p. 1253).
19
For example, Schmidt-Hellerau (2005) points out “how this huge gorilla is holding this tiny woman carefully in his big
paw; he doesn’t hurt her, yet everybody thinks he will and is afraid of him. Thus, while consciously feeling in the grip
578 F. BUSCH

more than he acknowledges? Reading through the many examples Ferro offers, it is my
impression that transformations into words is a key element in his analytic work.

Da Rocha Barros
The Barros’ work is more in the tradition of building representations, and it is to their views
I will now turn.
The view of the de Rochas Barros20 of how the analyst might use his reveries is closer to
the way many analysts work; i.e. they focus on the development of symbolic thinking via
interpretation. They reject the idea that the analyst having a reverie is enough for a trans-
formation to take place. They believe that “those who argue that the experience of dream-
ing is more important than its interpretation and that, as a result, interpretations can be
dispensed with, are confusing two types of problem”. In a joint paper, the Barros (2011)
highlight the significance of symbol formation for thinking.
We start by stressing the idea that the process itself of constructing the symbol in its different
components and its vicissitudes is centrally important to contemporary psychoanalysis since
symbols are essential for thinking and for storing emotional experiences in our memory and
for conveying our affects to others and make them explicit for ourselves. (p. 879)

So the task for the analyst is to translate his reverie into symbols.
The Barros see a reverie as only the first step towards the ability to think about an
experience in that “interpretations that symbolize the meaning of the reverie are
essential for storing emotional experiences in our memory and for conveying our
affects to others and make them explicit for ourselves” (da Rocha Barros and da Rocha
Barros 2011, p. 879).
One is reminded of the work of Aisenstein, continuing the work of Marty with psycho-
somatic patients, where there has been an “erosion or erasure of psychic work, or menta-
lization” (Aisenstein and Smadja 2010, p. 344). Yet Aisenstein (2006) maintains that “If
psychoanalysis is unique, and irreplaceable, in relation to other forms of psychological
treatment, it is so, in my view, because it opens up thought processes and enables the
subject to reintegrate into the chain of psychic events even something unthinkable”
(p. 679). Green (2000), in his paper on The Central Phobic Position, showed how one
could understand the pernicious effect of a patient who destroys representations within
a classical Freudian position.
A clinical example by Bergstein (2013) provides how I think the Barros might apply their
method. He describes his work with Eric, who floods the session with words, leading Berg-
stein to become numb and uncomprehending. As Eric is talking one day, Bergstein has an
image (reverie) from a movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, where erasing mem-
ories is a key component. He realizes “the scene foggily fits with the situation I’m in
with Eric … ” (p. 636). Eric then talks of various people he eradicated from his mind, and
while speaking to Bergstein he has various landscapes in mind, which he experienced
with others, but when he remembers them there is no one else.

of a monstrous threat, she seems to preconsciously know and communicate that nothing bad will happen to her”
(p. 1263).
20
While the Barros have not published clinical examples of how they might work with reveries, it is easy to see how their
views could be employed.
INT J PSYCHOANAL 579

Using his own reverie and Eric’s associations, Bergstein eventually interprets,
You are making a tremendous effort to remain present here with me, and to keep an
impression of me and my words within you, and of the feeling invoked in you by my interven-
tions. Yet, the experience seems to slip away and you don’t seem able to capture it. You
remember the words, but the feeling dissolves away’. (p. 637)

Using his reverie, in conjunction with Eric’s associations, Bergstein puts into words what he
understands of how Eric’s mind works, giving form to Eric’s experience and Bergstein’s
experience of Eric. The wish to be connected and the difficulty in doing so are now put
into symbolic form, allowing for further inquiry where previously there was only fog. As
stated by the Barros (2016), “we transmute the evocative language of visual symbols …
into a verbal language descriptive of meanings and in this way amplify the capacity to
think the experience on attaining meaning to the involved feelings” (p. 151).21
In summary, I see the Barros’ work as part of a Freudian–Kleinian perspective, where the
key to working with more primitive states is the transformation into symbols. Bucci (2012)
recently reminded us of “the particular role of language in enabling change in emotional
schemas; the power of certain forms of verbal expression to evoke autobiographical
memory, and to connect memories to one’s current state, and the power of other uses
of language to reorganize emotional schemas … ” (p. 283).

