Transformations continues the investigation of various aspects of psychoanalytic theory and practice which the author commenced with Learning from Experience (1962) and pursued in Elements of Psychoanalysis (1963). In this third work published in 1965, the author examines the ways in which the analyst's description of the original analytic experience, mediated by theory, necessarily transforms it in the course of effecting an interpretation.
Wilfred R. Bion is considered a ground-breaking psychoanalyst. His thinking is rooted in Freud and Klein from where it takes an original flight. Reading Bion shows the evolution of his seminal insights in psychic functioning and puts them in a wider context. Rudi Vermote integrates a chronological close reading and discussion of Bion’s texts, with a comprehensive approach of his major concepts. The book is divided in two main parts: Transformation in Knowledge: Bion’s odyssey to understand psychic processing or the mind Transformation in O: in which Bion reinterprets his former concepts from the dimension of the unknown and unknowable The running text is put against a background of biographical data and scientific, artistic and philosophical influences on his work, which are highlighted in boxes and separate chapters. Bion’s concepts are important for anyone dealing with the mind. His ideas have an ongoing deep impact on psychoanalysis, psychotherapy and psychopathology. His concepts help to understand psychic change, creativity, individual psychodynamics and small and large-group phenomena. The discovery of their value for studies on art, literature, sociology, religion, economics has just begun. Reading Bion starts from the very beginning so that it is instructive for people who are new to his work, but the close reading and background information make it a meaningful companion for experienced psychoanalysts and psychotherapists studying his work.
Reading Bion's Transformations is an in-depth reading of Bion’s 1965 work, Transformations, and investigates the epistemological concept of "O" introduced by Bion. Throughout the book, Bion’s conceptual and unconventional text is discussed step-by-step, with a focus on the first three and last three chapters. The epistemological references are highlighted and analysed, allowing the reader insight into how to do a deconstructive psychoanalytic reading, acknowledging that Bion raised psychoanalytical thought and practice to new levels. The authors’ reading both de-focuses and re-focuses several theoretical statutes of O discussed by Bion in 1965. Reading Bion’s Transformations is an essential read for those approaching Bion’s work for the first time, as well as those seeking to better understand his theories and the metapsychological and epistemological impact of the concept of transformation within psychoanalysis.
This book focuses on Samuel Beckett's psychoanalytic psychotherapy with W. R. Bion as a central aspect both of Beckett's and Bion's radical transformations of literature and psychoanalysis. The recent publication of Beckett's correspondence during the period of his psychotherapy with Bion provides a starting place for an imaginative reconstruction of this psychotherapy, culminating with Bion's famous invitation to his patient to dinner and a lecture by C.G. Jung. Following from the course of this psychotherapy, Miller and Souter trace the development of Beckett's radical use of clinical psychoanalytic method in his writing, suggesting the development within his characters of a literary-analytic working through of transference to an idealized auditor known by various names, apparently based on Bion. Miller and Souter link this pursuit to Beckett's breakthrough from prose to drama, as the psychology of projective identification is transformed to physical enactment.
Wilfred R. Bion was one of the foremost psychoanalysts of his generation, whose work has shaped and enriched psychoanalysis and psychotherapy indelibly. Renowned for some highly original and sometimes cryptic ideas, such as the alpha function and theory of the grid, Learning from Experience is arguably his most important and enduring work. Bion brings knowledge into the psychoanalytic spotlight. What forces, he asks, interfere with knowledge? Crucially, Bion doesn't mean knowing only facts, but the lifelong process of understanding and coming to know things that is a consequence of the development of knowledge. However, Learning From Experience is perhaps best-known for its emphasis on the way emotion and knowledge are interwoven. Bion links the emotional capacity to develop and know to the capacity to tolerate frustration: if we can hold ourselves in check whilst we endure frustration, then we can come to know things. A remarkable and brilliant work by a fascinating psychoanalyst and thinker, Learning From Experience continues to inspire psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Foreword by Robert Hinshelwood.
