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Diccionario de la Obra de Wilfred R. Bion first published in 2002 by
Editorial Biblioteca Nueva, Madrid, 2002
Copyright © Rafael E. Lopez-Corvo 2003
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To my wife, Ana Milagros, and my grandchildren, Ashley Katalina and Adrian Rafael
Table of Contents

Cover
Copy Right
Content
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations and Signs
Author’s Foreword
Introduction
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Z
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my gratitude for the help and encouragement in the preparation of this
work, I received from associates of the study group on Bion’s work, integrated by members of
the Venezuelan Psychoanalytical Association: Gonzalo González, Osea Lombardi de Gustuti,
Marilucía Castellanos de Maestres, Ana Milagros Pérez Morazzani, Paolo Polito Di Sabato and
Nancy Segarra. I am also extremely grateful to Lucía Morabito Gómez, for her laborious effort
in translating, correcting and reviewing most of this work.
ABBREVIATIONS AND SIGNS

—.→ Advance of no-breast* through the horizontal axis of theGrid*

ba basic assumption* (See: text)
baD basic assumption of Dependence* (See: text)
baA basic assumption of Pairing* (See: text)
baF basic assumption of Flight-fight* (See: text)
Cs* Awareness. (See: text)
Container
Contained
Container-contained* (See text)
D Depressive position
= Equivalent to. (See: Bion 1992, p. 54)
F Act of Faith* (See: text)
H* Hate
I* Idea* (See: text)
>-)-= Implies, means ( See: Bion 1992, pp. 58-59)
K* Knowledge (See: text)
K(ξ) Formula representing a relation between constant K and a non-saturated element: ξ*
L* Love
Envy, greed, murder, no respect for an object that does not exist.(See: Cs*
“↑
Withoutness*)
—“ ↑. Place where the object that does not exist was (See: Cs*)
K Minus knowledge.
O* Origin.
PS Paranoid-schizoid position.
Ψ* (Psi) The pre-conception or psychoanalytic function.
-.→ − Progression of no-breast* through both axes of the Grid*
(.) Point* (See: text)
R* Reason*: (See: text)
←.− Regression of no-breast* through the horizontal axis* of the Grid*
←.− ↑ Regression of no-breast* through both axes of the Grid*
s.d.s. Scientific deductive system*.
Σ* (Sigma, Greek letter = S) >Totality of collective consciousness* (See: Sigma*)
sm Proto-mental system* (See: text)
T Transformation*, act of (See: text)
Tα Transformation, process of
Tβ Transformation, final product of
Tp Transformation of the patient
Ta Transformation of the analyst
Taα Transformation, act of, in the analyst
Taβ Transformation, final product in the analyst
TK Transformation in K*
TO Transformation in O*
Top Transformation in O of the patient
Toa Transformation in O of the analyst
Tpα Transformation, act of, in the patient
Tpβ Transformation, final product of, in the patient
Txα Transformation, final product
W work group* (See: text)
(Xi, Greek letter = x) Meaning: >psychoanalytic element* non-saturated*=, also
ζ*
distance.
(+ -)
mental growth* (See: text)
Y
“But there is no solution once and for all;
each solution opens another universe”
“It takes a long time to find out who is
the biggest nuisance — the
doubter or the believer”
“Go on asking the same question as often
as you like and I will answer it if I can,
Although probably in a different way each time”
W. R. Bion
“Intuitions without concepts are blind, Concepts without intuitions are empty”
E. Kant
FOREWORD

Eigen (1985)1 has stated, with great exactness, that, “in order to read Bion fairly, one must read
him closely and, in part, on his own terms. He is one of the most precise, if elusive, of
psychoanalytic writers”. A declaration that in simple terms labels the enormous task of
attempting to understand and translate Bion’s work, to render it more accessible to students and
less sophisticated readers. This was my purpose, however, it would be pretentious if not
misleading to believe that an endeavour of such a magnitude could be achieved without
numberless downfalls, multitudes of complications and possibly, several blunders. Even
researchers of the calibre of Grinberg and Bianchedi (1972) faced certain hurdles to follow
Bion’s proper intentions while attempting the earliest and only summary of his contributions.
Take for instance the word pre-motion, mentioned in chapter 16 of Bion’s book Elements of
Psycho-Analysis (1963, pp. 75-76), where the reader is left with the doubt if dealing with a
printing misspelling for ‘premonition’, or a neologism implying a condition previous to an
emotional state.
I have a hypothesis: there is the feeling, when we follow his work sequentially, of a
successive tendency towards a greater complication and a more elusive writing style. Starting
with the clear contributions on groups—written as a psychiatrist—and later as a psychoanalyst,
in his papers about psychosis, at one extreme; to the rambling and bemused prose present in A
Memoir of the Future, at the other. His four books representing the main hardcore of his theory:
Learning from Experience, Elements of Psycho-Analysis, Transformations, Attention and
Interpretation, as well as Cogitations, could be placed right in the middle. However, if we read
the compilation of his Brazilian conferences, which took place around the same time he was
working on A Memoir of the Future, we are amazed at the transparency of his presentations and
the efforts he made to communicate his theories. When we speak with Brazilians who met him
and attended his conferences, we can intuitively gather the impression that they feel the rightful
heirs to Bion’s tradition.2 As stated in the Introduction to this Dictionary, I think it is possible
that the obscurity in his language might have been a consequence of Bion’s sentiments about
the rejection some of his ideas had produced within the British Psychoanalytical Society:3 I feel
that Bion was obscure with the British, sober with Americans and charming and understanding
with Brazilians.
Another very important issue continuously present in Bion’s contributions was his
concern for the exactness of communication. We learned from Francesca and from many of
Bion’s own statements, that he enjoyed reading and often quoting poetry, however, the main
body of his writing follows closely the precision of a scientific deductive system, and like
Socrates through the mouth of Phaedo, he resisted the uncertainty of metaphors in order to
protect himself from the fate of Palinurus. Expressions such as “in approximation to”, for
instance,—often used—mark his concern with precision. During the psychoanalytic session,
says Bion, two individuals attempt a dialogue: one using a scientific deductive system similar to
a ‘geocentric’ logic, ‘obvious but not true’; while the other applies another deductive system
based on a heliocentric reasoning: true, but not obvious; it is evident that reversion of
perspective could be a frequent complication. Bion often in his theoretical dissertations also
created neologisms in order to bring language within an area of comprehension.
I ask the reader for their munificence and understanding as they peruse the pages of this
book; to bear in mind the difficult task, albeit in the whole picture, I feel very pleased with the
effort and can assure you that it has been accomplished with great dedication and total candour.
Finally I would like to confess, that although I was not so fortunate as to be touched by his
physical presence, reading all about Bion’s work throughout these years has induced a close
affection toward his memory and an immense curiosity about his legacy.
Caracas, 2002

Note
1 Eigen, M., (1985) Towards Bion’s starting point: between catastrophe and death. Int. J.
Psychoanal. 66 321-330.
2 See for instance Donald Meltzer’s ambivalence in “The Kleinian Development, part III”,
in The Clinical Significance of the Work of Bion (1978).
3 Perhaps we could now remember Bion’s own words: “Individuals cannot reconcile
themselves to a discrimination that means conscious separation of themselves from a belief in
their Freud-like [or Bion-like] qualities and recognition that Freud [Bion], a genius (mystic),
no longer exists. Another Freud [Bion] cannot be created no matter how essential he may be”
(1970 p. 77).
Introduction

The dictionary

Adictionary could be defined as “a reference book that enumerates in alphabetical order, terms
or words that are important for an activity or a particular matter, together with a discussion of
their meanings or applications”1. This is precisely the intention of the present dictionary, for it
to be used as a “reference book”, as an indispensable partner and a guide in the adventure of the
fascinating discovery, although highly dense, complex and frequently frustrating, of Wilfred
Ruprecht Bion’s great legacy to psychoanalysis. Therefore, it should never replace the reading
of his original texts. It is proper now to quote his words:
Even in language itself a dictionary is not all that is needed; one has to understand the nature of language as well as
the actual language in which one is attempting to speak. [1974, p. 202]

It is quite obvious that one of Bion’s greatest concerns had to do with communication
between two persons who do not know each other: the patient and the analyst. Such
communication represents a struggle between two different deductive scientific systems: one
entrenched within its ghosts, its resistances, its repetition compulsions, its old defences, the lies
of the mind, the inanimate etc.; and the other stubborn in the search for incorruptible truth at all
costs. However, truth has its consequences, its violence; in Bion’s language: turbulence,
catastrophic changes, caesuras, death of hopes, and painful achievements.
Bion was always suspicious of colloquial language, with its terms pawed by the passage
of time, corrupted by meanings and saturated by antique desires impugning their origins. How
different from mathematical elements, from numbers for instance, which remain unharmed as
empty recipients always ready to be filled up by anything without ever losing their identity: two
tigers, ten coins, five arrows, five computers. If only one could say “good evening” using
mathematical elements, Bion once exclaimed.

The man

Just as it is important to know about the exceptional work of a great creator such as Bion, it is
also important to try to understand those conscious or unconscious personal factors that could
have induced or channelled his work. I believe, for instance, that the psychoanalytic
methodology represented for Bion a selected fact which, to our benefit, gave sense to the
accidents of his existence. Bion must be examined with an act of faith.
He was born of English parents on September 8, 1897 at Muttra, located in the United
Provinces of Northwest India. He was a victim of Victorian imperialistic manners, which
privileged austere education over the affective needs of the eight-year-old boy he was in 1906,
when he was sent to a boarding school in England—the Bishop’s Stortford College—from
where he never returned to his paternal home. When, towards the end of his life, Bion finally
hoped to return to Bombay, the sudden assault of death in the form of myeloid leukaemia,
frustrated his plans. Meanwhile, the peaceful Los Angeles weather and the mysterious and
exuberant Brazilian jungle possibly served to lessen his search for the absent monsoon and the
inchoate memories from India. In a letter dated March 23, 1951, he wrote to his girlfriend
Francesca:
I am rather lucky because I love weather—all sorts of weather. I think there is a lot to be said for being born, as I
was, in India. To me, rain was of course the great event, the monsoon, and I can even now, though I left India when I
was eight, recapture the thrill of the smell of parched land rain-soaked. [1985, pp. 73-74]

While his friend Frank Philips (1983) fondly remembers him:

I think of his love … of the wild flowers of England and France, and of his watching, enthralled, during a fierce
thunderstorm the flashes of lightning and hearing the cracking and pounding of the thunder. [p. 38]

The burden of losing one’s home at an early age has such determining effects, that it
would certainly define the future character of an individual, something frequently confirmed by
the transference of many patients. Therefore, it was not surprising that Bion became a specialist
in the psychology of emptiness and the presence of absences. Bion’s contributions became so
relevant that they could be equated to the appearance of negative numbers in the history of
mathematics. Thoughts are always set over the absence of things, always providing a binocular
vision, which covers both its presence and the place where things used to be.
When he was only eighteen-years-old, he volunteered to enrol for World War I. Although
initially rejected by the draft office, he managed to join the army with his parent’s support.
What could have motivated such a serious decision? The last vestiges of 1800s “machismo”
kind of romanticism? A special form of reaction formation in order to deal with castration
anxiety inspired perhaps by the ghost of “Arf Arfer”?,2 or to threaten the physical integrity of
“the loved-by-his-mother-Bion”, as a revenge perpetuated by the “aban-doned-Bion”? We will
never know; what we do know is that war left injuries of the soul that constantly came back and
perturbed him, as memories that became visible as terrible ghosts in associations relived by him
every August 8th. Francesca Bion has summarized it as follows:
The horror of that war inflicted on such young men did not contribute to their maturity; it destroyed their youth and
made them “old” before their time. Bion’s remarkable physical survival against heavy odds concealed the emotional
in ury which left scars for many years to come. (It was clear that that war continued to occupy a prominent position
in his mind when, during the first occasion we dined together, he spoke movingly of it as if compelled to
communicate haunting memories.) The nightmare to which he refers3 still visited him occasionally throughout his
life. He grew old and remembered. [1997a, p. 2]

Bion himself, exactly sixty years after Amiens, recalls the 8th of August 1918, as follows:
“The faces of old ghosts look in upon the battle” [says Bion quoting Tennyson] … Once more the world has reached
the same kind of place in its journey around the sun which it occupied in the battle of Amiens (8 August 1918) …
The ghosts look in from the battle again; Asser, Cartwright, and Sergeant O’Toole, the poor fellow who complained
that he was only an orphan, with his protuberant ears, his red flushed face, his feelings of depression and anxiety, and
his confiding to me that this battle on which he was about to embark together with the rest of the tank crew (I was
not one of the crew as I was now … second-in-command of the company) would be his last. He was, of course, quite
 correct; very soon after the battle started, Cartwright’s tank received a direct hit, and the entire crew were killed.
When I came across it, the bodies were charred and blackened, and poured out of the door of the tank as if they were
the entrails of some mysterious beast of a primitive kind which had simply perished then and there in the
conflagration … [1992, p. 368]

