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CPD Credits
2
Event Type
Live Online Event
Location
Zoom & Recording
Time (UK)
3:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Standard
£60.00
Trainee/NHS
£51
Friday, May 8, 2026
Psychoanalytic Field Theory
From the individual to the shared unconscious
With Dr Giuseppe Civitarese
Join us for a thought-provoking lecture with Dr Giuseppe Civitarese exploring one of the most innovative developments in contemporary psychoanalysis: the post-Bionian theory of the analytic field. It's contribution lies in shifting the focus from the individual unconscious to the shared unconscious process generated within the analytic relationship. The analytic couple is no longer conceived as the sum of two separate minds, but as a dynamic intersubjective field within which affects, images, fantasies, impasses, and transformations emerge. From this perspective, concepts such as reverie, projective identification, alpha function, and dreaming are radically rethought: no longer as functions attributable exclusively to either patient or analyst, but as expressions of the functioning of the field itself.
This also leads to a different conception of interpretation. Interpretation no longer primarily coincides with the unveiling of a hidden content, but with an intervention capable of transforming the quality of the shared emotional experience, making it more thinkable, more dreamable, and more open to symbolisation. The more recent developments of field theory also emphasise the centrality of the bond, the constitutively relational nature of subjectivity, and the ethical dimension of the analytic process, understood as an opening towards more evolved forms of mutual recognition.
Field psychoanalysis thus presents itself not only as a theory of technique, but as a broader theory of the mind-in-relation, in which cure coincides with the transformation of the “unconscious we” that patient and analyst together, each time, come to embody. The lecture will include clinical material to illustrate the arguments presented.
Programme
15.00 New Developments in post-Bionian Field Theory
In this talk Civitarese explores post-Bionian field theory as a major innovation in contemporary psychoanalysis. It reconceptualises the analytic process as a shared, dynamic field rather than an interaction between two separate minds. Core concepts such as reverie, projective identification, and dreaming are reframed as functions of this intersubjective field. Interpretation is likewise redefined as a transformative intervention that enhances the thinkability and symbolisation of emotional experience. Emphasising relationality, mutual recognition, and the ethical dimension of analysis, field theory advances a model of the mind-in-relation in which therapeutic change emerges through transformation of the shared “unconscious we.”
There will be time for questions and discussion.
17.00 End
Dr Giuseppe Civitarese
Giuseppe Civitarese, MD, PhD, is a psychiatrist and training and supervising analyst (SPI, APsaA, IPA). He lives in Pavia, Italy. Among his last books are: Sublime Subjects: Aesthetic Experience and Intersubjectivity in Psychoanalysis, 2018; Vitality and Play in Psychoanalysis (with A. Ferro), 2022; On Arrogance: A Psychoanalytic Essay, London 2023; Psychoanalytic Field Theory: A Contemporary Introduction, 2022; The Hour of Birth: Psychoanalysis of the Sublime and Contemporary Art, 2025; The Limits of Interpretation: Essays on Bion and Field Theory, 2025; The Horse’s Eye: Animality, Humanity, and the Unconscious in Renaissance Art, 2026, in press. In 2022, he received the Sigourney Award.
- Psychotherapists
- Psychoanalysts
- Psychologists
- Clinical Psychologists
- Psychiatrists
- GPs
- Counsellors
- Social Workers
- Understand the shift to the analytic field perspective
Explain how post-Bionian field theory reconceptualises the analytic situation from two separate minds to a shared, dynamic intersubjective field, and describe the implications for understanding the unconscious as a co-created process. - Reinterpret key psychoanalytic concepts within field theory
Analyse how concepts such as reverie, projective identification, alpha function, and dreaming are redefined as functions of the analytic field rather than attributes of either patient or analyst alone. - Evaluate the transformation of interpretation and therapeutic change
Assess how interpretation is reframed as a relational, transformative intervention that enhances symbolisation, mutual recognition, and the evolution of the shared “unconscious we” within the analytic process.
Standard Online Registration: £60
Trainee, NHS staff and Third Sector: £51
Trainee and NHS Discount: To qualify for this offer you need to be taking a course which provides core practitioner training in counselling or psychotherapy that is at least 1 year full time or two years part time and recognised by the BACP or UKCP. TR Together reserve the right to ask to see evidence of training being undertaken. Please contact [email protected] to recieve the discount code.
Group Rates (for 4 or more): Contact [email protected] for customised pricing.
Alumni: If you are a TR Alumni (TRAPC member) please email [email protected] for a discount code to add at checkout
Your CPD Certificate will be available to download from your TR Together account within 48 hours of the event.