Bion

Preface, Truth and evolution in “O” in Bion’s work

/in , /by

It was not easy to give an order, or even a sequence, to the thematic contributions of so many authors, from a variety of places and cultures (England, Brazil, France, Israel, Italy), approaching Bion’s thinking in an effort to share the idea that psychoanalysis, as a “psychodynamic probe”, can continuously explore that which is happening while it is happening and produce new dimensions of meaning. More than a sequence, whether historical or thematic, we had in mind rather a simultaneous presentation in various dimensions. This is why we decided to open the issue (which is to be followed by a second) with an article focusing on Bion’s idea of the emotional turbulence created by the encounter between two or more Read more

Bion

Introduction. The mind-boggling experience of my encounter with Bion

/in , /by

The mind-boggling experience of my encounter with Bion. Bion’s thought cannot be put into any kind of order, above all his mystic thought. What he has shown us is how tenuous thought can be, how uncertain, how much it changes over time. Already in his triology, Bion gives evidence of post-modern thinking (indeterminism, breaking down of rules, irony, etc.).When I first read Bion’s work in 1978 I was thunderstruck: I experienced time-space disorientation and anger. Then I found myself reflecting openly on Nothing. It was Ignacio Matte Blanco who first introduced me to him by showing me a letter he had received from Bion praising him for something he had writter about him. Blanco’s esteem for this psychiatrist I didn’t know made a big impression on me. I attended Francesco Corrao’s seminars on Bion and found I was wavering. One of my colleagues suggested I read his clinical seminars ( Clinical Seminars and Four Papers , 1987 The Estate of W. R. Bion by arrangement with Mark Paterson) to get a better idea of what he was saying. I did, and a whole new world opened up to me, a world in which time takes on a completely different dimension and is almost suspended, a world in which through some area of Bion’s thought we are able to see into the inner life of the Other! I decided that I was going to learn how to go into a session capable of thought. but with very little memory or desire. In the 1980’s I began to systematically study Bion’s work Read more

Bion

Group mentality and ‘having a mind’

/in , /by

Abstract

As a general proposition having a mind entails being able to recognise another mind. Indeed Bion’s theory of alpha-function implies that the very development of a mind at all depends in the first place on another mind. Such an ‘other mind’ acts as a container. Thus a mind evolves from interpersonal and Read more

Bion

Truth as a therapeutic factor

/in , /by

Abstract

Truth – according to Bion – has a performative character; it can bring about transformations. Analysis is a “veridical process” that helps the patient become himself. In order for this transformation to positively occur, the search for truth must be tempered and guided by empathy. The therapist takes part in the veridical Read more

Bion

‘Open People’, ‘Homo Clausus’ and the ‘5th Basic Assumption’: Bridging Concepts between Foulkes’s and Bion’s Traditions

/in , /by

Abstract

In this article I tried to bridge the split between the Foulkesian and the Bionian traditions, hence overcoming the outworn dispute between these two theories and practices. The main hypothesis in this article is that W.R. Bion and S.H. Foulkes tried to achieve the same goal, albeit coming from a different, yet complementary, direction. The metaphor which is being used describes Bion and Foulkes as two miners digging a tunnel under a river, each of them starting from the opposite bank. Bion and his followers tried to overcome the pathologies of groups which take control over individuals and abolish their individuality (Basic Assumption Groups), while Foulkes and his followers tried to overcome the pathologies of Individuals devoid of relational and communal existence (‘Closed People’; ‘We-less-I’s’). In order to overcome the split between these two traditions I discuss and Read more

Bion

Homogeneity of the protomind

/in , /by

Abstract

Considering the homogeneous nature of the group (traumatised war veterans at Northfield hospital) that first led Bion to study the group function and the contribution of the social and primitive mind to cognitive processes and psychic evolution, the contribution first examines the etymological and historic notion of homogeneity, going on to compare it with the main psychoanalytic models that have used it in their theoretical treatment as an element significant to the psychic mechanism; and, finally, this dimension (of indistinction) is observed as a function that contains its own reciprocal (the fluctuating impulse toward individuation) and that will tend to behave in psychoanalysis as a “probe” (Bion, 1970) by Read more

