Giuseppe Civitarese has given us another thought provoking and wonderful new book to open our analytic minds to new ways of thinking about what we analysts do. This volume begins with a discussion of the meaning of ‘beheading,’ a topic that could not be more current as the destruction of the mind, and Civitarese beautifully examines how psychoanalytic theory and art criticism are related endeavors that each strengthen and build the mind. This erudite and aesthetically rich book continues Civitarese’s exploration of psychoanalysis and aesthetics that he began in his previous publication, The Violence of Emotions: Bion and Post-Bionian Psychoanalysis. This present volume further establishes Civitarese as a leading creative thinker in contemporary psychoanalysis.

Lawrence J. Brown, author of Intersubjective Processes and the Unconscious: Freudian, Kleinian and Bionian Perspectives

Focusing here on the unexpected theme of ‘decapitation’ (the real as well as the metaphorical losses of heads and minds), Giuseppe Civitarese’s critical reflections upon such a variety of artistic creations as a Haneke’s movie, a Boccaccio’s short story, or a video installation from the Venice Biennale leave us intellectually stimulated and enriched. Civitarese’s wide-ranging psychoanalytic scholarship on aesthetics, combined with his elegant writing style, will only surprise those readers not yet familiar with the depth and breadth of his contributions to psychoanalysis.

Andrea Sabbadini, British Psychoanalytical Society

Civitarese's extensive clinical experience and knowledge of Freud, Klein, Meltzer, Kristeva, and especially Bion, is here deployed in analyses of the art object, film, installation, and poetry to illuminate the nature of aesthetic experience and its fundamental place in the space and relationships of the analytic encounter.

Lesley Caldwell, PhD, University College London