Grotstein (1993) has suggested the possibility of an association between the circumstance
of having been the sole survivor of his company and the later fabrication of terms such as
“thalamic terror”, “nameless terror”, “catastrophic change”, etc. Bion appears to have just
escaped death on various occasions, not only when he was the sole survivor of the physical
disappearance of all his company, but also, as he himself recalls, when a sergeant pushed him
aside preventing him from being shot in the head; or, when leaning on a trench embankment, he
suddenly felt sprinkled by the brains of the officer in charge, who, talking beside him, had been
hit by a sniper’s bullet. Always menaced by the fear of being accused as a coward, Bion dealt
with mechanisms of depersonalization: he felt that he was floating a metre or so above his body.
However, regardless of his unfair superego demands, he was decorated for his courage, both by
England and France. Francesca Bion refers to the chapter on the Cambrai battle that took place
in November 1917 and which is referred to in The History of the Royal Tank Regiment :
Some of the tankmen fought on when “dismounted.” A striking example was that of Lt. W. R. Bion who, when his
tank was knocked out, established an advanced post in a German trench with his crew and some stray infantry, and
then climbed back on the roof of his tank with a Lewis gun to get better aim at an opposing machine-gun. When the
Germans counter-attacked in strength he kept them at bay … until a company of Seaforths came up. Its commander
was soon shot through the head, whereupon Bion temporarily took over the company. He was put in for the VC
(Victoria Cross) and received the DSO. [F. Bion, 1995]

Bion grew up among groups, very large groups. From the age of eight at boarding school,
and afterwards, at the age of eighteen when enlisted to fight in War World I, he was able to
observe empirically and suffer existentially the social behaviour and the immediacy of
anonymous multitudes. Therefore, it does not seem strange that after his psychiatric training he
felt attracted by group psychotherapy. One of the great legacies Bion left corresponds to this
period. It was not so much what he observed about group behaviour—which is already
extremely significant by itself—but the very methodology with which he strenuously and
courageously observed such groups. Jacques Lacan (1947), having interviewed Bion at that
time, wrote:
… as if frozen in an immobile and moonlike mask, accentuated by the fine commas of a black moustache, which, no
less than the large physique and the swimmer’s chest that hold it up, contradict Kretschmer’s formulae, when
everything tells us that we are in the presence of one of those beings who are solitary in even their highest
achievements, and as we find confirmed in this man’s adventure in Flanders, where he followed his tank, switch in
hand, into the breach, and paradoxically thus forced the iron gates of fate … [Quoted by Bléandonu, 1994, p. 278]

It is surprising to note Bion’s competence to guard himself against the coercing,

repetitive, and continuous group pressure, from so many patients, to take over when in charge of
the “leader-less groups” project, at a time when he had not yet undertaken his psychoanalytic
training nor achieved, as did Ulysses, a productive deafness. For many of us who started
psychiatric training with groups, it was much easier to react to the demand of a “therapeutic
leading role”, than to tolerate the uncertainty produced by the impatient expectation of latent
emotional structures, which Bion has described as basic assumptions. Perhaps war left its
marks on Bion’s capacity for tolerance, in those critical moments of forced expectancy in the
face of imminent danger, when boldness or imprudence could have signified a total loss.
Possibly Bion’s early separation from his parents, as well as having to coexist with the
emotional anonymity of boarding schools, could have introduced distance and affective
withdrawal as a defence against the pain produced by the loss, which he later might have
transformed into a reparative mechanism for objective scientific observations. Francesca Bion
(2000) recently questioned whether Bion’s mother ever knew: … how longingly he would think
of home while suffering the miseries of prep school? [p. 11]

Julian, when asked about his father, said:

It was evident to me from an early age that my father was a man of tremendous courage and immense compassion.
Because of his degree of self-control this was not always immediately apparent. [F. Bion, 1995, p. 9]

Borgogno and Merciai (2000), based on Bion’s book Cogitations, have tried to prove an
apparent coldness in Bion towards his patients, which they argued was expressed through
attacks on them produced by virtue of his intelligent and brilliant perceptions, which at the same
time were also “mentally narrow and generally unpredictable” (p. 68). Following these same
lines, they have interpreted Bion’s discourse with some of his patients:
… it thus seems that Bion renders null and void the patient’s desperate appeal. How else to explain his deafness
during analysis to a patient’s account of a “pullover which is beautifully knitted by his wife but not suited for the
baby’s cold” or of “trains that did not behave as they should” [7 October 1959, p. 94] [p. 66]

It is interesting to note that these authors are at the same time co-editors, together with
Parthenope Bion,4 of a book that collects a series of works presented to celebrate her father’s
hundredth birth date. Bion (1985) has referred to a passage where the few-months-old
Parthenope desperately cried and screamed calling for her father, while he remained impassive
seated at some distance and at the same time prohibiting the nurse to lift her up. However, not
being able to resist any longer, and ignoring the prohibition, the nurse took the baby in her arms.
Finally, an ambivalent and regretful Bion concludes: “The baby had stopped weeping and was
being comforted by maternal arms. But I, I had lost my child” (p. 70). Which could have been
the determining O of such a drama? Did envy, from the “inner abandoned boy” in “pre analytic
Bion”, try to take revenge over the privileged (for having him) Parthenope? We do not know.
In his autobiography Bion recalls saying goodbye to his parents at a hotel room in
London, at the time he was going away to war:
I got there. In my parent’s bedroom the electric light cast its livid warmth; they were glad to see me—that I knew.
But I could feel that her boy’s precocious departure for the war left my mother kissing a chitinous semblance of a
boy from whom a person had escaped. But I was imprisoned, unable to break out of the shell which adhered to me.
[1982, p. 104]

While Bléandonu (1994) expresses:

Later in the autobiography he often gives the impression that he had never had a father, a mother or, even less, a
sister. Their obliteration might be a kind of “final solution” to the oedipal predicament. As a solution it resembles the
psychotic’s destruction of the thinking apparatus as a means of “undoing” the oedipal predicament. [p. 277)

Growing up among boys and men might have induced in Bion the need for unconsciously
requesting affect from masculine fig-ures, and thus producing confusion in his sexual identity.
He gives an example of such confusion in his autobiography when referring to an event that
took place during his adolescence, with Dudley, a close friend at boarding school:
One night when I was lying on my bed with pyjamas on waiting for Dudley to get into his bed, he suddenly
discarded the towel he had round his waist and jumped astride me as if challenging me to wrestle. “Now how do you
 feel?” he said. I felt nothing physically; mentally a sense of boredom and anti-climax, which soon communicated
itself to Dudley who, after a few futile attempts to provoke a struggle, got off. I was bitterly disappointed. I had no
idea what I wanted, but I did know—and the realization grew with time— that I wanted it badly. I wished I had
encouraged Dudley to go on and then I would have found out what he was going to do. But now I think Dudley did
not know any more than I did. When I expressed this to my psycho-analyst years later he was convinced I knew.
[1982, p. 74]

Before Klein, Bion had two analytic experiences. He never mentioned the name of his
first analyst and contemptuously called him Dr FiP, a nickname taken from the initials of “feel-
it-in-the-past”, apparently parodying a common expression used by FiP during sessions.
Bléandonu (1994) suggests that it could have been J. A. Hadfield, a psychiatrist from the
Tavistock Clinic. His second analysis, which lasted from 1937 to 1939 and was prematurely
aborted due to World War II, was with John Rickman, who was in turn analysed by Freud and
Ferenczi and later became Bion’s good friend. It is quite possible that such experiences enabled
Bion to solve his anxiety-provoking confusions and his fear of women. He first had a beautiful
girlfriend, who ended up being unfaithful and then, in 1939 at the beginning of the war, he met
Betty McKritick Jardine, a movie and theatre actress whom he finally wed. Three years later
Betty died while giving birth to their daughter Parthenope, while Bion, selected by General
Montgomery himself, was enrolled as an army psychiatrist and was making arrangements for
Normandy’s “D day”. Unfortunately, he was not present at the time of her death. Thirty-five
years later he still questions himself:
What killed Betty and nearly killed her baby? Physical malformation? Incompetent obstetrics? Callous or indifferent
authorities? Or the revelations of the hollow nature of the masculine drum that was being so loudly beaten by her
husband’s departure? [1985, p. 62]

And later on:

I had begged Betty to agree to have a baby: her agreement to do so had cost her her life. [ibid., p. 70]

The Psychiatrist

After World War I, Bion studied History at Oxford (as well as French at Poitiers University),
where he was noticed, not only for his encyclopaedic knowledge, but also for his outstanding
skills in sports, such as rugby and swimming. Two determining events took place at this time:
the tearing of a knee cartilage that destroyed his expected chance of being selected to play rugby
for England. And his dismissal from Bishop’s Stortford College, his own school, where he was
teaching, after being accused by the mother of a young boy, of supposedly having seduced him,
something Bion not only denied with acridness, but that also induced him to seek therapeutic
help for the first time [1985, pp. 15-17].
He decided to study medicine at University College Hospital in London, graduating in
1930 after winning the gold medal for surgery. “He launched himself straight into psychiatric
practice” (Bléandonu, 1994, p. 41). By 1932 he started his medical work at the Tavistock Clinic.
According to Bion, any agglomeration of individuals interacts according to
predetermined links and constitutes a group, such as family, office, neighbourhood, school, a
tourist tour, etc. Sutherland (1985), who worked with Bion during those years, stated that he
used the word “group” to refer to both group therapy and society in general. “For him there was
only one ‘socio-dimension’” (p. 33).
Every group, Bion teaches us, gets together with a purpose, which represents its manifest
reality, its reason to exist; it constitutes the “work group” (W). However, hidden behind its
shadows lies a virtual reality, an undefined and undetermined space that he labelled the “proto-
mental system”, a region where the so-called basic assumptions develop; these are
predetermined conditions that at a given moment emerge and take over the work group, change
its course and parasitize its purpose. Bion described three possibilities: (a) the creation of a
couple that would produce a messiah, a messianic idea or a saving hope, and which he called
“pairing basic assumption"; (b) the fight or flight group, conditioned by paranoid tactics
similar to those observed during the war; and lastly (c) the dependence group, which
reproduces the relationship between the baby’s vulnerability and the adult omnipotence.5
Bion experimented with his methodology on “leaderless groups” during World War II,
while he helped soldiers and officials who were victims of “entrenchment panic”, then called
“war neurosis”. Later on he continued such experiments during his training at the Tavistock
Clinic, which later became a world famous study group. However, regardless of his reason, it
cannot be denied that the result of such deep insight on the fatalism of human social behaviour
was enough to declare Bion a “man of achievements”, and of “negative capability”, using
Keats’ expressions.
In 1945 Bion started his analysis with Melanie Klein, as well as his psychoanalytic
training.

The psychoanalyst

Bion recalls that during the years of his analytic training a small black cat who regularly
defecated in front of the psychoanalytic institute was named “Melanie Klein”: Melanie because
it was black, Klein because it was small, and Melanie Klein for being so bold. During 1945
Bion started his analysis with this woman who possessed great clinical intuition and uncommon
courage, and he continued until 1953.
In the course of these eight years a number of important changes took place in his life. Once he was accepted by the
British Psycho-Analytical Society as a member, he began to be identified, through his writing and his presentations,
as a brilliant student of Klein. He found a new psychic equilibrium—he married for a second time, and flourished in
the presence of a very understanding partner. He was able to find Parthenope again, and to father two more children.
It was during this time that Bion prepared to publish his work on group dynamics, as well as his first articles on
psychosis. Psychoanalysis had awakened in him a deep creativity which was to stay with him until the end of his life.
[Bléandonu, 1994, p. 93]

According to Meltzer (1978), Bion’s creativity increased greatly after Klein’s death in 1960,
suggesting that perhaps he had been subordinating his originality to the ideas of his analyst and
teacher.
The old problem of the “double”, already examined by Freud (1919) and others,
especially in Latin America, served Bion under the epigraph of the “Imaginary twin”, both to
defend Klein’s ideas about the existence of an early pregenital Oedipus, as well as to graduate
from the British Psychoanalytical Society in 1950. It was his first psychoanalytic work,
followed by exhaustive and paradigmatic research on psychoses and a phenomenological
conceptualization of a thinking theory or, in his own words, of an “apparatus to think thoughts”.
Thus we have: “Notes on the theory of schizophrenia” 1953, “Development of schizophrenic
thought” 1956, “Differentiation of the psychotic from the non-psychotic personalities” and “On
arrogance” 1957, a year later “On hallucination”, “Attacks on linking” 1959, and finally “A
theory of thinking” 1962.6
It is quite obvious that, up to this moment, Bion is at great pains to maintain the clarity of
his concepts. The four following books, however, which represent the fundamental pillars of his
theoretical contributions, do not unravel as easily; instead they contrast for their hermetic
opacity, where the concepts contained therein resist the possibility of an easy exegesis. Bion
seems to have suddenly transformed into Oedipus’ Sphinx itself and is a puzzling guardian of
his secrets. Clarity would not return until the affectionate enthusiasm he received from the
Brazilian and Argentinian Psychoanalytic Associations operated upon Bion’s cryptic semantics,
like the “kiss from the Prince that opened Snow White’s eyes.”7. Comparing the books
Transformations and Elements of Psycho-Analysis, Meltzer (1978), somehow disturbed,
complains about the difficulty encountered by the reader when faced with the mathematical
signs used by Bion:
In the present work no such hope sustains us in the face of the proliferation of mathematics-like notations, pseudo-
equations, followed by arrows, dots, lines, arrows over (or should it be under?) words and not ust Greek letters but
Greek words. How are we to bear such an assault on our mentality? Is Bion Patient B in disguise? [p. 71]

Referring to the article “On arrogance”, Meltzer (1978) ironically says:

Certainly …the reading of the paper “On arrogance” at the Paris congress struck many people as a shocking display
of the very hubris Bion was describing. [p. 31]

Could the heterodoxy present in Bion’s contributions, specially his concepts of O and the
“act of faith"—as can be seen in Attention and Interpretation—have generated an envious
attack on behalf of the British psychoanalytic establishment of that time? In some editions of
Transformations Bion quotes Shakespeare’s Macbeth as an apothem that makes one wonder
why he chose it:
Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men,
As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,
Shoughs, water-rugs, and demi-wolves are clipt
All by the name of dogs.