Ogden
As mentioned above, Ogden broadened the definition of reverie to include psychic states
that had previously been identified by other names (i.e. countertransference, free associ-
ations, somatic states, defences, etc.). It seems like, for Ogden, it is the analyst’s state of
mind that determines if a thought is a reverie, regardless of the affective meaning or its
context. Ogden’s trust in the veracity of all types of thinking as reveries comes close to
what Taylor (2011) believed as characteristic of late Bion where he “was proposing that
intuitions and acts of faith are the main means of analytic apprehending” (p. 1102). Kern-
berg (2011) regards the difficulty with such an approach as being due to the fact that
elements stemming from the analyst’s personality and from unconscious reactions to the
patient in terms of the analyst’s own unconscious conflicts tend to be confused with the
overall nature of the intersubjective field, with the potential risk of loss of the capacity to
differentiate clearly what comes from the patient and what from the analyst, and exaggerating
the contribution of the patient’s projective identification in the subjective experience of the
analyst. (p. 651)

In his 1997 paper on Reverie and Interpretation, Ogden begins his description of his work
with Ms. B by describing various unpleasant somatic reactions to hearing her racing up the
stairs (e.g. tensed stomach muscles, nausea). He then describes how he experiences Ms. B.
It seemed to me that she was desperate not to miss a second of her session. I had felt for some
time that the quantity of minutes she spent with me had to substitute for all of the ways in
which she felt unable to be present while with me … As she led the way from the waiting
room into the consulting room, I could feel in my body the patient’s drinking in of every

21
In this same paper the Barros note similarities in the Green’s (2005) work on tertiary process, and the Botella and Botella
(2001) on figurability.
580 F. BUSCH

detail of the hallway. I noticed several small flecks of paper from my writing pad on the carpet.
I knew that the patient was taking them in and hoarding them “inside” of her to silently dissect
mentally during and after the session. I felt in a very concrete way that those bits of paper were
parts of me that were being taken hostage. (The “fantasies” that I am describing were at this
point almost entirely physical sensations as opposed to verbal narratives.). (p. 572)

Ogden considers these reactions (and others he has when Ms. B lays down on the couch
and talks) as transference–countertransference reactions, and includes them under his
umbrella concept of reverie. It leads him to make an interpretation in what he recognizes
as a chilling tone. Where does this chilling tone come from? How is it different as part of a
reverie rather than a countertransference? How would it relate to Bion’s definition of reverie?
As Ms. B continues to talk and Ogden listens from a critical perspective, he has what
seems like a series of associations that he considers reveries. First there is a Mafia boss
being shot, followed by Ogden’s obsessional preoccupation with the clocks in his room.
This is followed by a memory of a phone call about a friend who has emergency
bypass surgery, which Ogden then imagines he would have to go through. Following
this there is an association to a friend where her breast cancer had recurred and widely
metastasized, and Ogden’s shame over his behaviour as protecting himself from her
painful aloneness.
He then relates this to what he’s avoided with Ms. B, and is able to empathize with her
from a more sympathetic position. When I read this I thought this could be the transform-
ation that occurred from these latter reveries, i.e. a change in the way Ogden could listen
to Ms. B.22 As one might expect, Ogden doesn’t make an interpretation from his reveries in
this session. However, when the patient reports a dream to begin the next session Ogden
sees it as a result of the patients “experience of and participation in the unconscious inter-
subjective movement that I have been describing” (p. 589, italics added). This would fit
with Ogden’s late Bion view that primitive mental states can only be experienced.
Ogden expands the definition of reverie to include almost anything he thinks, introdu-
cing the term “talking as dreaming” in 2007 (p. 576). He likens it to free association (p. 576),
and views its purpose as akin to Bion’s view of reverie, when he describes its theoretical
context.
Thinking [dreaming] has to be called into existence to cope with [dream-] thoughts’ (Bion
1962b, 306). In the absence of function (either one’s own or that provided by another
person), one cannot dream and therefore cannot make use of (do unconscious psychological
work with) one’s lived emotional experience, past and present. Consequently, a person unable
to dream is trapped in an endless, unchanging world of what is … . I view talking-as-dreaming
as an improvisation in the form of loosely structured conversation (concerning virtually any
subject) in which the analyst participates in the patient’s dreaming previously undreamt
dreams. In so doing, the analyst facilitates the patient’s dreaming himself more fully into exist-
ence. (Ogden 2007, p. 577)

He describes talking as dreaming as a “loosely structured form of conversation between

patient and analyst that is often marked by primary process thinking and apparent non

