Bion S Legacy

This collection illuminates the legacy of Wilfred R. Bion in Brazil, illustrating Bion’s continued influence on the work of the São Paulo Psychoanalytic Society (SBPSP), how Bionian ideas are applied in contemporary psychoanalysis, and how current practice has evolved over time. Evelise de Souza Marra and Cecil José Rezze bring together theoretical and clinical approaches to provide a thorough perspective on Bionian work in Brazil. The book includes chapters by senior analysts, well-respected teachers and analytic clinicians in contemporary Brazilian psychoanalysis, each of which explores a topic central to Bion’s formulations. With discussion of key themes including turbulence, emotional experience, transference, caesura and mental pain, this book demonstrates how Wilfred R. Bion’s thought has been developed, transformed and applied in Brazil since his visits there in the 1970s. Bion’s Legacy in São Paulo will be of great interest to psychoanalysts in practice and in training, particularly those looking to understand Bion’s influence in more depth, and for anyone interested in the practice of psychoanalysis in Latin America.

Written by pioneering analyst and creative thinker, James Grotstein, A Beam of Intense Darkness offers a thorough overview and illuminating insight into the often-complex work of W. R. Bion. This psychoanalytic classic sees Grotstein introduce over 30 key Bionian theories, comprehensively explaining them to the reader before offering his own insight and commentary. Grotstein first encountered Bion as his analysand and, later, as his friend. This book offers a level of insight only possible through such a close relationship, and offers a dialogue between Bion and Grotstein as they delve into the inner workings of the human psyche. Throughout, Grotstein offers his own original thoughts on topics such as projective transidentification, transcendent position and the truth drive. With a new introduction from Nicola Abel-Hirsch, this book is an essential read for anyone interested in Bion’s work and legacy.

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.

This book contains state of the art studies in Bion scholarship that are directly applicable to clinical and theoretical thinking.

'It is characteristic of some forms of scientific genius to alter not just what we see in the world, but how we see it - not just the view, but the lens. One thinks of Freud's discovery of the transference, or of Melanie Klein's attention to the play of children. Wilfred Bion's study of groups and group processes also has this quality. More than the content of what he saw and captured in the concepts of two modes of mental functioning in groups and in the differentiation of the basic assumptions, it was the way he saw or, more broadly, the way he sensed the emotional life of the individual in the group, and in the first instance his own, that opened up a quite new territory for exploration. Those of us whose practice takes place primarily in the institutional or social domain can find in his more psychoanalytic work seeds of new thought extending beyond the consulting room.Going "beyond the confines" might perhaps more generally stand as a metaphor for Bion's enterprise.

Wilfred Bion remains the most cited author in psychoanalytic literature after Sigmund Freud. His formulation of alpha function, waking dream thoughts, his theory of thinking and of the container/contained have proven seminal for the elaboration of psychoanalytic theory and practice, as well as the exploration of psychic functioning and the primordial mind. Growth Turbulence in the Container/Contained is based on papers presented at the 2009 International Bion Conference held in Boston, Massachusetts. It represents the state of the art thinking of an outstanding international group of Bion scholars and experts. This book includes the most current trends in Bion scholarship, covering topics that range from the historical/biographical, to the clinical, the theoretical, the developmental, to the cultural and aesthetic. Proving a vital stimulus to further creative explorations in the field, Growth Turbulence in the Container/Contained will be of particular interest to psychoanalytic practitioners, graduate psychoanalysts, analytic candidates, psychoanalytic therapists, advanced therapy trainees,and scholars of all schools.

This book forms a comprehensive bibliography of the works of W. R. Bion, and the other works that made some bearing of his life and thought. With considerable renewed interest in Bion's contribution to various disciplines beyond the psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic, this work will be of use to practitioners, researchers and students.

"'It is characteristic of some forms of scientific genius to alter not just what we see in the world, but how we see it - not just the view, but the lens. One thinks of Freud's discovery of the transference, or of Melanie Klein's attention to the play of children. Wilfred Bion's study of groups and group processes also has this quality. More than the content of what he saw and captured in the concepts of two modes of mental functioning in groups and in the differentiation of the basic assumptions, it was the way he saw or, more broadly, the way he sensed the emotional life of the individual in the group, and in the first instance his own, that opened up a quite new territory for exploration. Those of us whose practice takes place primarily in the institutional or social domain can find in his more psychoanalytic work seeds of new thought extending beyond the consulting room.Going "beyond the confines" might perhaps more generally stand as a metaphor for Bion's enterprise. This is the debt that the papers collected in this volume first and foremost seek to record - a debt that is both personal and institutional. One hopes that they may also, warts and all, exemplify something of his legacy - a legacy of capturing thoughts about thought or of looking at how we look, in the varied and the different worlds we inhabit and that inhabit us.'- David Armstrong, from his Foreword"--Provided by publisher.