Bion

The mystic’s and the psychanalyst’s experience under Bion’s vertex

/in , /by

Abstract

The author’s proposal in this work is to explore the assertion that some mental conditions that permit the access to a mystic experience may be part of psychoanalytical practice. This approximation offers the psychoanalyst the possibility of using elements of some mystics’ discipline to think about the experience of the session, without leveling both situations, or to label psychoanalysis a religious or mystic attitude. Bion was aware of this approximation and affirmed that psychoanalytical facts may be adequately expressed taking the model of the mystics’ experience. In doing so, he uses it as a provisional construction to signify facts observed in his experience with the patient. From this methodological approximation and, taking as a model the notion of Negativity, Faith and the Experience of the Unspeakable that may be applied to Psychic Reality ( Read more

Bion

Bion the mystic

/in , /by

Abstract

In order to adequately understand the Bion’s mysticism we need to take in account the “catastrophic event” he meet in his life; as a matter of fact, until the half of the ’70 Bion wrote amply and skilfully about general psychoanalysis, in a frame of reference that could be sed “aristotelic-kantian”, and for the same reason in dealing with groups he took upon himself an evident “military” mindset. In this part of his work nothing is found of a mystical nature. The event that changed the Bion’s life seems to come from his gettino in touch with the Nord-American experience and psychoanalysis: this fact de-stabilized his mindset, and made therefore possible his use of “less scientific” and more un-saturated concepts than those of the more precise and formal earlier writings, showing a moving versus a “platonic-matteblanchian” direction. Since that Bion entered in a phenomenic word that does’not conceil its derivation from the indian culture in which Bion began his life and spent the infancy. Here we find the “mystic” in its proper sense . The assumption of the “sensory O”, of the intuitionistic “non-sensory O”; the functional transformation of the beta elements and of their very nature, moreover the dreaming contact as well as the Read more

Bion

Prejudice

/in , /by

Abstract
The author considers that prejudice is the method of survival and protection of the mind due to the impossibility of development of tolerance and contact with one’s own emotional experiences. Without. Intimate contact with his emotions, the. Individual cannot attribute meanings to his experiences and has to resort to and count on rigid systems of beliefs and of behavior that would have the role of substitutes of his own discernment that cannot be reached. However, this protection can turn. Into a Read more

Bion

Psychoanalysis and Aesthetics: Re-signifying psychotic conflicts and creative reciprocity

/in , /by

Abstract

Inspiration sources that inhabit the universes of Aesthetics and Psychoanalysis are used to construct mental models viewing to approach emotional conflicts linked to psychotic levels. The clinical presentation is made through emotional photograms. Movements of the analytical couple are studied related to the function for re-signifying psychotic blockages and so to restate the analytical dialogue and to promote creative reciprocity, as basis to Read more

Bion

Psycoanalytic Groups and Musical Groups: an Investigation on the Possible Commmon Prospects

/in , /by

Abstract

This paper would like to bridge two realities, music and group psychoanalysis and investigate some of the dynamics that occur in groups of musicians, with the purpose of analyzing them, having as reference schools of thought that studied group psychoanalysis. Key-words are groupal associative chains related with the free improvisations in the jam sessions, mirror effect and resonance, analyzed in two places, the sessions atmosphere or back tone, the medium and the effects of the primitive mentality and of the basic assumptions, Read more

GiocoLegame

Introduction

/in , /by

Abstract

In this introduction, after a brief account of the advantages and application areas of group psychotherapy as a method of intervention in developmental age, they are briefly summarized all the articles that make up the volume. In this way, it is given an overview of the content, following a Read more