There does seem to be an empathic breakdown when in the next meeting Ogden found himself “watching the play of
22

sunlight on the glass vases near one of the windows in my office. The curves of the vases were lovely. They seemed very
feminine, resembling the curves of a woman’s body. A bit later I had an image of a large stainless steel container in what
seemed to be a factory, perhaps a food processing plant” (ibid., p. 580). This leads him to become anxious about the
machinery. I cannot say if it’s essential and what it might mean, but I can’t recall any other sexual imagery in
Ogden’s reveries.
INT J PSYCHOANAL 581

sequiturs” (p. 575). Ogden finds this technique important for patients who are unable to
engage in wakeful dreaming or free association in sessions, and claims that it leads
them to be able to begin to dream formerly un-dreamable experience.
He then cites the case of Mr. B, where after four years of a “listless” analysis, Mr. B begins
to dream. So before the reported session something had already changed that allowed Mr. B
to reach this important step that Ogden sees as the goal of talking as dreaming. In that part of
the session where Ogden demonstrates talking as dreaming,
Mr. B began the session by saying that at work he had overheard a woman saying to a col-
league that she could not bear to watch the Coen brothers’ film Raising Arizona because
she could not see the humor in the kidnapping of a baby. Mr. B then asked me, “Have you
seen that movie?” (p. 583).

Ogden reports, “I told Mr. B that I had seen the film a number of times. I was aware only as I
was saying these words that in responding in this way I was saying to the patient more
than he had asked of me. I experienced this not as a slip, but as a line that I was
adding to a squiggle game.”
It is interesting that as Ogden realizes that Mr. B’s question only required a “yes,” “no,” or
silence, he doesn’t reflect on why he said more, but without explanation as to how he came to
his conclusion he sees his response as part of a Winnicottian squiggle game.
From a more classical perspective I might have wondered about a competitive counter-
transference, as another way of understanding something about the treatment.
After Ogden muses on the possible transferential meaning of the patient bringing up a
movie by two brothers, but doesn’t say anything, Ogden reports:
With an intensity of feeling in his voice that was unusual for him, Mr. B said that he thought
that the woman whom he had overheard talking about Raising Arizona was treating the film as
if it were a documentary: “It seems crazy for me to get worked up about this, but that film is
one of my favorites. I have seen it so many times that I know the dialogue by heart, so I hate to
hear the film disparaged in a mindless way (p. 58).

Ogden then says, to the patient, “There’s irony in every frame of that film. Sometimes irony
can be frightening. You never know when it’ll be turned on you.” This conveys Ogden’s
idea that whatever comes to one’s mind when the analyst believes he is talking as dream-
ing is part of a squiggle game. The significance of irony in the film is completely Ogden’s,
along with the idea that this is what is frightening Mr. B. I am reminded here of De Saus-
sure’s (1993) observations,
I am convinced that the most effective analysts have a capacity to use their whole selves, that
is their own past and present experiences, their physical sensations, emotions, intellectual
knowledge, etc. in the effort to understand their patients as thoroughly and as profoundly
as possible, and to formulate their interpretations clearly and pertinently, using words
which have an emotional as well as an intellectual impact. The ability to do this demands a
basic minimum of confidence in ourselves, which permits an inner mobility of functioning
and allows us to use our own free associations as a means of enlarging our comprehension
of what is communicated to us. This does not mean that we accept the results of our spon-
taneous thoughts and feelings uncritically. It does, however, require an effort on our part to
avoid repressing awareness of our own desires, phantasies and habitual ways of reacting. I
think this implies that in the mind of an analyst who is listening to a patient there is a
constant dynamic interaction among innumerable conscious, preconscious and unconscious
thoughts and feelings. Perhaps we need to remind ourselves periodically that, in ourselves as
582 F. BUSCH

well as in analysands, that which is conscious is just a small part of our mental functioning.
(p. 1158)

The patient, in an excited voice, tells Ogden why the movie isn’t a documentary, and then
apologizes for getting so carried away. Ogden replies, “Why not get carried away?” Ogden
then explains,
This was not a rhetorical question. I was saying in a highly condensed way that there had been
very good reasons for the patient as a child to feel that it was dangerous to talk with excite-
ment in his voice, but that those reasons were true to another reality, the reality of the past,
which for him often eclipsed the reality of the present. (Ogden 2007, p. 586)

