About the Book
Bion's central thesis in this volume is that for the study of people, whether individually or in groups, a cardinal requisite is accurate observation, accompanied by accurate appreciation and formulation of the observations so made. The study represents a further development of a theme introduced in the author's earlier works, particularly in Elements of Psychoanalysis (1963) and Transformations (1965). Bion's concern with the subject stems directly from his psycho-analytic experience and reflects his endeavor to overcome, in a scientific frame of reference, the immense difficulty of observing, assessing, and communicating non-sensuous experience.Here, he lays emphasis on he overriding importance of attending to the realities of mental phenomena as they manifest themselves in the individual or group under study. In influences that interpose themselves between the observer and the subject of his scrutiny giving rise to opacity, are examined, together with ways of controlling them.
Problems of language are considered: In order to express and communicate, the analyst is obliged to use words and formulations deriving from a background of sensuous experience and designed for a different task. Furthermore, the author says "It is too often forgotten that the gift of speech, so centrally employed, has been elaborated s much for the purpose of concealing thought by dissimulation and lying as for the purpose of elucidating or communicating thought".The practical value of this volume for those engaged in psycho-analytic work is self-evident; furthermore, its implications extend to many other areas of study. The discussion is wide-ranging: based on Kleinian theory, it encompasses theological dogma and mathematics, and the relationships between these fields. In particular, an attempt is made to show the analogy of certain psychological concepts with mathematical formulations such as set theory.Readers already familiar with Bion's work will welcome this further statement of his views. Those encountering his writing for the first time will at once perceive the originality of his approach and the precision of his theoretical exposition.
About the Author :
Wilfred Ruprecht Bion DSO (8 September 1897 - 8 November 1979) was a British psychoanalyst. Bion was born in India in the days of the British Raj, and was sent to school in England at the age of eight. He left school just before he was eighteen to join the Tank Corps and served in France where he was awarded the DSO, the Legion of Honour, and was mentioned in dispatches. After the war he read History at the Queen's College, Oxford, studied medicine at University College, London, and then turned to psycho-analysis to which he devoted the remaining fifty years of his life, the last twelve being spent in California.A pioneer in group dynamics, he was associated with the 'Tavistock group', the group of pioneering psychologists that founded the Tavistock Institute in 1946 on the basis of their shared wartime experiences. He later wrote the influential 'Experiences in Groups', in 1961, an important guide for the group psychotherapy and encounter group movements beginning in the 1960s, and which quickly became a touchstone work for applications of group theory in a wide variety of fields.Abandoning his work in the field of group psychotherapy in favor of psychoanalytic practice, he subsequently rose to the position of Director of the London Clinic of Psycho-Analysis (1956-62) and President of the British Psycho-Analytical Society (1962-65). From 1968 he worked In Los Angeles, returning to England two months before his death in 1979.Bion's training included an analysis with Melanie Klein and he was was a potent and original contributor to psychoanalysis. He was one of the first to analyse patients in psychotic states using an unmodified analytic technique; he extended existing theories of projective processes and developed new conceptual tools. The degree of collaboration between Hanna Segal, Wilfred Bion and Herbert Rosenfeld in their work with psychotic patients during the late 1950s, and their discussions with Melanie Klein at the time, means that it is not always possible to distinguish their exact individual contributions to the developing theory of splitting, projective identification, unconscious phantasy and the use of countertransference. These three pioneering analysts not only sustained Klein's clinical and theoretical approach, but deepened and expanded it, and his work continues to be found clinically relevant today, in the UK, North and South America, and across the world.His writings include 'Learning From Experience' (1962), 'Elements of Psychoanalysis' (1963), 'Transformations' (1965), 'Attention and Interpretation' (1970), 'Two Papers: The Grid and Caesura' (1977) and two posthumously published volumes of autobiography: 'The Long Weekend' (1982) and 'All My Sins Remembered' (1985).
Review :
Bion's central thesis in this volume is that for the study of people, whether individually or in groups, a cardinal requisite is accurate observation, accompanied by accurate appreciation and formulation of the observations so made. The study represents a further development of a theme introduced in the author's earlier works, particularly in Elements of Psychoanalysis (1963) and Transformations (1965). Bion's concern with the subject stems directly from his psycho-analytic experience and reflects his endeavor to overcome, in a scientific frame of reference, the immense difficulty of observing, assessing, and communicating non-sensuous experience.Here, he lays emphasis on he overriding importance of attending to the realities of mental phenomena as they manifest themselves in the individual or group under study. In influences that interpose themselves between the observer and the subject of his scrutiny giving rise to opacity, are examined, together with ways of controlling them. Problems of language are considered: In order to express and communicate, the analyst is obliged to use words and formulations deriving from a background of sensuous experience and designed for a different task. Furthermore, the author says "It is too often forgotten that the gift of speech, so centrally employed, has been elaborated s much for the purpose of concealing thought by dissimulation and lying as for the purpose of elucidating or communicating thought."The practical value of this volume for those engaged in psycho-analytic work is self-evident; furthermore, its implications extend to many other areas of study. The discussion is wide-ranging: based on Kleinian theory, it encompasses theological dogma and mathematics, and the relationships between these fields. In particular, an attempt is made to show the analogy of certain psychological concepts with mathematical formulations such as set theory.Readers already familiar with Bion's work will welcome this further statement of his v