On the other hand, if we follow the last chapters of Attention and Interpretation, we can
perceive, with a rather slanted view, a complaint about the intolerance of psychoanalytic
institutions. Regardless of the sophistication presented, as well as the hermetic generalization of
their statements, the last chapters allow an opening towards a more mundane vision: the
complaint submitted by someone against the intolerance awakened by a new, different, and
exceptional contribution to psychoanalysis. In 1995 Francesca wrote, quoting Wilfred Trotter
and the influence he had on her husband, in the following terms:
Trotter makes observations which remind one strongly of Bion’s later views. He speaks of man’s “resistiveness to
new ideas, his submission to tradition and precedent”; of “governing power tending to pass into the hands of a class
of members insensitive to experience, closed to the entry of new ideas and obsessed with the satisfactoriness of
things as they are”; of “our willingness to take any risk rather than endure the horrid pains of thought.” [pp. 3-4]
According to Symington and Symington (1966), when Bion introduced the concept of O, “some
in the Klein group were quick to dissociate themselves from his thinking from that time
onwards” (p. 10). Later on, after his trilogy A Memoir of the Future (1991) appeared, while he
was in California, many British analysts considered Bion had mentally deteriorated after leaving
England, to the point that “everything he wrote subsequent to his departure is to be dismissed as
the rambling of a senile man” (Symington & Symington, 1966, p. 10).
At the beginning of 1968, Bion moved to Los Angeles in response to an invitation from a
group of psychoanalyst innovators, who, searching for new directions, became interested in
Klein and her followers. The children chose to continue their studying in Italy and England. The
change provided new hopes of freedom, an outlet from the British atmosphere that, after a
while, had become suffocating, allowing Bion to write his magnum opus in the form of a
trilogy: A Memoir of the Future. “Had he remained in England”, says Francesca, “he would
certainly not have felt able to express himself in this frank and revelatory way” (ibid., pp. 12-
13). In the Epilogue to this book Bion wrote:
All my life I have been imprisoned, frustrated, dogged by common-sense, reason, memories, desires and—greatest
bug-bear of all— understanding and being understood. This is an attempt to express my rebellion, to say Good-bye
to all that. It is my wish, I now realize doomed to failure, to write a book unspoiled by any tincture of common-
sense, reason, etc. [1991, p. 578]

But not everything was smooth and easy. Bion, who by then was already just over 70
years old, had to face anti-Kleinian groups who were experiencing his presence as a threat to the
status quo, to the old Freudian structures entrenched in “Ego-psychology” anachronism.
Grotstein (1993) remembers:
I remember an incident well where Albert Mason was able to obtain the auditorium of the Los Angeles Institute for
Bion’s presentation of his Grid. The audience included mostly Kleinian aficionados, but one classical member also
attended out of curiosity. After Bion extemporaneously presented his conception of the Grid, the record-ing of which
was later transcribed and published as one of his most important works, this classical analyst began criticizing Bion
as to content and assumptions of his presentation and then even critiqued him on his “poor English”. Bion’s reply
was, “Well then, there in nothing left to say that would not cause more heat than light!” [p. 61]

In 1971 Bion referred to his relationship with colleagues in California as a “total failure”,
although he had also said, with his characteristic dark humour, that “an analyst was welcomed
only when his work was a failure”. About Californians he said:
The relationship between myself and my colleagues here in Los Angeles could be accurately described as almost
entirely unsuccessful. They are puzzled by, and cannot understand me…. There is, if I am not mistaken, more fear
than understanding or sympathy for my thoughts, personality or ideas. There is no question of the situation—the
emotional situation—being any better anywhere else. I could say much the same for England. [1992, p. 334]

Around this time, Bion was invited by the Argentinians and greeted by Léon Grinberg, who
(together with Darío Sor and Elizabeth Tabak de Bianchedi) some time later published his well-
known summary of his work. Grinberg (2000) remembered the verbal attack made by a senile
analyst who had managed to make his way into the conference room. After a tense silence, Bion
… promptly said that he wished to pay tribute to someone, who “in working with something so terrible as the human
mind” had become yet another victim within the psychoanalytic community. The outburst of prolonged applause that
greeted Bion’s words clearly reflected the admiration that those present felt for such an understanding, generous, and
human response. [p. xx]
Obviously, at that moment, Bion had won the heart of the Argentinians. However, it was Brazil and Brazilians who,
privileged by the exuberance of the “Amazonia”, had managed perhaps to get closer to the childhood reminiscences
 of India, his native country. The justification of the hypothesis on the weight a tropical scenario might have had on
Bion’s preferences, could be inferred from comments he made about the uncanny feelings of familiarity the lecture
on the Mahabhrata produced on him, which made him conjecture that the narrative of the Sanskrit text was read to
him by his nanny as bedside stories. But if we try to be even-handed, we should not ignore the warm welcome that
Brazil’s psychoanalytical community provided to the “mais grande psicanalista does mondo.” Francesca Bion
(1995) recalled those feelings: “They are charming, affectionate, cultured people—a pleasure to know and to work
with” (p. 13). Bion, on the other hand, compensated by providing them with a clarity and enthusiasm such as he had
never expressed before to any public, it was a mutual affection of great productivity and immense benefit, and the
echoes from those moments still vibrate in the pages that contain the transcriptions. Bion was obscure with the
British, sober with Americans and charming and understanding with Brazilians. It could be rather paradoxical,
however, that when Francesca complained about Bion postponing the final correction of the conferences: “It would
have been easier to make a child take a dose of foul-tasting medicine”,—Bion remarked: “I don’t like examining my
own vomit.”[F. Bion, 1995}

A Memoir of the Future

Bion wrote two volumes of his autobiography, posthumously published by his wife Francesca:
The Long Week-End, and, using an expression from Shakespeare, All my Sins Remembered. The
latter was embossed with love letters to Francesca, which shared so much passion that it made
sense of the fact that they were married two-and-a-half months after they met at the Tavistock.
Both books could be considered a biography of Bion’s “conscious history”, whereas A Memoir
of the Future, described by Bion as a “book of fiction”, could perhaps represent a biography of
his “unconscious”.
A Memoir of the Future contains three parts published at different times, although, in
1991, it was finally bound in a full volume published by Karnac Books. The first book, The
Dream, was originally published in 1975, followed two years later by The Past Presented, both
originally printed by Imago Editora in Brazil. The last book, The Dawn of Oblivion (1979), and
the addendum: Key to A Memoir of the Future (1981), were previously published by Clunie
Press in Scotland. The size, as well as the intricacy and density of its contents, will make any
evaluation of this book a very difficult task, particularly if we are limited by the brevity of an
introduction. It requires an evaluation of its own.

The Grid

Bion has used a holistic and coherent “binocular vision” of the mind, covering a wide spectrum:
from the ultraspiritual to the inf-raphysic; from the illumination by O to the reproduction of
emotions measured inside the rigid squaring of the Grid. If his intention and dedication can be
understood as a global conception of the mind, we should also, when understanding his work,
conceive it from a holistic approach: one Bion for an act of faith, and at the same time, another
for the “mathematization” of the mind, as a defender of contradictions who was able to palpate
the certitude in the centre of uncertainty. After all, he often argued colloquially that the mouth
should be observed from the anus, as a telescope, and vice versa. If we look only from the
vertex of the Grid, we might accuse him of being guilty of “scientist positivism”, trying to fulfil
the ambition of building, without men, a science for men. But if we see him from the other
extreme, from “O” or from an “act of faith”, we could then accuse his work of “spiritualism” or
“omniscience”. However, in keeping with this view we might be committing the terrible sin of
confusing the phenomenon itself with the instrument of observation: it is not Bion’s mouth we
should look at, but the mind’s and its two faces, that glances like Janus: one inside towards the
rigid structure of biology, the other outside towards the immeasurable becoming of
timelessness. Attempting such an evasive perspective represents precisely Bion’s absolute
greatness. A comprehensive exposition of the Grid is provided in this dictionary.

Note
1 Definition taken from Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary.
2 Term used to designate the irreverent fear that as a child he felt towards his father.
3 Bion described it in these terms: “It was almost impossible to distinguish dream from
reality. The tat-tat-tat of the German machine-guns would chime in with your dream with
uncanny effect, so that when you awoke you wondered whether you were dreaming” (1997a,
p. 94).
4 Parthenope was the name chosen by Bion when reading Virgil’s Aeneid, where it was
used to christen a mermaid, half bird half woman, who was one of those mermaids whose
singing enchanted sailors and brought boats to their destruction against the rocks. According
to the myth, after failing with Odysseus, mermaids immolated themselves, including
Parthenope, whose remains came ashore near Naples. Greeks then baptized the town with her
name as “Parthenopolis”, but being destroyed, it was rebuilt as “Neopolis”, or “new town”,
that afterwards changed to Naples. By uncanny coincidence, Parthenope Bion and her
daughter Patrizia also died in Italy, in a car accident on July 16, 1998.
5 Bléandonu (1994) suggests that the classification of basic assumption was possibly
inspired by a concept introduced by J. A. Hadfield, a psychiatrist from the Tavistock and
possibly, as Bléandonu already mentioned, Bion’s first therapist. Hadfield described the
existence of three drives: “sexual libido, aggressive or self-preservative and the drive towards
dependence” (p. 43).
6 All of these papers, plus the article on the “Imaginary twin”, were compiled as a book
together with a revision from Bion, under the title of (his) Second Thoughts (1967).
7 It is always recommended that students who begin an enquiry into Bion’s work, start with
the Brazilian Lectures (1974), continue with Second Thoughts (1967) and finish with the four
books included in Seven Servants (1977).
A

Aberrant forms of change: Extraneous changes that take place within a group dominated by
one of the three basic assumptions, when a new idea that demands development takes place but
the active basic assumption is unable to tolerate it. Bion (1948b) states:
If the dependent group is active, and is threatened by pressure of the pairing-group leader, particularly perhaps in
the form of an idea which is suffused with Messianic hope, then if methods such as resorting to bible-making prove
inadequate, the threat is countered by provoking influx of another group. If the fight-flight group is active, the
tendency is to absorb another group. If the pairing-group is active the tendency is to schism. [p. 156]

Abstraction: From the Latin abstrahere, meaning to “take out”, to “bring”, to separate mentally
from a particular object; or discretely to consider a specific property; in simpler words, to
discriminate the universal from the individual (Foulquié, 1967). Bion (1962) summarizes
abstraction as the capacity of alphα-function to change an emotional experience into an alphα-
element [p. 56). Psychotics and philosophers of science, adds Bion, present a similar problem
because they both try to change something abstract into something concrete. The former use
what Segal (1957) described as “symbolic equation”, while the philosopher in a similar
fashion, attempts to concretize abstractions creating as Aristotle did, the “mathematical
objects” or, as Bion did, the “psychoanalytical objects” (Bion, 1962, p. 68)
A theory could be abstracted from a model, similar to Bion’s theory of thinking, which
was based on the digestive model. Abstraction could reach such a level, that a simple word
might condense, by means of a constant conjunction, a limitless number of emotions, to the
point that Bion for instance, considers “daddy”, “breast” or “penis”, true hypotheses (1962, pp.
66-67; 1992, pp. 252-254). Abstraction, on the other hand, represents a mechanism by which
the Grid‘s vertical axis progresses.
One of the reasons why psychoanalysis is not considered scientific, says Bion (1992), is
because theories often used by psychoanalysts represent a combination of material from
observation plus abstractions derived from them. In other words, empirical information is not
satisfactory because it usually searches to create a theory instead of providing veridical
information about what has been observed, while at the same time, the theory presented lacks
the rigorous requirements of scientific investigation (pp. 152-154). Existing psychoanalytical
theories would be similar to ideographs, representing an idea condensed in one word, or to
abstractions with particularizations as opposite to generalizations (ibid., pp. 256-257). It is
essential, Bion concludes (1963), to formulate abstractions that allow generalizations similar to
letters that when combined, could create thousands of words. “Similarly the elements I seek are
to be such that relatively few are required to express, by changes in combination, nearly all the
theories essential to the working psycho-analyst” (p. 2).