As Ogden views Mr. B’s restriction of his affective exuberance as an important problem,
from my perspective I would see these moments when Mr. B restricts himself within the
session as an ideal moment to analyse the inhibitions that suddenly occurred. Wouldn’t
it be difficult for a patient to get carried away if the inhibitions against getting carried
away weren’t analysed? While Ogden might be right that his comment is a construction
of what was previously talked about with Mr. B, how might the patient’s psychic growth
be affected if a persistent defence is not analysed the moment it occurs?
Later in the analysis, Mr. B spoke about that session:
I think that it doesn’t matter what we talk about – movies or books or cars or baseball, I used to
think that there were things that we should be talking about like sex and dreams and my child-
hood. But it now seems to me that the important thing is the way we talk, not what we talk
about. (p. 586)

As with Ferro, we can understand how a particular way of talking with a patient can
change the atmosphere in a session, which leads to therapeutic benefits. However, as
Stein (1981) showed in his paper on the “unobjectionable transference,” that in certain
kinds of patients what passes for a benign, positive, and productive transference can
serve as a crucial resistance against the emergence of important analytic material.

A search for a model of reverie

Bion’s view of reverie, an ineffable state of mind in the mother that transforms beta
elements, is likely a necessity for any analysis to be successful. It is my impression that Grin-
berg (1987) came closest to applying this view of Bion’s definition of reverie to psychoana-
lytic treatment when he stated,
In the course of the analytic process, just as in infancy in the mother-child relationship, the
analyst’s capacity for “reverie,” his ability to contain and metabolize the projections of the
patient, returning them through the interpretive activity, gradually becomes assimilated by
the ego of the analysand. It is then possible for the patient to continue learning to “dream”
his dreams in the same way that he gradually learns to “think” his thoughts. (ibid., p. 165,
italics added)

The process Grinberg describes is a probably necessary background for any analysis to
occur, while the metabolizing process is something that, like in Bion’s definition,
remains unspecified. What the post-Bionians have been attempting to do is specify how
this metabolizing process occurs, and what one does with the result. As I’ve indicated
above, in pursuing this issue it would be useful to clarify what a reverie is, and how it
INT J PSYCHOANAL 583

becomes transformative for the analysand. That is, is reverie a particular type of thought
process stimulated in the analyst by the patient, and/or is reverie rather a state of mind in
the analyst that leads to many types of thoughts as potential reveries? Put another way, is
reverie an analytic function or a state?23 Also, in order to transform un-and under-rep-
resented thoughts, is it sufficient for the analyst to just experience his reveries, or does
he have to use his reveries as the beginning of a process whereby these early states
will be symbolized?
I think most analysts would agree that, at times, we enter a dream-like state during ana-
lyses, where many different types of thoughts and feelings occur to us. I also agree with
those who view these waking dreams as leading to potential insights that have not yet
been put into words. In pioneering the exploration of these states in minute detail,
Ogden and others have alerted us to their metabolizing potential. However, I’m concerned
about such an all-encompassing conception. Not only would it diminish the particular
specificity the reverie notion might contribute to our clinical tool-box, but such a broad-
tent understanding would take all thoughts and feelings in this dream-like state as meta-
bolizing, thus de-emphasizing a key method of the analyst, i.e. analysing his inner associ-
ative process in order to sort out which of his thoughts and feelings are his own and which
are truly arising from the field. In this way, a major barrier against the analyst’s omnipotent
belief in his own thinking might be lost.24 That is, if we believe we are always thinking
reverie, any thought becomes part of a transformational process. A countertransference
feeling doesn’t have to be reflected upon by the analyst if it is seen as part of a reverie;
it just is. Thus, an analyst realizing he is saying more than he needs to doesn’t need to
question why if it is seen as part of a squiggle game.
It is my view that the Barros’ and Ferro’s idea of an image that suddenly comes unbidden to
the analyst’s mind has important potential for contributing towards understanding the meta-
bolizing process.25 A surprising, spontaneous image, which is the way dreams appear, is
something entirely new and created in the analyst’s mind in the analytic moment. It
seems to be created from the preconscious/unconscious border of the analyst’s mind
leading to its form (as an image), and encompassing strong emotional feelings as noted
by the de Rochas Barros and Ferro.26 As many have seen it as basic to a psychoanalytic
cure, I agree with the de Rochas Barros’ position that an image (reverie) allows for but
also requires the development of symbolic thinking via interpretation. While a change
in the atmosphere of a session may well occur with the analyst having an image, as
Ferro suggests, it would be mysterious or at least difficult to see how simply having it
would lead to the type of structural change that deserves to be called transformative.
Birksted-Breen (2012) has added her thoughts to the importance of images as a
pathway toward symbolization. As it is
closer to dreaming, it enables the mental work of “figuration” (Botella and Botella 2001), of
transformation of elements inhabiting the field between patient and analyst into a condensed
evocative image that thus is meaningful to both patient and analyst and hence an important
potential meeting ground between them. The more “regressed” expression of drive and affect

