Seeds of illness, seeds of recovery By Antonino Ferro Translated by Philip Slotkin New York:  Brunner-Routledge 2002.  125 p. Psychoanalysis as therapy and storytelling By Antonino Ferro Translated by Philip Slotkin London and New York:  Routledge, 2006.  148 p.

In suggesting a joint review of these two books by Antonino Ferro, the IJP implicitly recognizes the unitary nature of Ferro's work. Indeed, there is in each piece of Ferro's basic oeuvre a recognizable preoccupation, as evocative, and almost as recognizable, as the melodic theme that runs through a composer's piece, even as variations are played on it.

Ferro trained in Italy and early on, working as a child analyst, was interested in infantile mental development and in serious psychopathology. In an environment that gives an important place to the teaching of object relations in general, and to Kleinian thinking in particular, Ferro gravitated towards Bion's ideas for which he has become a major European voice. Such voice is enriched by many influences, notably, besides European authors, many important South American ones, most significantly, Madeleine and Willy Baranger. These two books—like The bipersonal field (1999) and In the analyst's consulting room (2002)—spring naturally from Ferro's clinical work, his elaboration of Bion's ideas, and the integration of these with the major contribution of the Barangers (1961-2), the idea of the ‘psychoanalytic field’.

In each of these books, Ferro outlines Bion's basic theory of mind. In each there is ample illustration of his teachings, clinical instances, and examples of his style, technique and the use of the session. Yet, the experience of reading Ferro is a renewed excitement about his work and the clarity with which he describes it. Even when referring to ideas that have been presented by other authors, Ferro's descriptions are richly evocative for the clinician.

I want to highlight the spin he puts on theory, and then the clinical focus he so masterfully maintains. Although both vertices are present in his thinking, Ferro is not a representative of what in the United States is called an intersubjectivist, or of a relational analyst. Yet he maintains total clarity about both how there is no avoiding the acknowledgement