Accommodation: see Assimilation

Acting-out: Bion says little about this subject. He mentioned it in passing in relation to the
theory of container-contained ( ), stat-ing that when acting-out takes place during the
analysis, the analy-sis is also part of acting-out because it is contained by it.
When a patient can be said to be acting-out the analysis is “in” a situation of which the boundaries are unknown. If
the behaviour characterized as “acting-out” is brought to the analysis it can be accompanied by claustrophobic
symptoms in the patient. [Bion, 1970, p. 110]

Although Bion gave no explanation about the relationship between acting-out and
claustrophobia, it can be inferred according to the container-contained theory, that if analysis
is contained by the acting-out, the patient could end up feeling trapped. He also referred to the
attack made by psychotic patients on reality as a form of “anti-social acting-out”, in order to get
rid of the rest of common sense (reality) that still remains. “In analysis it contributes to the
danger of murderous attacks on the analyst. The analyst’s common-sense interpretations are
attacked by being seen and felt [for instance] as sexual assaults” (Bion 1992, p. 31). “Anti-
social” could be interpreted as a tendency towards narcissism, in the sense explained by Freud
as “secondary narcissism”, exactly opposite to socialism (social-ism).
Bion also states that failure to interpret patient’s dreams, represents the greatest
contribution an analyst could make towards production of acting-out, whereas the patient’s
greatest contribution would be the incapacity to dream (ibid., p. 232).

Action: According to Freud (1911), it represents, together with attention, notation,

judgement, and thought, one of the functions used by the ego to reach consciousness of reality.
A new function was now allotted to motor discharge, which, under the dominance of the pleasure principle, had
served as a means of unburdening the mental apparatus of accretions of stimuli, and which had carried out this task
by sending innervations into the interior of the body (leading to expressive movements and the play of features and
to manifestations of affect). Motor discharge was now employed in the appropriate alteration of reality; it was
converted into action. [p. 221, original emphasis)

Bion has used this concept, together with those mentioned above, as part of the horizontal axis
of the Grid, in order to structure particular qualities and functions of the mind. Attempting to
explain the importance of projective identification in this function, Bion states:
Freud distinguishes between a stage where muscular action is taken to alter the environment and a stage when a
capacity for thought exists. I propose to include in the category presented by the term “action” phantasies that the
mind, acting as if it were a muscle and a muscle acting as a muscle, can disburden the psyche of accretions of
stimuli. I include the Kleinian concept of the phan-tasy known as pro ective identification in the category of action.
[1965, p. 36]

See Attention, Notation, Judgement, Thought, Horizontal axis, Grid.

Act of faith (F): Represents the capacity to have faith in certain ideas, hunches or intuitions
that suddenly spurt while listening during the analytical hour. It implies the capacity to accept
the absolute truth, the existence of O as an ultimate reality, in order to structure the
interpretation. Being able to reach such an attitude will depend on the analyst’s discipline of
listening while avoiding using any memory or desire. Bion (1970) states:
Through F [act of faith] one can ‘see’, ‘hear’, and ‘feel’ the mental phenomena of whose reality no practising
psycho-analyst has any doubt though he cannot with any accuracy represent them by existing formulations. [pp. 57-
58]

It is very important that Bion also considers F as an essential component of a rigorous scientific
procedure, that has no relation with the ± K system, but belongs to the O system. Although F
can not be represented in the Grid, it could be close to column 6 [ibid., pp. 43–44).
Trying to explain the concept of F, Bion (1970) remembers what Freud once said in a
letter to Andreas-Salomé, where he mentioned his method of achieving a state of mind that
would provide clarity when the subject of investigation was particularly obscure. “He speaks
[Freud] of blinding himself artificially. As a method of achieving this artificial blinding I have
indicated the importance of eschewing memory and desire” (p. 43).
A thought has a no-thing as its realization, meaning that any thought is the consequence
of the absence of the object. The act of faith, on the other hand, has as its background something
that is unconscious and unknown because it has not happened yet, and it is associated with a
state of hallucinosis, something more obvious in psychotic patients. The act of faith (F), says
Bion, (1970) is
essential to the operation of psycho-analysis and other scientific proceedings. It is essential for experiencing
hallucinations or the state of hallucinosis. This state I do not regard as an exaggeration of a pathological or even
natural condition: I consider it rather to be a state always present, but overlaid by other phenomena, which screen it.
If these other elements can be moderated or suspended hallucinosis becomes demonstrable; its full depth and
richness are accessible only to “acts of faith”. [p. 36]

For Bion the act of faith represents a scientific state of mind only if it is free of any element of
memory or desire; in other words, the act of faith allows a spontaneous thought, phantasy or
hallucinosis to appear only if this procedure takes place without any memory or desire. He alerts
us to the danger of connecting F with the supernatural or with undesirable aspects of the mind,
and thus saturating it. He gave an example of a psychotic patient who during analysis felt that
the analyst’s words during the interpretation, flew over his head and could be detected by what
Bion felt were the patterns on a cushion, and then travelled through his eyes back to him. In
order for the patient to be able to experience things in this manner and in order for Bion to be
able to grasp them, both the patient and analyst must have been, according to him, in a state of
hallucinosis (ibid., p. 36).
The “meaning” of a statement in hallucinosis is not, however, the same as its meaning in the domain of rational
thought … In the domain of hallucinosis the mental event is transformed into a sense impression and sense
impressions in this domain do not have meaning; they provide pleasure or pain. [ibid., pp. 36-37]

A state of hallucinosis means that the analyst is trying to place him/herself in a condition of no
saturation, without memory or desire, where any fantasy, idea or gut feeling that takes place
should be approached with an act of faith, regardless of how absurd it might appear to be, and
then be used to understand what is happening. The main difficulty for the analyst is in the
domain of countertransference, in the capacity to “contain” painful memories or unresolved
desires, or to abandon any narcissistic need. This is why Bion states that
In the domain of hallucinosis the mental event is transformed into a sense impression and sense impressions in this
domain do not have meaning; they provide pleasure or pain. [ibid., p. 37, my italics]

It might have been possible that the concept of F was already in Bion’s mind by the time of his
experience with groups:
There are times when I think that the group has an attitude to me, and that I can state in words what the attitude is;
there are times when another individual acts as if he also thought the group had an attitude to him, and I believe I can
deduce what his belief is; there are times when I think that the group has an attitude to an individual, and that I can
say what it is. These occasions provide the raw material on which the interpretations are based …[1948b, pp. 142-
143]

Later on, while referring to the treatment of schizophrenic patients, he states that
countertransference must play an important part in the analysis of these patients, but he then
proposes to leave the dis-cussion for later on. (1967, p. 24). Bion only refers explicitly to this
concept in his book Attention and Interpretation, and never mentions it again. We could argue,
perhaps applying also his notion of F, that there could be a relationship between this concept
and Zen Buddhism.

Agglomeration: Bion defines it in contrast to the concept of articulation, in so far as the latter
means stability and integration to form a complex whole. Agglomeration implies a particular
situation where the elements relate temporally and experimentally: “it is appropriate to a
particular situation when that situation is viewed by the light of a particular hypothesis and
during the time it is so viewed” (1992, p. 159). It could be considered as an antecedent of what
Bion describes later as the bizarre object.
What appears to be an articulated sentence is an agglomeration of objects, and is therefore not to be distinguished
from the agglomeration manifest to the analyst as apparently inarticulate or incoherent speech. [ibid., p. 161].

See Articulation and Assimilation.

Agoraphobia: see: Claustrophobia.

Algebraic calculus: see: Calculus.

Alphα-elements, or α-elements: The product of alphα-function, Bion describes them as

“irreducibly simple objects” (1992, p. 181), representing sensual impressions (visual images,
auditory patters, olfactory patterns, etc.), that could be stored as memory and eventually
employed to create dream thoughts, conscious thoughts, unconscious waking thinking,
dream formation, contact-barrier, memory and the capacity to learn from experience (1962,
p. 26). Originally Bion referred to them as “real, live, existing and benevolent objects”, capable
of providing satisfaction to the baby, and as completely opposite to beta(β)-elements, which
were in turn described as “dead and unreal objects” (1992, p. 133). He thought originally that α-
elements might originate, beside the accumulation of sense data, from the transformation of β-
elements by α-function, then named “dream-work-α” (ibid., pp. 182-183).
 The name of α first appeared in Cogitations, in a note without a date but believed to be
from the beginning of 1960. There Bion conceived two levels in the organization of alphα-
elements: one representing the impact of an external event, and the second one, the internal
process of “digestion” of that event (1992, pp. 149-181):
1) Emotional experience→dream-work-α [α-function] → α-element→‘narrativization’→dream
2) Sensation of waking event in which personality is participating as in an unfolding narrative→dream-work-a [α-
function]→dream-thoughts.

There are two processes, one representing external emotional experiences that are dealt with by
alphα-function, which converts them into α-elements and makes them undergo a process of
narrativization (a historical sequence) (see: Narrative), so it can approximate to the emotional
experience of waking life, and render it suitable for storage and waking conscious thoughts.
During the second process, the narrative that has been stored is then changed into α-elements
that lend themselves to be used in unconscious dream-thoughts, whether the personality is
asleep or awake (1962, p. 8, 1992, pp. 149-150). A child, for instance, that is going through the
emotional experience of learning how to walk, is able to do so because α-function stores the
experience that will allow him to walk later without having to be conscious of it.
α-elements organize and cohere as they proliferate, to form a contact-barrier, an entity
that marks the point of contact and separation between conscious and unconscious elements and
originates the difference between them (1962, p. 17), or allows thoughts and dreams to take
place as well as to discriminate between being asleep and being awake.
The process of elaboration of α and β-elements can be read in Cogitations pp. 62-63,
written on August 10th, 1959. There Bion identifies alphα-function with dream-work and betα-
elements with “indigested facts that have not being dreamed” (1992, p. 64). Such constructs
could be understood as extensions of primary and secondary processes of classical theory.
Meltzer (1978) emphasizes the character of “empty concept” that, according to him, Bion
had provided the alphα-elements with: “The ‘emptiness’ of this model was stressed over and
over by Bion, along with the caution against over-hasty attempts to fill it with clinical meaning”
(p. 119).

Alphα-function: Initially Bion referred to “dream work a”, which he later tried to change
when he felt it could bring confusion if it were to be used in a manner different from that which
Freud had initially created it for (1992, p. 73); however, he continued using it in the same
manner even after making such a remark. The term “α-function” was used for the first time in
Cogitations, in a note possibly dated at the end of the sixties, which allowed Bion finally to
discriminate between dream-work proper and α-function. To build this theory he used concepts
from Freud’s “The Interpretation of Dreams” (1900) and “Formulations on the Two Principles
of Mental Functioning” (1911), as well as Klein’s notion of guilt, superego and paranoid-
schizoid and depressive positions.
α-function represents an abstraction used to describe the capacity to change sense
information into α-elements (1992, p. 63), as well as providing the mind with material to create
dream thoughts that could allow discrimination between being asleep or awake, conscious or
unconscious and give a sense of identity and selfness (1967, p. 115). The brain never rests; what
exists is a fluctuation between states of consciousness and unconsciousness, thanks to α-
function and the permeability of the contact barrier that allows one side to remain awake while
the other is asleep. Before he discriminated this function from dream-work, Bion stated that a
series of steps were essential: (a) to pay attention to sensuous impressions; (b) to store this
impression in the memory; (c) to change them into “ideograms"; and (d) depending on which
principle dominates the mind, either to store them and to remember them if the reality
principle dominates, or to expel them under the influence of the pleasure principle.
α-function is the product of an adequate relationship between the baby and the mother,
which permits the existence of normal pro-jective identifications. Usually the baby is not fit to
use his sense information for himself, and this is why he needs to evacuate it into the mother
and to depend on her capacity for reverie, to change it into α-elements that he will then be able
to use. α-function works over sense experiences and emotions, and if successful, it will
produce α-elements that could be stored as a contact barrier between unconscious and
conscious, capable of producing thoughts (1962, pp. 17-18). If α-function becomes inoperative,
sense impressions and emotions experienced by the person remain unaltered, creating what
Bion named the betα-elements, or following Kant, the thing-in-itself or noumenon, different
from α-function that represents the phenomenon. This function, besides been inseparable from
thoughts, conscious reasoning and learning from experience, can also send conscious thoughts
to the unconscious and thus alleviate consciousness from an exaggerated weight of thoughts, for
instance when learning to create a habit. According to Bion, there is aparadox in psychotic
patients of an unconscious that although “on the surface” cannot be made unconscious and used
as material for mechanisms of abstraction and concretization (1992, p. 71).
Attacks on α-function induced by hate and envy towards the breast that is capable of
producing love, understanding or wisdom, destroys the possibility in the patient to make contact
with him/ herself or with others as living persons (1962, p. 9, 119), a feeling possible to observe
in mechanisms of “self-envy”.8 See: Dream-work.