23
Julie Augoyard reminded me of this distinction, for which I am appreciative.
24
Of course, associations can also lead to defensive rationalizations. However, it remains the major method for exploration
of psychic states.
25
See Birksted-Breen (2012, 2016).
26
These images are difficult for the analyst to hold on to as the pull back into the unconscious is strong.
584 F. BUSCH

in the visual image offers the possibility of meeting in the concrete realm and bringing
together the two perspectives, concrete and metaphoric. The unfocused state of mind in
this way creates the optimal conditions for symbolization. (p. 830)

The one thing I would add to the Barros’ view is the necessity for the analyst to enlist his own
associative process in understanding the image that comes to mind, like we would do with
any dream. Like the manifest content of a dream, the image invites us to work on under-
standing a reverie. Many analysts find it difficult to understand dream images without the
patient’s associations. In that same sense, a reverie may not only be co-created in the field,
but may also need to be elaborated by both the analyst’s inner work and the patient’s
further contributions, when available. I see this as one way we can potentially speak to
Kernberg’s (2011) suggestion that it is important for the analyst to try and distinguish
between his own unconscious conflicts and the intersubjective field.
Below is an example of how one might work with an affective pictograph in conjunc-
tion with an associative and self-reflective process.
Phillip, a senior executive, was describing a committee meeting where he was annoyed
that people were saying things he thought he’d already said. He believed the others didn’t
acknowledge his authorship of these ideas. As he was talking I was reminded of the times
in our sessions when I made an interpretation that he felt he already said. My impression at
these times was that he had vaguely touched on the same topic, often with emendations,
but that much of what I interpreted was left out of his narrative. I was also reminded how
Phillip complained that he thought he was giving clear instructions to people working for
him, but they ended up not understanding what he wanted. Phillip then described his con-
versation with his colleague R, where he was trying to explain his feelings about another
colleague S, and R said this colleague was a “real jerk.” Phillip realized he couldn’t just
come out and say the same thing. Here I was reminded of a time when, at the dinner
table he was talking about his feelings about a family friend and his son-in-law said,
“She’s really dense.” He was amazed he could say this so clearly. At this point an image
came to mind that looked like a woman with a face without any distinguishing characteristics.
It was a white circle with no mouth, eyes, or nose. I was taken aback by the image, it felt threa-
tening, and I found myself wanting to push it out of my mind as unrelated to the patient.
My reaction to the image seems typical for an idea or feeling that breaks through from
the preconscious–unconscious border, as I am able to create a non-verbal symbol (Bucci
1997). This is in contrast to an image deeper in the unconscious where thoughts are more
primitively organized, and may result in a disturbing feeling state without an image.
However, I was able to hold on to the image, and I realized the woman had hair that
looked like Phillip’s (i.e. Phillip has dense, tightly curled hair that he keeps long). As my
thoughts drifted, an image of a Japanese geisha came to mind, and the phrase “losing
face” came to mind. It then came to me that most often in talking to me, Phillip is self-effa-
cing. After a while I said to Phillip that sometimes when he was telling me something it was
hard to follow because of his self-effacing manner of talking. His thoughts then went back
to the committee meeting, and he wondered why he had it in the first place. He knew
what he had to do, and why didn’t he just do it? He then said, “Well I didn’t just want
to shove my decision down their throats.” He caught the negation in that statement,
laughed, and began to explore the implication of his sadistically tinged sexual fantasies
for one of the first times.
INT J PSYCHOANAL 585