Elements of Psycho-Analysis is a 20-chapter text that describes the phenomena whose various aspects can be seen to fall within the grid categories of psycho-analysis. The elements of psycho-analysis are ideas and feelings as represented by their setting in a single grid-category. The opening chapters deal with the psychoanalytic objects, which are associations and interpretations with extensions in the domain of sense, myth, and passion. The remaining chapters are extensive discussions of the psychoanalytic phenomena, including ideas, feelings, pain, association and interpretation, conflicting pairs, and the two axes of grid. This book is directed primarily to psycho-analysts and psychiatrists.
The author surveys Bion's publications and elaborates on his key contributions in depth while also critiquing them. The scope of this work is to synopsize, synthesize, and extend Bion's works in a reader-friendly manner. The book presents his legacy - his most important ideas for psychoanalysis. These ideas need to be known by the mental health profession at large. This work highlights and defines the broader and deeper implications of his works.It presents his ideas faithfully and also uses his ideas as "launching pads" for the author's conjectures about where his ideas point.
The final book in the three-volume series, A Clinical Application of Bion's Concepts - a practical companion to the dictionary of concepts The Language of Bion - is divided in four main parts. Part I, through the aid of a transdisciplinary study between psycho-analysis, mathematics, and physics, proposes four expanded variations of Bion's epistemological tool, The Grid. This was construed around an Euclidean space represented graphically by two dimensions constantly conjoined: the dimension of Functions of the Ego with the dimension of Psycho-genetics of thought processes. Bion's tool, by its own design, allows possibilities of development with regards to its ability to scrutinize the 'truth-value' of statements issued both by patients and analysts in the space-time, or the 'here and now' of psycho-analytic sessions or groups of sessions. The proposal is made though three steps; each one adds a subsequent dimension to the earlier one considered. The first step constitutes a Tri-dimension Grid; the added dimension is the Intensity of phenomena observed though the aid of the two dimension, original Grid. From this is proposed a Four-dimension Grid, which examines the evolution of the session with another dimension, added to the three already mentioned: the dimension of Time. Developing out from this, is proposed the a Six-dimension Grid, with the aid of more recent developments which allow a more precise examination of the space-time unit as observed by mathematicians and physicians. Finally, in order to better illuminate the complexity of mental functioning, there is proposed a Multi-dimension Grid. There is a detailed clinical illustration to furnish an example of the use of the Grid.Part II is a study of the most elemental bearings of the psycho-analytic clinic - free associations and free floating attention - which evolves from the study of Dreams, under the contributions of Bion (presented in volume I), as well as from the study of the analytic function and the function of the analyst (presented in volume II). In Part III Sandler shows how the pursuit of truth can be seen as one of the purposes of the psycho-analytic investigation in the clinic; a transdisciplinary study is presented, to assist the practicing analyst, around epistemological issues. Freud and Bion's contributions to it are scrutinized under some lights hitherto unused in the psycho-analytic literature. Part IV presents Sandler's proposals for expanding the observational power of existing Bion's theories; in this part another basic assumption, based on the original three proposed by Bion, is described, in connection with his contributions to the study of hallucinosis.
Wilfred Bion described "O" as "the unknowable and the unreachable ultimate truth". In this fascinating collection, a range of authors offer their own theoretical, clinical and artistic approaches to exploring this enduring but mysterious idea. Drawn from contributions from the 8th International Bion Conference in 2014, the book examines how "O" can be experienced in all aspects of internal and external reality and within all relationships, from an individual relating to the mother to their emotional relationship with their self. It features insights into "O" drawn from the area of faith as well as its manifestations in clinical practice, while also included is a chapter exploring the links between Bion’s ideas and those of Winnicott, Lacan, Green and Freud. Featuring contributions from some of the world’s leading Bion scholars, this will be essential reading for any psychoanalyst interested in exploring the concept of "O", as well as scholars in philosophy and theology.
