The Extended Analytical Field: A Device for Analytical Listening in the Childhood and Adolescence Clinic

This article proposes thinking about analytical listening from the point of view of “extended intersubjective analytical situations,” that is, the field of forces that involves the patient and their environment and that resonate in the analyst’s mind. It is based on the hypothesis that the containment of the elements that emerge from the analysand’s surroundings favors the expansion of analytical processes in the childhood and adolescence clinic, and presents itself as a technical device for new understandings and clinical management. The theoretical framework that will support our proposal is based on the concept of the analytic field formulated by Madeleine and Willy W. Baranger (1961–62), its foundations and technique. The theoretical-clinical link will be made by expanding the authors’ ideas into the notion of an “extended analytical field” and articulating it with intersubjective clinical fragments. These will offer visibility to the dynamics that are formed in the field in its different encounters–analyst–patient–surrounding, as well as giving a narrative to the shared fantasy experienced in the analytical process.