In my understanding, the image that appeared to me was an affective/cognitive

symbol that encapsulated a feeling state first picked up by my unconscious and trans-
lated into a preconscious image. The feeling I had when it suddenly appeared, and
the difficulty I had holding on to the image, speak to its closeness to the unconscious
border. At these times, like with a dream, it is only through our own associations that we
glean the meaning of the image. In my view the image and the associations need to be sym-
bolized by the analyst before a meaningful interpretation can be given to the patient. My
interpretation was to the defensive aspects of Phillip’s transferential way of talking,
and his associations led me to think it was the sadistic element of his sexual fantasies
that led me to want to push it away, and led to the negative hallucination of the
facial openings; an image in the form of compromise formation. That is, at its base
this fantasy was a wish to shove his penis down my and everyone’s throat. However,
in my defensively informed image, with no mouth on the face, there was no throat to
shove his penis down, and no eyes to see what was happening. Further, my own
image of geisha woman is twofold; i.e. a delicate flower and a sexual courtesan. Thus
the fantasy of defiling this sexual delicate flower in this violent act expresses the sadistic
quality I felt I was picking up on.
I’d like to explore another aspect of the image that came to my mind in the session with
Phillip as a way of demonstrating what I see as the complexity of understanding the ana-
lyst’s images, and how much they still need to be explored. Here I’d like to focus of my
feeling of threat associated with the faceless image. While I’ve presented a few reasons
for this feeling, I realized later there was something more in the content of the image. I
was reminded how, at times, when Phillip was talking in his self-effacing manner, I
didn’t feel I was with someone real, and I would withdraw. This reaction was, in part,
based upon my own history, but I couldn’t appreciate the depth of feeling associated
with this, and what Phillip was protecting against, until having this image. This touches
on the belief of many post-Bionians on the co-construction of reverie, which is another
topic that needs further exploration.

Some final thoughts

Since reverie was resurrected as a central clinical concept by the post-Bionians, its incor-
poration into clinical practice and articles over the last two decades around the world has
been astounding. It is my impression there is nothing comparable to it. While I believe it
captures something new and essential to understanding what is occurring in psychoana-
lysis, there is much that needs to be clarified and elaborated further.
Taylor (2011) has raised an important issue about late Bionian technique that seems
very relevant to what has seemed like a reluctance to engage in critical thinking about
reverie.
We need to be able to see the “workings” of the analyst’s observations and reasoning if we are
to be able to assess the warp and weft, the fiber, of the analyst’s engagement with the par-
ticular psychic reality to which the analyst’s hypotheses putatively apply. This is necessary if
we are to judge and to dispute, to decide when an act of faith – if we consider it to be
such – has proved to be well-founded or misfounded, when there has been too little in the
way of leaps of the imagination, or when by contrast there is too much self-indulgence,
and finally when the hunches or intuitions actually have those rather important predictive,
586 F. BUSCH

extrapolative and other qualities which take us closer to what lies behind the surface facts.
(p. 1111)

In general, I believe it will be difficult to define reverie, and differentiate it from other forms
of messages we may pick up from the patient’s unconscious, without considering an
unconscious with a layered depth. I think there isn’t one unconscious, there are only different
levels of unconsciousness. This was captured in Freud’s (1933) drawing of the Structural
Model, where the unconscious was shown to go from a permeable border with the precon-
scious to an endless depth, and is validated in everyday clinical experience.27 This allows us
to hypothesize where the analyst’s unbidden experiences may come from. A rough topo-
graphy of the analyst’s reactions, depending on what level it may come from in the patient’s
unconscious, might include the analyst’s somatic reactions, feeling states, images, and day
dreams, with somatic reactions representing a deeper region of the patient’s unconscious. I
don’t want to get into too many complications at this point, but just want to point out there
are varieties of feeling states we have as analysts, from confusion to dislocation to sadness,
etc., each of which likely corresponds to different levels of unconscious depth in the
patient’s unconscious to which the analyst may be responding to. The analyst’s affective
image, as described by de Rochas Barros and Ferro, potentially adds a new dimension to
our understanding as a non-symbolic symbol standing between a feeling state and a
thought. Thus the analyst seems to pick up something from the patient’s unconscious
that allows for a more developed level of though than pure feeling.
Finally, in thinking about why the post-Bionians themselves have not confronted the
differences in approach amongst them, I would suggest that like many pioneer thinkers,
it is tempting to rush ahead to see where one’s new discoveries can lead. Like with
Freud, for most of us it is not always easy to look back upon one’s work and correct
earlier views, while for those with a great demand for their thinking the temptation is to
keep expanding ideas that are popular. Further, and I think we see this often in psychoana-
lysis, there is a temptation to not look too closely at the work of others on the same theor-
etical team. It then is left to others to look at these concepts with the advantage of not
needing to support others, but with the disadvantage of being outsiders. It is too easy to
then condemn these views because they come from an outsider. Hopefully, the advantages
of this outsider’s approach in this paper have outweighed its disadvantages.