Alphα-function, reversion of: see: Reversion of α-function.

Alpha-space (α-space): It consists of a space populated by objects that are real and possess
their own reality and their own limits, infra- and ultra-real (like infra-red and ultra-violet). They
can be appreciated by ordinary thought and are indistinguishable from those objects normally
perceived by the senses, like things that are “visible”, “audible”, “touchable”, etc. Bion was
attempting to describe the existence of a domain pertaining to reality, unknown but
approachable by intuition, only if special preparations were made. When he argues about the
existence of a psychoanalytic domain with its particular realities, he is obviously referring to
phenomena such as hallucinosis, O and acts of faith. He said:
… unquestionable, constant, subject to change only in accordance with its own rules even if those rules are not
known. These realities are “intuitable” if the proper apparatus is available in the condition proper to its functioning
… The conditions in which the intuition operates (intuits) are pellucid [see transparence] and opaque. [1992, p.
315]

The main opacities that prevent the intuition of reality correspond to understanding, memory,
and desire. Such opacities act like turbulences that obstruct transparence of an unsaturated
psychoanalytic listening that eventually will allow communion with O. In order to avoid such
opacities a permanent, continuous and lasting discipline must be established (ibid.). (See: beta-
space)

Altered focus: Concept used in group dynamics related to the different vertices or perspectives
someone might choose to observe or conceive a situation, like using different microscope lenses
to investigate a thick section, implying that the instrument of observation is a variable model of
the structure of the situation being observed. It should be differentiated from “binocular vision”.
See: Dependent basic assumption, Reversible perspective, Groups, Basic assumption,
Binocular vision.

A-morph: see: Noösphere

Analogy: Bion (1977a) used the term “analogy” in order to emphasize the importance of the
relationship between objects, instead of the objects themselves: “confusion can occur because
attention is given to the two images used in the analogy, and not, which is the important point,
the relationship between them” (p. 26). The problem of being abstract to the point of being
incomprehensible could be overcome by being concrete, but the conflict then is that it could be
misleading. “The importance of the analogy is not the similarity of one thing to another, but the
relationship between the two” (Bion, 1974, p. 19). See: Emotional links, Attacks on linking,
Binocular vision.

Analytic: Kant has distinguished between analytic and synthetic propositions, just as he also
differentiated a priori from empirical propositions. An analytic proposition implies that
something can only be known by experience, for instance, to say that “the Angel Falls is a very
tall fall”, means that it has been seen. A synthetic proposition, on the other hand, is one in which
the predicate is part of the subject, for instance, “a fat man is a man”, or “a white building is a
building”.

Analytic situation (setting): In Bion’s language it represents the background or the setting
where transformations (or “the process” in classical analysis) would take place:
What I mean by “receptor” or “field” or “ground” can be most simply grasped by analogy with painting in which the
ground for the transformation would be the canvas on to which the transformation was projected [be it projective
transformations or rigid movement transformations] … I propose to discuss the problem of the ground for
projective and rigid motion transformations as if it were stable and corresponded to what is regarded in classical
analysis as the analytic situation. [1965, pp. 113-114]

It would correspond to categories D1 or E1 of the Grid. See: Transformations, Projective

transformations, Rigid movement transformations

Animate and inanimate, difference between: Bion (1962) referred to enforced splitting
associated with a disturbed relationship with the breast or its substitutes (p. 10). When envy
obstructs the relationship with the good breast, provider of love, understanding, solace,
knowledge, etc., just as Klein (1946) described it during the paranoid-schizoid position, the
persecutory anxiety present cannot obstruct the physical need for sucking that could jeopardize
the infant’s life. “Fear of death through starvation of essentials” said Bion, “compels resumption
of sucking. A split between material and psychical satisfaction develops” (1962, p. 10). This
situation leads to an enforced splitting between physical need for survival on one hand, and
psychic satisfactions on the other; a condition achieved by destruction of α-function.
This makes breast and infant appear inanimate with consequent guiltiness, fear of suicide and fear of murder [it is
easier to destroy something inanimate than something alive] … The need for love, understanding and mental
development is now deflected, since it cannot be satisfied, into the search for material comforts. [ibid., p. 11]

Psychotic patients or the Psychotic part of the personality, could change an animate object
into an inanimate one, or into the “ thing-in-itself”or betα-elements, as Segal (1957) has
described it in her concept of symbolic equation .
Another vertex to consider was discussed by Bion in his book Cogitations, where he
reflects on the attack made by the baby on those objects linked with displeasure and with the
consequent need to placate them by means of idealization, due to guilt and persecu-tory anxiety.
Idealization is achieved through future transformation into worshipped objects, for they acquire
supra-human attributes which, according to Bion, are achieved precisely because they are dead.
Bion says:
Contrary to common observation, the essential feature of the adored or worshipped object is that it should be dead so
that crime may be expiated by the patient’s dutiful adherence to animation of what is known to be inanimate and
impossible to animate. This attitude contributes to the complex of feelings associated with fetishism. [1992, p. 134]

In other words, the establishment of a useless dependency on those objects would pay off the
crime perpetuated through the attack on the good objects. These objects however, being
inanimate (dead) are believed (invented) to be animate but, for this same reason, are not capable
of giving anything; for instance, expecting a miracle from a figure made of plaster. Fetishism
and some people’s religious faith can be explained in this way. In other words, in the same way
as the inanimate becomes animate, the contrary also takes place; that is, the animate becomes
inanimate. It seemed that the “life” stolen from live objects as a way to control them and avoid
separation anxiety (“heterophobia”), would later be projected into dead (inanimate) objects that
have been given life and have been idealized. Guilt would be expiated, as Bion has said, by
trying to obtain protection as well as trying to obtain a miracle from something that doesn’t
even have a life. See: Proto-real objects.

Animism: A state that contrasts with the difficulty of conceiving others and oneself as living
beings. It is distinguished by the need to give living objects qualities of death and vice versa
(1962, p. 9). See: Fetishism; Proto-real objects; Animate and inanimate, difference
between.

Anxiety: “All anxiety is related ultimately to The Anxiety, which has two roots” (1992, p. 207):
(1) the contents of the Oedipal situation, which has as its “scientific deductive system” the
Theorem of Pythagoras; (2) the fear produced by the Kleinian “Positions” that have as their
scientific deductive system Euclid‘s theorem of Pons Asinorum.
A priori: According to Kant, it represents a proposition that, even if it could be elicited by
experience, once known, it could be thought of as having a basis other than experience. Russell
(1945) says:
A child learning arithmetic may be helped by experiencing two marbles and two other marbles, and observing that
altogether he is experiencing four marbles. But when he has grasped the general proposition, “two and two are four”
he no longer requires confirmation by instances. [pp. 706-707].

Apparatus for thinking: see: Thinking, apparatus for.

Apparatus of perception: see: Perception, apparatus of.

Arm that fell off, dream of the: see: Significant dreams.

Arrogance, curiosity and stupidity: These concepts are based on Bion’s article “On
arrogance” (1957a, pp. 86-92) presented at the International Congress of Psychoanalysis in
Paris, July/August, 1957. He considers the occurrence of these three forms of behaviour,
“arrogance, curiosity and stupidity” in the same person, as the expression of a “psychological
disaster.” When pride appears within an individual who is dominated by the life instinct, pride
becomes self-respect, but if the death instinct predominates pride then becomes arrogance. In
order to make clear the relationship between these three concepts, he considers the Oedipus
myth from a perspective where the sexual crime is regarded as a secondary element. The central
crime then is Oedipus’ arrogance in “vowing to lay bare the truth at no matter what cost” (ibid.
p. 86); insisting that Tiresias reveal the secret about the plague of Thebes. It could be argued
that Oedipus, dominated by his stupidity, could have believed, because of his arrogance, that he
was free from any wrongdoing or from any possible sin.
A similar mechanism could have been present in the mind of many dictators, such as
Hitler for instance, whose stupidity and arrogance forbade him from seeing that it would be
impossible to take over the whole world, of Gaea, as a simple metaphor for his mother. Bion
considers that, in practice, the analysis of these persons may seem superficially to follow the
patterns that we are familiar with in the treatment of neurosis, while in reality, the lack of
improvement in spite of the analytical work that is done, could represent the evidence that we
might be dealing with a true psychological disaster of such magnitude, that it may as well
correspond to a psychosis. A possible complication results from the possibility of a
transference collusion between the patient’s curiosity, and the curiosity normally present in the
analytical procedure, which the patient could experience as an intrinsic component of the
“disaster”, or as an expression of some kind of perverse acting-out; a situation, Bion alerts us,
that could be difficult to avoid. In this case, the orientation of the analysis might be analogous to
the treatment of a psychotic patient: investigation of projective identifications, confusional
states, depersonalization, and delusions.
Bahía (1977) introduces a relationship between the analyst’s negative capacity and his
omnipotent and arrogant curiosity, the wish to know the truth at any cost instead of being
tolerant with “no-knowledge” (-K). In a sense, this could also represent the analyst’s attachment
to his/her own desire, which could be extended to the level of omnipotent curiosity, meaning a
true stupidity.
About Bion’s work on arrogance, Meltzer (1978) ironically commented: “Certainly, for
instance, the reading of the paper ‘On Arrogance’ at the Paris congress struck many people as a
shocking display of the very hubris Bion was describing” (p. 31).

Articulation: In an undated note written in Cogitations (1992), Bion explained its meaning as:
… it is a name for the process of bringing elements together, integrating them, so that the combined parts form a
complex whole. The meaning I attach to the word will be clear if its use is contrasted with that of “agglomeration”
… [p. 158]

Perhaps here could be inferred the notion of the “selected fact” taken from Poincaré, that Bion
would use so extensively later on.

Assimilation:9 Bion gives this concept exactly the same sense given to the digestive function,
such as “assimilation of sensuous impressions”, but emphasizing also that he does not employ it
as a “technical term” (1992, p. 157) Assimilation is well preserved within the “Non-psychotic
part of the personality”, but it is destroyed by the psychotic part. This destruction does not
impede that incorporated but non assimilated sensuous impressions could be stored within the
self as things-in-themselves or foreign bodies, that could be used as material for discharge.
Bion states that,
The objects formed by the process that excludes assimilation are amenable to the usages of a personality employing
projective identi-fication and its introjective counterpart, but do not lend themselves to any function other than
evacuation and return. [ibid. p. 161]

Destruction of the capacity to assimilate could be the product of the superego’s sadistic and
fragmentary attacks under the dominion of the death instinct, producing a mental state similar
to the physiological state of starvation, together with an increased fear of imminent annihilation
(ibid., p. 164).
Bion remarks that people often refer to these stored objects, shaped outside the process of
assimilation or “unassimilated sense impressions”, with names usually given to words in
common use. They are not names of feelings but they are contained in these words, which are
felt as if they were feeling themselves. “The words employed for this purpose are those used in
articulated speech to express relatedness, such as ‘and’, ‘with’, ‘in’, ‘outside’ and all verbs”
(ibid., p. 160). Patients might try to evacuate these objects because of accretions of stimuli, by
means of muscular movements, changes in mien, changes in posture or attitude.
What appears to be an articulated sentence is an agglomeration of objects, and is therefore not to be distinguished
from the agglom-eration manifest to the analyst as apparently inarticulate or incoherent. [ibid., p. 161]

Predominance of life over death instincts, leads towards dominance of the impulse to repair the
capacity for assimilation, something observed in the patient’s use of verbal expressions that
could be used for the construction of dream thoughts and dreams, as well as communication or
association. These verbal statements are capable of articulating with each other, are not suitable
for projective identifications and represent transformations still in the process of moving
towards greater transformations, according to the assimilation of future sense impressions.

Asthma: Bion writes a short note about asthma, in Elements of Psychoanalysis (1963), when
trying to explain the Grid with the use of models other than the one provided by the digestive
tract, such as respiratory, auditory, and tactile. He says: “It is worth noting that clinical
manifestations of asthma become psycho-analytically more meaningful if their relationship to
the respiratory model for thinking-feeling is recognized” (p. 96).

