Book Signing and Reception: Bion in Buenos Aires

March 18, 2018, 2:30 - 4:30 PM

Bion-book.pngWe invite you to join Dr. Aguayo and Dr. Regeczkey at the New Center for Psychoanalysis as they reflect on the journey of discovering and editing this important piece of psychoanalytic history, with highlights of Bion's work across the Americas.

These newly discovered clinical seminars of Wilfred Bion, which include supervisions, personal case presentations, and lectures on psychoanalytic theory, represent his initial foray into many years of work that have inspired South American analysts for nearly a half a century.

The clinical and theoretical work of Bion arguably ranks rather high in the current psychoanalytic firmament—as national and international conferences convene regularly to continue discussing the contemporary relevance of his work. His work has served as a source of inspiration to contemporary psychoanalysts in all three regions of the International Psychoanalytical Assocation—Ronald Britton, Antonino Ferro, Giuseppe Civitarese, Thomas Ogden, James Grotstein, and Paolo Sandler, just to name a few. These newly discovered clinical seminars from work Bion conducted in Buenos Aires in 1968 help us to further fill out the picture of his versatile gifts. In these seminars, we find lectures on Bion’s elaborations on his epistemological research—still ongoing in the 1960s when he went to Buenos Aires; a lecture on the Grid and its clinical relevance.

But most importantly for analysts, new or old to Bion studies, is a centrepiece two-seminar, continuous case supervision conducted by Bion on the analytic work of Horacio Etchegoyen, then a relatively new student of Kleinian studies after being re-analyzed in London by Donald Meltzer. This supervision alone represents the single, longest supervision ever recorded of Bion. Other highlights include Bion’s own case presentation of a very difficult-to-treat borderline patient, something of a rarity in his published work, as Bion was generally disinclined to present his own case work. These clinical seminars are rounded out by other supervisions, Q and As with the audience of over 300 analysts who came from all parts of South America to hear this premier analyst in Buenos Aires.

Joseph Aguayo, PhD, is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of California, an Associate Member of the New Center for Psychoanalysis, and in private practice in West Los Angeles. He is also a Guest Member of the British Psychoanalytical Society in London. He merges his clinical and research interests by writing and publishing in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis on the clinical history of Kleinian, Bionian and Winnicottian psychoanalysis. In late 2017, he was awarded the Oxford University Press Prize for his essay on D. W. Winnicott: “The Liberation of Place: Winnicott’s 1962 Lecture Tour of California,” available at the Oxford University Press website. His most recent book is a co-edited project with Lia Pistiner de Cortinas and Agnes Regeczkey, Bion in Buenos Aires: Seminars, Case Presentation and Supervision (Karnac Books, 2017).

Agnes Regeczkey, PhD, is an Adult, Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Candidate at the New Center for Psychoanalysis (NCP) and works as a Marriage and Family Therapist in Palos Verdes, California. She holds a Doctoral Degree in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. She teaches research and dissertation development and is the research coordinator at Reiss-Davis Graduate Center, Los Angeles. Her academic research includes: psychoanalytic history, interfacing perspectives of neuroscience and psychoanalysis, and how psychoanalysis may be used as preventative and therapeutic treatment modality for young children and their families. In a joined authorship with Joseph Aguayo, she published, “Small Group Collaborators and Adversaries in the London Kleinian Development,” Psychoanalytic Quarterly, July 2016.