Translations of summary

Au cours des vingt dernières années, les analystes post-bioniens ont entrepris la tâche immense d’ex-
pliquer dans le détail le début du processus de métabolisation (reverie) tel qu’il opère dans le psy-
chisme de l’analyste en présence d’états mentaux sous-représentés. Cette tentative audacieuse
qui a abouti à de nouvelles découvertes et à des possibilités accrues de compréhension des patients,
semble avoir éclipsé les différences parmi les post-bioniens les plus éminents quant à la façon dont
ils perçoivent les formes de reverie et en tirent profit dans leur travail. Avec pour toile de fond la per-
spective bionienne, l’auteur de cet article explore trois modes d’approche en mettant en évidence
leurs différences selon qu’on adopte les premiers points de vue de Bion ou ceux apparaissant
plus tardivement. L’auteur soulève également les questions techniques qui sont associées à ces
points de vue. Il cite un exemple clinique permettant d’illustrer la façon dont il utilise la reverie.

27
See also Schmidt-Hellerau (2001, p. 161) regarding differentiation of the pre-unconscious, the unconscious, the precon-
scious and conscious.
INT J PSYCHOANAL 587

Im Laufe der vergangenen 20 Jahre haben Post-Bionianer die nicht geringe Aufgabe in Angriff gen-
ommen, die Anfänge des Metabolisierungsprozesses (Reverie) zu erhellen, der sich im Analytiker
vollzieht und durch den unterrepräsentierte psychische Zustände verarbeitet werden. Dieses
kühne Unterfangen, das neue Entdeckungen mit sich brachte, und die zahlreichen Möglichkeiten,
Patienten zu verstehen, verdecken offenbar Unterschiede in der Art und Weise, wie führende
Post-Bionianer die verschiedenen Formen der Reverie und ihre Anwendungen begreifen. Mit
Bions Perspektive als Hintergrund werden im vorliegenden Beitrag drei Ansätze und die Art, wie
sie je nach Orientierung am frühen bzw. späten Bion voneinander abweichen, untersucht. Auch
die mit diesen Sichtweisen zusammenhängenden technischen Fragen werden erörtert. Ein klinisches
Beispiel illustriert eine der Möglichkeiten, mit der Reverie zu arbeiten.

Negli ultimi vent’anni, gli psicoanalisti post-bioniani hanno iniziato a descrivere nel dettaglio niente-
meno che la fase iniziale del processo di metabolizzazione (reverie), nella mente dell’analista, di stati
mentali che ancora non hanno pieno accesso alla rappresentazione. Sembrerebbe tuttavia che le
nuove scoperte e le molte nuove possibilità di comprendere i pazienti che questo coraggioso ten-
tativo ha portato con sé abbiano fatto passare in secondo piano le differenze che dividono i princi-
pali analisti post-bioniani rispetto al modo in cui essi intendono le varie forme di reverie, e i modi in
cui è più o meno auspicabile lavorare con queste ultime. Tenendo come sfondo la prospettiva teorica
di Bion, il presente articolo esplora tre diversi approcci evidenziando come essi differiscano a
seconda che ci si attenga alle posizioni del primo o dell’ultimo Bion. Sono inoltre sollevate alcune
questioni di tecnica legate a questi diversi punti di vista, e viene poi presentato un esempio
clinico che illustra un modo particolare di utilizzare la reverie.

A lo largo de los últimos veinte años, los posbionianos han empezado a explicar con detalle nada
menos que el comienzo del proceso metabolizador (reverie) que se da en la mente del analista
ante estados mentales subrepresentados. Este intento audaz que conduce a nuevos descubrimientos,
y a sus múltiples posibilidades para comprender a los pacientes, parece haber oscurecido las diferen-
cias entre los posbionianos prominentes respecto a cómo ven las formas de reverie, y cómo se podría
trabajar mejor con ellas. Con la perspectiva de Bion como telón de fondo, este artículo explora tres
enfoques, y cómo difieren estos según si uno sigue los puntos de vista del Bion temprano o del
tardío. Se plantean cuestiones técnicas asociadas con estos puntos de vista. Un ejemplo clínico
ilustra una manera de usar la reverie.

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