At-one-ment: A term created by Bion to represent a fusion with the other, as a form of
“incarnation”, “embodiment” or “incorporation” (1965, p. 163). It could be equivalent to what
has been defined as “empathy”, but much more complex. He describes it as a form of
relationship with O, something possible only when the final becoming of the transformation in
O is reached: Tβ→O ( = TβO). This kind of open intuition intended towards a communion or
fusion with the truth, should be distinguished by the analyst from sensuous greed and
gratifications where memory and desire are present. “The experience of at-one-ment resembles
possession and sensuous fulfilment”, says Bion (1970, p. 33). In other words, memory and
longing dominated by the pleasure principle, will always be directed towards something
gratifying that will saturate the mind and forbid the necessary freedom and nakedness required
to be in touch with the thing-in-itself or at-one-ment. Bion states: “The evocation of that which
provided a container for possessions, and of the sensuous gratifications with which to fill it, will
differ from an evocation simulated by at-one-ment” (ibid.). He also refers to the existence of
what he calls a “constellation”, a function that will facilitate the precipitation of a constant
conjunction and will act as a form of catalyser to facilitate the fusion with O or at-one-ment, or
transformation of O→K.
In summary, at-one-ment during the analytical session represents an “embodiment” with
O, with the thing-in-itself or the truth, achieved without memory and desire, different from the
kind of at-one-ment observed between a couple who love each other, but whose embodiment is
based on memory and desire and is determined by the pleasure principle. Some remembrances
might surface in a form Bion distinguishes by the name of “constellations”, but they evolve on
their own, forced by the associations produced by a constant conjunction that will ease the
process of at-one-ment.

Attacks on linking (or that which joins): Bion mentioned this concept for the first time in
1957 (1967, p. 48), as an attempt to understand why psychotic patients or the psychotic part of
the personality, always present a certain consciousness of reality, notwithstanding the extreme
attack made on their verbal thinking. Bion felt these attacks were oriented not so much against
reality itself, but against verbal thought, which according to Freud (1911), represents the
existing relationship between reality sense impressions and consciousness, that is, between
external and internal realities; this is why, if this link is destroyed, thought and object relations
are disturbed, but consciousness of reality remains.
Bion used attacks and splitting on the “primitive breast or penis”, as paradigmatic of all
attacks made on links, and also described the mechanism of projective identification as the
way the mind tries to free itself from fragments resulting from such attacks (1967, p. 93). The
main contribution on this subject consists of the emphasis made on the link and not so much on
the object, as was previously expressed by Klein.
Attacks on the link are originally made during the paranoid-schizoid position, which is
controlled by part-objects, whose relations are established not with the shape of the breast, but
with its contents, not with anatomy but with physiology, with its functions, such as nutrition,
loving, hating, poisoning, etc. It represents a more dynamic than static condition (ibid., p. 102).
This kind of part-object relationship with himself and with others explain expressions
… such as “it seems”, which are commonly employed by the deeply disturbed patient on occasions when a less
disturbed patient might say I think or I believe . When he says it seems he is often referring to a feeling—an it seems
feeling—which is a part of his psyche and yet is not observed as part of the whole object”. [ibid., pp. 101-102]

For some patients projective identification becomes the only form of link or
communication that they have access to in order to make themselves understood. They are
usually patients who when babies, experienced “nameless terror” of dying, which was not well
taken or contained by their mothers. Afterwards, these feelings changed to hatred and were
experienced in the transference as if they were not well understood, that the analyst was
someone who neither accepted their complaints, nor alleviated them. “Thus” said Bion, “the
link between patient and analyst, or infant and breast, is the mechanism of projective
identification” (ibid., p. 105). In extreme cases, primitive envy and hatred is changed into greed,
which ends devouring the patient and the analyst’s minds, with the use of acting-out,
delinquency or suicide threats (ibid., p. 106).
Another important link destroyed by envy is the relationship between both parents,
something observed in attacks on “that which joins” the couple, as well as their creativity and
achievements, experienced also in the incorporated image (ibid., p. 99), which is then internally
attacked with mechanisms of “self envy” (López-Corvo, 1992, 1994). Judgement as well as
curiosity, also represents possible targets for fragmentation and evacuation that will interfere
with the capacity to learn (ibid., p. 103). See: Emotional links, L, H, K, K, L, Maternal
reverie and Nameless terror. Attention: According to Freud (1911), it represents, together
with action, notation, judgement, and thought, one of the functions used by the ego to reach
consciousness of reality.
A special function was instituted which had periodically to search the external world, in order that its data might be
familiar already if an urgent internal need should arise—the function of attention. Its activity meets the sense-
impressions half way, instead of awaiting their appearance. [p. 220, original emphasis]

Bion has used this concept, together with those mentioned above, as part of the horizontal axis
of the Grid, in order to structure particular qualities and functions of the mind.

Awareness: see: Conscious awareness.

Axiomatic algebra: see: Psychic mathematics.

Axiomatic deductive system: see: Scientific deductive system.

Axis of uses: see: Grid, horizontal axis of the.

 8 See: López-Corvo 1992, 1994.
9 Similar to Bion, Piaget also used the digestive apparatus as a model to understand the
mind. Piaget introduced the existence of two functions: (a) Organization, and (b) Adaptation.
Any act by a living being implies a certain degree of organization: from a protozoa’s simple
act of phototropism, to the more complex act of mathematical calculus. Adaptation entails a
dynamic and progressive process that also involves two functions: (a) Assimilation; and (b)
Accommodation. Assimilation represents the act of incorporating an external reality inside
mental schemata that is already there. Accommodation, on the other hand, represents the
change that the schemata must suffer in order to assimilate the new experience.
B

Babel Tower, myth of the: see: Tower of Babel, myth of the

Basic assumption (ba): Bion uses this to represent emotional complications, which appear at a
given moment in a rather automatic, involuntary and unavoidable manner within a working
group (W), changing its direction and determining how it will function subsequently (1948b,
pp. 105, 117). Bion describes three kinds of ba: “dependence”, “pairing” and “fight-flight.”
All ba have a leader, although in the pairing group it would be “non-existent”, i.e. “unborn”:
the leader may not be identified with a person, but with a metaphor, an idea or an inanimate
object; whereas in the dependent group, sometimes the leader may be filled by the history of the
group or “the bible” (ibid., p. 155).
Because of circumstances related to its own dynamics, a group could change from one ba
to another, while the other two ba remain hidden or latent (ibid., p. 97). The surfacing of a ba
can be appreciated because of the kind of emotions present that act as the “cement” that keeps
the group assembled; for instance guilt and depression in the dependent group, Messianic hope
in the pairing group, anger and hate in the fight-flight group (ibid., p. 166). The change from
one ba to another is promoted by the failure of the defences present in the manifest ba, unable to
deal with anxiety induced by mechanisms of disintegration always present in the group. This
situation will encourage the need to make use of other defences present in the latent ba (ibid., p.
163), perhaps because at that moment the defences present in the ba that has been chosen,
“appear far more to have the characteristics of defensive reactions to psychotic anxiety” (ibid.,
p. 189).
There are no conflicts about the predominance of one ba over the other, because the main
line of divergence is always with W (work group) (ibid., p. 96). During the course of one hour,
for instance, a therapeutic group could be dominated by several ba, or perhaps one ba would
take over the group for several months. The communication between members of the group is
instantaneous, regardless of cultural differences or incapacity to form symbols, and can be
achieved following a mechanism Bion referred to as “valence”, or the tendency of an individual
to “combine” with the group, depending on a specific ba (ibid., pp. 151-152). The dominating
ba represents what Bion has described as the “establishment”, which might be present in any
existing social structure.
As already stated, a ba changes depending on the way the predominant defences from this
manifest ba fail, giving place then to other anxieties related to a latent ba. There are, however,
other varieties Bion has referred to as “aberrant forms of change”, linked to the dominating ba
and the presence of an external group.
Brown (1985) established a relationship between the three forms of ba and the psycho-
sexual stages of evolution described by Freud. According to him the dependent ba would
represent a form of regression to the “oral dependent” phase characterized by the interaction
present in the baby-mother dyad; the fight-flight would equally be a regression to the
“separation-individuation” period related to the anal stage, and finally, the pairing group would
indicate a regression to the phallic or Oedipal stage (p. 198).
Other researchers in the area of group therapy, such as Turquet or Lawrence et al ., have
attempted to create new forms of basic assumptions. Turquet (1974), for instance, defined the
“Oneness basic assumption” (Oba), which could be translated as a kind of unity, referring to the
members of a group who “seek to join in a powerful union with an omnipotent force … to be
lost in oceanic feelings of unity.” Lawrence, Bain and Gould (1996), on the other hand, have
suggested the presence of a fifth ba they refer to as “Me-ness” (baM), which they define as a
basic assumption completely opposed to Turquet’s “oneness”, and representing the tendency of
the members to prevent the formation of the group, for they fear they might “disappear” in the
group or be persecuted by it.
See: Work groups, Dependent ba, Flight-fight ba, Pairing ba, Schism, Oscillation of
Dba, Valence.

Beckett, Samuel: From the beginning of 1934 to the end of 1935, Bion analysed this Irish
writer and 1969 Nobel Prize winner, something never mentioned by him in his autobiography
(Bion, 1982, 1985). According to Anzieu (1986) perhaps both men might have influenced each
other, as some kind of “imaginary twins”, for they had many things in common: French
Huguenot ancestors who escaped to England because of religious persecution, “schizoid and
narcissistic” features, as well as making use of culture as a “continent” to deal with psychotic
components. Perhaps, says Anzieu, if someone had asked Bion about his motivation to write he
would have given the same answer Beckett did: “Bon qu’á ça”, meaning: “I am only good for
that”.
Bléandonu (1994), on the other hand, stated that Beckett’s therapy helped him not only to
understand himself better but also to show more of himself in his writings, even though he had
to discontinue it prematurely because of the consolidation of a negative therapeutic reaction:
Beckett could not progress until he could acknowledge his “addictive” relationship to his mother. Nine years older
than Beckett, Bion, who was still in therapy with Hadneld, became, in the transference, the writer’s older brother
Frank (it was in his bed that “Sam” [Beckett] sought refuge from his nocturnal panic attacks before coming to
London). The two men shared many intellectual interests, especially literature. At times they discussed, even argued
about, the nature of the creative process. According to Beckett, the “analysis” was limping along … he could not
make a choice between Bion and his mother. His body somatized, producing boils, tremors and an anal abscess.
Beckett announced his intention of stopping at the end [around Christmas] of 1935. [p. 45]

Betα-elements: (β-elements): These represent sensual impressions identical to what Bion,

following Kant, has called the thing-in-itself. He described them as “… objects compounded of
things-in-themselves, feelings of depression-persecution and guilt and therefore aspects of
personality linked by a sense of catastrophe” (1963, p. 40).
 At the beginning he referred to them as “indigested or non-dreamed facts” that have not
been transformed by α-function (1992, p. 64), and later on: “unreal or dead objects” in contrast
with α-elements, to which he referred as “alive and real objects” [1992, p. 133). Bion has also
defined them as “… objects compounded of things-in-themselves, feelings of depression-
persecution [as seen in the paranoid-schizoid position] and guilt and therefore aspects of
personality linked by a sense of catastrophe” (1963, p. 40). Finally, in an undated note in
Cogitations, he called them “β-elements” (1992, p. 181).
At the beginning all sensuous impressions belong to the proto-mental system incapable
of discriminating between mental and physical impressions. Beta elements are not synonymous
with mental pathology, instead they represent a type of non-verbal communication, perhaps an
intuitive one, commonly used by children (1974a, pp. 127-128), by the psychotic part of the
personality or by psychotic patients. Because these individuals lack α-function in order to
work through (digest, metabolize) abstractions, they use beta elements that cannot be
intellectually conceptualized and are thus communicated by mechanisms of projective
identification. Bion says:
Betα-elements are a way of talking about matters which are not thought at all; alphα-elements are a way of talking
about elements which, hypothetically, are supposed to be part of thought. The poet Donne10 has written “the blood
spoke in her cheek … as if her body thought! This expresses exactly for me that intervening stage which in the Grid
is portrayed on paper as a line separating
betα-elements from alpha-elements. Note that I am not saying that it is either beta or alpha, but the line separating
the two which is represented by the poet’s words. [1990, p. 41)

