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Luca Di Donna: Joseph, thank you for giving me the opportunity to discuss the book, Wilfred Bion Los Angeles Seminars and Supervision that took place in 1967, one that you edited with Barnet Malin.
Bion's work is of great importance to The Italian Psychoanalytic Society. Francesco Corrao, an analyst from Palermo, introduced and translated Bion's work. Bion was invited to Rome in 1977 to give a series of Seminars (Seminari Romani); his late daughter Parthenope Bion Talamo, who lived in Italy, was the translator. In 1981, the Rivista di Psicoanalisi published a bilingual issue dedicated to Bion's work. The interest about Bion culminated in a superb book by Neri, Correale and Fadda, Letture Bioniane, which covered many aspects of Bion's thinking written by leading Italian analysts. In Semi's Trattato di Psicoanalisi, Gaburri and Ferro detailed Bion's work and its Italian articulations. Nino Ferro has been pivotal in introducing a post Bion thinking. Ferro, a prolific and original thinker, currently President of the Italian Society offers an imaginative reading of Bion infused with the theory of the Barangers and Francesco Corrao's interest in narrative. This movement of Italian post- Bionians is led by Giuseppe Civitarese.
I am very grateful to Giuseppe, Editor of the Rivista for inviting us to converse on Bion's lectures in Los Angeles. As you can imagine, your discussion of Bion's Seminars in 1967 will be of great importance to Italian analysts in understanding the vicissitudes of Bion's thinking in Los Angeles and in the United States.
I would like to start this conversation with a personal note that in a way will open a Bionian scenario. After our phone discussion about Sorrentino's film, La Grande Bellezza, that night you had a dream. In the dream you were on a Vespa exploring Italy. The Vespa, is light, fun, can make twists and turns in the congested traffic, it is an Italian creative-imaginative way to move. In this spirit I would like to start our journey in ta