The chapters in this book originated in papers presented at the 2014 International Evolving British Object Relations (EBOR) Conference titled 'From Reverie to Interpretation: Transforming thought into the action of psychoanalysis'. Sponsored by the Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (NPSI) in Seattle since 2004, many distinguished psychoanalysts have presented at EBOR, including Ronald Britton, James Grotstein, Alessandra Lemma, Robert Oelsner, John Steiner, and Meltzer scholar and artist Meg Harris Williams. The EBOR conferences have functioned as incubators for newly emerging topics in British object relations theory. This book marks the first time that it has been possible to publish the collected papers from one of these valuable conferences, making the work and thought of its contributors available to the wider psychoanalytic community. This collection of papers focuses on the dialectic between reverie and psychoanalytic interpretation. The clinical concepts of reverie and interpretation are investigated at the theoretical level, giving particular emphasis to the links between them. Bion’s identification of reverie as a psychoanalytic concept has drawn our attention to a dimension of the analyst’s experience with tremendous potential to enrich the interpretive toolbox. It is our hope that the courage of these authors in revealing their own process of reverie as transformed into the action of psychoanalysis will inspire and foster further investigation of this fruitful yet heretofore infrequently explored area of psychoanalytic discovery. About the Editors: Dana Blue, LICSW, FIPA, is a board-certified training and supervising psychoanalyst for the Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, where she teaches on the faculty and serves as Director of Training. In her private practice in Seattle, Dana engages in psychoanalysis with adults and parent-infant pairs, and offers clinical supervision and consultation to therapists seeking additional grounding in contemporary object relations psychoanalysis. Along with Caron Harrang, Dana co-chaired the organising committee for the 2014 International Evolving British Object Relations Conference, titled From Reverie to Interpretation: Transforming Thought into the Action of Psychoanalysis. The resulting papers form the substance of this book. Caron Harrang, LICSW, FIPA, is a board-certified training and supervising psychoanalyst and current President of the Northwestern Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (NPSI). She lives and maintains a private practice working with mothers and infants, adolescents, and adults in Seattle, WA (USA). She is former Managing Editor of the Confederation of Independent Psychoanalytic Societies (CIPS) News Brief and of the NPSI newsletter, Selected Facts. Recent publications include 'Psychic skin and narcissistic rage: Reflections on Almodóvar’s The Skin I Live In', IJP, Vol. 93, No. 5, and 'Painting Poppies: On the relationship between concrete and metaphorical thinking', in Absolute Truths and Unbearable Psychic Pain. She also co-chaired the organizing committee for the 2014 International Evolving British Object Relations Conference on From Reverie to Interpretation: Transforming Thought into the Action of Psychoanalysis.
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