If α-function is troubled and therefore inoperative, sense impressions as well as emotions

remain untouched and become B-elements, which cannot be used to produce dream thoughts.
Instead they are evacuated through projective identifications that discharge the mental apparatus
from accretion of stimuli and influence as well as the configuration of actine-out. Such
discharges can take place through muscular movements or facial expressions, etc. or can also be
used in some kind of evacuative thought good for manipulation (1962, p. 6).11 Even though they
can be stored they do not represent memories like α-elements do, but represent “undigested
facts”, and in contrast with them too, they are not felt to be phenomena but things-in-
themselves. Betα-elements cannot become unconscious and therefore cannot be repressed,
suppressed nor used to learn from experience.
The breast provider of love, security and wisdom, can in some cases generate such cruel
envy in the baby, that it could induce him to attack the breast furiously and thus generate a
conflict between the need to suck in order to survive and fear of retaliation. According to Bion,
in those cases the only way out would be to attack the alphα-function, which would make both,
the breast and the baby, feel like inanimate things (see: animate-inanimate) where the
homicidal or suicidal destructive impulses remain present. When envy and aggression disturb
the baby’s relationship with the breast, there comes a point when the baby must continue
sucking in order to avoid death. The fear provoked by the destructive power of envy induces
splitting between psychic and material aspects, that is, between the need for affection and the
need for sustenance respectively. This split makes him mistake the need for affection for
accumulation of material things, which represent β-elements. When the patient lacks the α-
function that enables him to discriminate the animate from the inanimate, he then turns to a
greedy accumulation of material things and a continuous search for material comfort,
considered by Bion as real representatives of β-elements. Because he lacks:
… the apparatus, α-function by which he might understand his predicament. The patient greedily and fearfully takes
one betα-element after another apparently unable to conceive of any activity other than intro ection of more betα-
elements. [1962, p. 11]

This can be observed in the consulting room, for instance, by the interest the patient shows
towards the material objects around him, such as furniture, the couch, etc. It can also be
observed by the fact that the patient is not capable of conceiving either himself or the ones who
surround him as live persons. Some patients frequently come to consult under the following
model: they feel themselves to be machines, they do not know how well they function, and
since the analyst must know better they ask for help in much the same way a mechanic fixes
real machines.
β-elements are saturated as are bizarre objects, but they differ from them in that they
only contain sense-impressions while the latter also include ego, and especially superego,
aspects (ibid., p. 26). In some situations β-elements can be changed into α-elements, as can be
observed, for instance, during the maternal reverie: “… the fear [of the baby] is modified [by
the mother] and the β-element thereby made into an α-element” (1963, p. 27). “It is tempting to
suppose”, says Bion further on, “that the transformation of β-element to α-element depends on
and the operation of Ps↔D depends on the prior operation of ” (ibid., p. 39). The β
elements are dispersed, but they can reach cohesion through Ps↔D or through a selected fact,
unless a container 2 is found by the patient, that compels cohesion of the β-elements to form the
contained (ibid., p. 40), a change that Bion explains through “psycho-mechanic”
mechanisms. [ibid., p.84) See: Grid, vertical axis.
A process of elaboration of these concepts, as well as of alphα-function and alphα-
elements, can be read in Cogitations (pp. 62-68), written in 1959. There Bion identifies alphα-
function with dream work and betα-elements with “indigested facts that have not been
dreamed” (1992, p. 64). Such constructions about alpha and betα-elements could be interpreted
as an extension of “secondary and primary precesses” respectively, as they were described
within classical theory.
Green (2000) compares Freud’s concept of “unconscious Id impulses” with beta
elements. He states:
The main difference between Id and unconscious is that in Freud’s thinking there were no representations of the Id.
The Id was made of impulses—a concept very close to Bion’s beta elements. He was aware of that. The main
difference between Bion and Freud could be that for Freud the drives always had their source in the most Thinner
part of the body, whereas for Bion betα-elements may arise from external stimuli … [p. 115]

These statements could be questioned, because Klein and Bion, as opposed to Freud,
believe that impulses and objects are not separable, one is the “corollary” of the other. There is
no such thing as an impulse free of an object representation, therefore, even betα-elements as
things-in-themselves, as the ineffable, endure the implicit presence of an object. How then can
impulses be projected? How can an object-free impulse be projected? When Bion compares
beta elements with sense impressions, he is referring to an object’s sense impressions. That is
why, as Green expresses it, these elements “arise from external stimuli”.
Beta-screen: see: Screen of betα-elements.

Beta-space (β-space): According to Bion it represents a mental space of “unthoughts”,

“unthinkable thoughts” and thoughts “without a thinker” (see: “wild thoughts”). A mental
domain that extends in time, space and style in such a manner that it could only be explained
(or thought by a thinker) using astronomical analogies. In this universe there are also
“constellations of alphα-elements” capable of composing
… universes of discourse that are characterized by containing and being contained by terms such as, “void”,
“formless infinite”, “god”, “infinity”. This sphere I shall name by borrowing the term, noösphere … but as I wish to
avoid too great a penumbra of associations, particularly those activated by the term, “sphere”, I shall employ a sign
that is as devoid of meaning as I can make it (compatible with retention of its capacity for communicability) Σ
(sigma).” [1992, p. 313]

What eventually would make a difference to the outcome of all these constellations, would be
the presence of a “thinker” containing an alphα-function capable of transforming, or not, any
of these wild thoughts or unthinkable thoughts, or using “lost” or wild alphα-elements that
eventually might allow an illumination by O as a “formless infinity”.

Bible, the: Name used by Bion to refer to the manner in which a dependent group behaves
when trying to use past references or the history of the group as an abstract entity to depend on,
usually when the group therapist refuses to promote dependency by disregarding the role of a
leader.
The group resorts to bible-making when threatened with an idea the acceptance of which would entail development
on the part of the individuals comprising the group. Such ideas derive emotional force, and excite emotional
opposition, from their association with characteristics appropriate to the pairing-group leader. [1948b, p. 155]

See: basic assumptions, dependent group.

Binocular vision: The use of vision as a regulating or integrating element can be found in
Bion’s article “The Imaginary Twin” (1967, p. 3), where he refers to the way the “visual
concern” experienced by three of his patients represented “the emergence of a new capacity for
exploring the environment” and to resolveearly conflicts that had always been there, although
its observation was obstructed by the lack of intellectual perception and the conflict brought by
the phantasy of the “imaginary twin”. Bion said:
I have wondered whether the psychological development was bound up with the development of ocular control in the
same way that problems of development linked with oral aggression co-exist with the eruption of teeth. [1967, p. 22]

Elsewhere, Bion (1962) states that Freud’s position considering consciousness as a sense organ
of psychical qualities, although true, was incomplete, because psychoanalytic vision required
not only the presence of consciousness, but of the unconscious too:
The model is formed by the exercise of a capacity similar to that which is in evidence when the two eyes operate in
binocular vision to correlate two views of the same object. The use in psychoanalysis of conscious and unconscious
in viewing a psychoan-alytic object is analogous to the use of the two eyes in ocular observation of an object sensible
to sight. Freud attributed this function, the sense organ of psychical quality, to consciousness alone [1962, p. 86]
The interaction of analyst and analysand could also act as a binocular vision (1965, p. 74).
In “Transformations” (1965), Bion puts forward arguments about the “reversible
perspective”, where a patient could be observed to alter his attitude towards an object by
changing his view-point, representing a procedure that involves splitting in time and space,
because in this circumstance the patient and the analyst’s time-space dimensions are completely
different. Reversible perspective can be understood as a kind of binocular vision that will be
dealt with and modified, paradoxically with the help of the analyst’s binocular vision.
There is also a binocular vision between the presence and the absence of an object
represented for instance by a point, that is, the place where the object was but no longer is,
which can be observed in language with words that signal the objects, or symbols that represent
them, but are not the real object. This form of binocular vision is absent in psychotic patients or
in the psychotic part of the personality, because thinking is dominated by symbolic
equations.
Bion makes observations about binocular vision in relation to time and space dimensions,
like keeping one eye in the present and another in the past or in the future. He differentiates, for
instance, between a patient who is conscious of his “past” that no longer exists, as can be
observed in the transference, and the mathematician who is unconscious of a “future”
discovery that has not yet come to pass. To represent these two positions he develops a scale,
which at one end represents the past, and at the other the future. He gives the unconscious a
sense, thus:

and ; reciprocally, and . The “state of mind of the

mathematician unaware of mathematical formal artifices can then be represented by
and that of the disturbed patient [who expresses frustration intolerance about the absence of the
breast can also be represented] by 1965, p. 85). The sense of the arrows can also
symbolize the denial of the present, because the patient will try to search in the past for the
scent of the absent breast with his conscious, while the mathematician would keep the level of
future knowledge in his unconscious; this could be represented with a point “where the present
used to be.” See: Analogy, Links, Attacks on linking, Reversible perspective, Intra-uterine
life, No-breast, Point, Symbolic equation.

Bishop George Berkeley: see: “Ghosts of departed quantities"

Bizarre objects: Are seen in psychotic patients, and are made of particles that once free from
the mind, become encysted in external objects and will either contain these objects or be
contained by them, in the sense of the container-contained ( ) theory. These objects differ
from betα-elements because in their structure they also have, beside these later elements, ego
and superego traces (1962, p. 25). “Each particle”, says Bion, “is felt to consist of a real external
object which is encapsulated in a piece of personality that has engulfed it”. The external object
then acquires the characteristics of the projected particles; for instance, if the object is a
gramophone into which visual aspects have been projected, the psychotic patient will feel that
when the gramophone is working, it will also be watching him, or listening, if the part projected
is auditory (1967, pp. 39–48). At the same time, the chosen object can control the function that
contains it and, because these personality particles can be felt as prototypes of ideas—and then
words—external ideas and objects become homologous to such a point that the capacity to
make symbols becomes impossible. Instead, as Segal (1957) has described it, the patient
equates, but does not symbolize.
See: “symbolic equation”. The patient now moves in a world made out of bizarre
objects, which are ordinarily used as dream furniture. Another consequence would be that
when psychotic patients discover that things are ruled by natural laws and not by the
omnipotence of their mental functioning, they become puzzled. Something similar happened to
a catatonic patient who felt that when he joined his thumb and forefinger, the world would
move, birds would fly, people would breathe and so on. These objects make up the dream
material present in delusions (1967, pp. 81-82). On the other hand, within the non-psychotic
part of the personality, these bizarre “… objects, primitive yet complex, partake of qualities
which in the non-psychotic personality are peculiar to matter, anal objects, senses, ideas and
superego” (ibid., p. 51).

Bride’s Chair theorem: see: Theorem of the Bride’s Chair

10 Her pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought,
That one might almost say, her body thought. [ The Second Anniversary. By occasion of
the religious death of Mistress Elisabeth Drury,” poem written by British poet John Donne,
1572-1631].
11Green (2001), has argued, referring to the Internet, that this form of communication
“reminded him too much of a hypothetical channel through which betα-elements were
discharged” (Personal communication).
C

Caesura: Greek and Latin related word, describes a short break or pause made on certain
occasions in verse. In “Inhibitions, Symptoms and Anxiety”, Freud (1926) states: “There is
much more continuity between intra-uterine life and earliest infancy than the impressive
caesura of the act of birth would have us believe” (p. 138). Bion extends the metaphor to
include the existence of a threshold that unites/separates or separates/penetrates different
dimensions described as similitude or differences; for instance, the resistance in psychoanalytic
communication (1987, p. 298), the interaction between the mouth and the breast, intrauterine
and adult lives, between the individual and the couple or between oriental and occidental
cultures. Bion says:
Picasso painted a picture on a piece of glass so that it could be seen on both sides. I suggest that the same thing can
be said of the caesura: it depends which way you look at it, which way you are travelling. Psychosomatic disorders,
or soma-psychotic—take your choice—the picture should be recognizably the same whether you look at it from the
psychosomatic position, or from the soma-psychotic position. [ibid., p. 306]

In relation to time Bion formulates:

… the patient may express a fear of the future which has many of the characteristics of a past which one thinks he
could not possibly remember; nor can he remember the future because it has not yet happened. These things, so
faintly expressed, may in truth be very powerful. 1 can imagine that there may be ideas which cannot be more
powerfully expressed because they are buried in the future which has not happened, or buried in the past which is
forgotten, and which can hardly be said to belong to what we call “thought”. [1977a, p. 43]

Then he questions:
Can any method of communication be sufficiently “penetrating” to pass that caesura in the direction from post-natal
conscious thought back to the pre-mental in which thoughts and ideas have their counterpart in “times” or “levels”
of mind where they are not thoughts or ideas? That penetration has to be effective in either direction. It is easy to put
it in pictorial terms by saying it is like penetrating into the woman’s inside either from inside out, as at birth, or from
outside in, as in sexual intercourse. [ibid., p. 45]

Bion speculates that many incidents in the mind of patients, just as Freud expressed in relation
to birth, might be strongly influenced by what could have happened during their intra-uterine
life. He concludes:
So. …? Investigate the caesura; not the analyst; not the analysand; not the unconscious; not sanity; not insanity. But
the caesura, the link, the synapse, the (counter-trans)-ference, the transitive-intransitive mood. [ibid., p. 56]

Calculus: Bion used it as part of H category, the last one in the “vertical axis” of the Grid,
signifying how a scientific deductive system could be represented using algebraic calculus.
Different signs are brought together in the algebraic calculus according to certain rules of
combinations, for instance: (a + b)2 = a2 + b2 + 2ab, which may be successively replaced by
numbers following the scheme provided by this statement, a formula that will also retain a
certain capacity for saturation (1963, pp. 24-25 ). Bion established a line of comparison between
the latent content—for instance the latent content of a dream—and algebraic calculus, in the
sense that both could be regarded as the starting point of an expansion (like free association in
dreams and the successive expansion of mathematical formulas, like replacing letters with
numbers) that is coherent within itself and is often found to be applicable to data of an
empirically verifiable kind (1992, pp. 127-130).
Differential calculus, introduced by Galileo, Newton and Descartes, results in a
satisfactory instrument useful to deal with K, mainly in its inanimate dimension, but it is
inadequate to induce growth. It only allows accumulation of knowledge about knowledge or
increment of K, but never of O.

