“Bringing the plague”: Groundwork for a transformative outreach of psychoanalysis

Abstract

ABSTRACT The authors lay the groundwork for a theory and technique of transformative outreach of psychoanalysis, a process of group building of a shared emotional experience by way of a discourse on issues of psychoanalytic relevance. The subject of interest is the public conference, where the “outreach session” is defined as a situation built on the basis of a well-defined setting, which allows the unfolding of the informative process to the best effect. Being able to grasp the quality of the experience that one is creating, while respecting individual differences, is a specific analytical capacity. To the audience, being able to feel that someone minds how it may experience being there, in that moment, means being able to experience in person the containing and transformative capacity of psychoanalysis. This frame of mind can be maintained much more easily if the speaker shows up without a written speech: “placing a sheet” between him or herself and the audience shields his or her perceptual-receptive capacity, which is necessary to give space to the waking dream activity. As theoretical background, the recent developments of the Bionian perspective proposed by Ogden and Ferro seem the most suitable to root our proposed ideas for good psychoanalytical outreach practices.