Castration: Bion argues that true castration is the one the Id carries out against the ego, similar
to Klein’s (1931) description of the sadistic attacks made by the child, in his own phantasies,
against his mother’s body. Bion also refers to extremely sadistic attacks made against
consciousness attached to sense organs, as well as functions such as attention, notation,
judgement, capacity to tolerate frustration, and motor discharge or action, and most of all, the
attacks made on thinking as seen in psychotic patients.

Catastrophic change: A concept that shows some resemblance to “catastrophe theory”,

introduced by René Thom, a French mathematician who refers to abrupt changes between two
stable states, as a theory to explain many situations involving a rapid change of behaviour such
as occurs when an attacking animal turns to flight or when a stock market crashes.
Bion relates “catastrophic change” to “subversion of the order or system of things; it is
catastrophic in the sense that it is accompanied by feelings of disaster in the participants … [and
that] it is sudden and violent in an almost physical way” (1965, p. 8). It usually occurs when a
change that has taken place cannot be contained, following the container/contained theory. For
instance the case of a borderline patient who, during analytical treatment, improves to the point
of building up psychotic symptoms, which induces alarm in other people, such as the family
physician, relatives and even lawyers who get involved. Bion discriminates between a pre-
catastrophic and a post-catastrophic period, and evaluates the transformation between the two in
three main aspects: (a) subversion of the system; (b) violence; and (c) invariants.
First of all there is a subversion of the system because the analytic setting changes from
one to different persons. (a) The first or pre-catastrophic one is characterized by being
theoretical, without emotions, devoid of major changes, and with a predominance of
hypochondriacal symptoms. (b) The nature of its violence is confined to interpretations and
analytical insight, some kind of “theoretical violence”. In the post-catastrophic period, by
contrast, the violence is obvious and it is present in the patient and the analyst.
Hypochondriacal12 elements however are less evident. (c) Regarding the invariants present in
the transformation, Bion highlights that the patient’s hypochondriacal symptoms during the
previous stage have become external, for they have been transformed into suffering and anxiety
(impending law-suits, mental hospitals, certification, etc.) suffered by the family, the patient and
the analyst during the post-catastrophic stage. Processes during this catastrophic change
correspond to the patient: Tp, Tpα, Tpβ, which represent the analyst’s major preoccupation,
although he also should consider his own: Tα, Taα, Taβ, as well as T (public), (1965, pp. 8-11)
(see “abbreviations” at the beginning of this dictionary).
Transformations from an old system into a new one can take place without the existence
of a catastrophic change; for this to happen the old system must transform and adapt to the new
one. When the contrary takes place, the catastrophic change would be represented by the injury
the new truth might create on the old one that has not adapted (Grotstein, 1981, p. 24).

Causality, theory of: Refers to a cause-effect correlation, or necessary sequence of events,

following rational means. Corresponds to a definitory hypothesis, or category 1 of the Grid
(1965, p. 79). Bion follows Hume’s postulates that deny a theory of causality, because there is
not a logical rationality between two events, but some kind of initial accident that turns into a
compulsion afterwards. Hume conceived as a constant conjunction this determinant
relationship of causality, where one event follows another without any logical presupposition
(ibid., pp. 64-65). One difficulty of this system is that it fails to discriminate between a
deductive scientific system and animism, that is, between depressive and paranoid-schizoid
positions. Bion introduces the existence of two opposite systems, one related to -K considered
as pseudo-causation, and another related to K or causation proper. For instance, pseudo-
causation could be a chain of β-elements, or situations related to absence of objects, the
“presence of an absence”, like minus breasts (see: point). Bion explains:
The patient’s attention passes from one β-element to the next, all linked by a chain of pseudo-causation to deny that
their “cause” or genesis lay in the destruction and dispersal of their common origin. [1965, p. 79]

Points in a line, meaning a continuous chain of events, could geometrically represent both,
causation and pseudo-causation (ibid., pp. 79-80).

Circle: Bion uses it as a geometrical visual image, similar to the point or the line, all
considered analogous to a pre-conception, although belonging to category H of the Grid,
because they represent algebraic transformations (1965, p. 100). Bion uses the circle as a
pictorial representation of the mind. He states:
The circle, useful to some personalities as a visual image of “inside and outside”, is to other personalities, notably the
psychotic, evidence that no such dividing membrane exists. [ibid., p. 82]

It could be speculated that he is phenomenologically conceiving the mind as similar to the

Möbius strip.
A line that cuts a circle, says Bion (similar to the relationship between an object and the
mind), has the following possibilities:13 (i) Real and distinct (or actual and separate): inside the
circle, in the internal world; would represent a relationship in which analyst-analysand work
harmonically in search of O and its transformation in K. (ii) Real and coincident (or actual and
coincident): when the line is a tangent equally inside and outside of the circle. It represents a
relation dominated by feelings of omnipotence and idealization resistant to change. (iii)
Conjugate complex: when the line is completely outside the circle. Represents narcissism: a
mirror representation in which the external is compensated by the internal; for instance, an
analyst-patient interaction dominated by a reversible perspective (ibid., p. 83).
The movement of a line around a circle, from a position inside to merely tangential
touching it and then completely outside, represents a transformation. “In the domain of
thought,” says Bion, “where a straight line can be regarded as lying within, or touching or
wholly outside, a circle, a transformation has been effected” (ibid., p. 83). See: line, point,
conjugate complex, no-thing, no-existence, no-breast, ←↑ ↑→.

Circular argument: Bion states “that probably any logical argument is essentially circular”
(1997, p. 18). An argument of this kind can be seen in the patient who says that he feels angry
because he is depressed, and when asked why is he depressed, he then answers, because he is
angry. Bion classifies the “argument” in relation to the “size” of its circularity:
I decided that the difficulties that arose depended (to extend the use of the circle as a model) on the diameter. If the
circular argument has a large enough diameter, its circular character is not detected and may, for all I know,
contribute to useful discoveries such as I understand the curvature in space to be … Conversely, the diameter can be
so reduced that the circle itself disappears and only a point remains. [1997, p. 18]

A psychotic patient became very disturbed immediately after his twenty-two-year-old

younger brother committed suicide. A very important problem with this patient was, as is often
observed with psychotics, the difficulty in following the bizarre sequence of associations in his
discourse. Some time later it turned out that this patient felt so close to this brother because he
was trapped inside a very powerful dilemma, as a consequence of two different experiences in
his life. When he was thirteen and his brother eleven, he accidentally shot him with a home-
made rifle. Although he became very ill he survived. It was then understood that the confusion
in his manifest discourse was the consequence of some kind of monologue. For instance, he
would say one word trying to express a wish, and it was immediately followed by another word
that was an anticipation of what he felt the Other—the interlocutor—wished to say. It was an
attempt to avoid the aggression from the projections of a very sadistic superego. Apparently he
was trapped between two different moments in his life: the present time when his brother was
dead because he had committed suicide, and the past when the patient was the one who shot him
but he had survived. In his monologue it seemed as if he was endlessly saying: “I shot my
brother, but he didn’t die, but he is dead, but I didn’t shoot him” and so on. Such splitting of
time was his manner of dealing with the persecutory anxiety induced by his fratricidal impulses
present in the transference (Lopez-Corvo, 1994). The diameter reduction of the circular
argument between these two incidents was so small and so fast, that it interfered with the
patient’s discourse making the dialogue absolutely incomprehensible. Bion also adds:
There is implicit in this [in the diameter size] the possibility that there must be distance between the correlated
statements if meaning is to be achieved. If “madness” is feared, the operation that leads to meaning is avoided. The
circular argument must therefore be of small diameter to preclude the conjunction of meaning and a feeling of
madness. [1997, p. 20]

In other words, the diameter’s size represents a defence against the awareness of madness: if the
diameter is small there is less possibility for consciousness of being sick and less danger of
acting-out; but if the diameter is greater and the argument acquires a sense that could lead to
awareness of madness, there is then the danger of acting-out such as suicide.
Claustrophobia-agoraphobia: Bion says little about agoraphobia or claustrophobia; he
associates them with acting-out using the theory of container-contained. Agoraphobia
represents a contained outside a container, while claustrophobia represents the opposite: a
contained trapped inside a container.
Acting-out, as it is ordinarily understood, takes place “in” the analysis and analysis is then itself a part of acting-out
… When a patient can be said to be acting-out the analysis is “in” a situation of which the boundaries are unknown.
If the behaviour characterized as “acting-out” is brought to the analysis it can be accompanied by claustrophobic
symptoms in the patient. [1970, p. 110]

When the patient’s acting-out is contained by the analysis as a container, the patient could feel
trapped.

Clouds of probabilities: Represents an abstract and cryptic visual model Bion used just once
to represent questions taking place during the session between the analyst and his patient and
vice versa. He might be referring to a model of psychoanalytic listening, of “searching for a
meaning” to take place, one of which, the transformation O→K could be obtained by means
of an act of faith, similar to the model of hallucinosis he described in relation to psychotic
patients.
In this model Bion imagines the existence of two points, one corresponding to “clouds
above” and another he refers as a “hot-point in a summer’s day” located below. He considers
also the tension between both points. The entire model would fit in category C of the Grid.
At a given moment the tension could change from clouds of probabilities to clouds of
possibilities, doubts, certitudes, depression, guilt, hope, fear, etc.; while the hot-point could
correspond, for instance, to the analyst or the patient’s genitals, dress, positions, an insect in the
room, or some other location that might acquire relevance during the session. Bion compares
the visual model (it could be also odoriferous, audible, etc.) with a geometrical model of points
and lines, but this, he said, could be less open, more saturated. The important thing, he adds, is
for the model to remain unsaturated “searching for a meaning”: (Ψ(ξ)) (1965, pp. 117-118). See:
Saturated-unsaturated elements, Psi, ξ, Preconception.

Cogitations: According to Francesca Bion, “Cogitations” represents the name given by Bion
to his “own thoughts transferred to paper.” It is also the name of a posthumous recollection of
some of Bion’s manuscripts (1992, p. vii). Bion’s daughter, Parthenope, said that these notes
were perhaps written with the purpose of publication at a given time, because she cannot
otherwise explain why he took them with him when he moved from England to Los Angeles,
and then brought them back again ten years later when he went back to England. There are also
paragraphs where Bion approaches the reader directly. In this sense Green (1992), had said:
Compared with Bion’s published works, the Cogitations are thrilling to read and often less difficult to assimilate,
because the author’s formulations are less condensed and because he makes us witnesses to the process of the
unfolding of his thought. We literally follow him. [p. 585]

Commensal relationship: Represents a container-contained ( ) form of interaction, in

which two objects share a third to the advantage of all three, for instance the relationship
between a child (1) and his mother (2), where both can benefit from each other in experience as
well as mental growth (3) (1962, p. 91); or the thinker who contains an idea or an invention with
a purpose that is beneficial for both, the inventor and his invention. In the first place there is the
sum of all the represented as: = ( + + ), meaning a continual series of doubts (ideas,
inventions, etc.) or variables, that are linked by emotions and could be best condensed as: n.
These contents would introduce themselves (see: wild thoughts) in successive containers = ( +
+ ) that could be better represented as n + n. The possibility of learning from experience
will be based on these successive fusions and integration, of n + n, that should also remain
open, free of rigidities and always ready for any future assimilation. Any individual whose mind
works in this manner will display a capacity to retain knowledge and experience, be able to use
his past experiences and be receptive to new ones. (ibid., pp. 92-93). It is obvious that K levels
will depend on this kind of commensal relationship.
Besides the commensal form of relationship, Bion also described the symbiotic and
the parasitic one. See: Container-contained, Symbiotic, Parasitic.

Common sense: From Bion’s statements about this concept, four different points of view can
be conjectured: (1) a conception established from a public or social vertex; (2) a private,
individual or narcissistic vision; (3) a perceptive-cognitive vertex; (4) a perceptive-emotional
point of view.
(1) It represents a sense that is common to more than one person, or a sense used for recognition of a fact by more than one
observer, something often used in psychoanalytical presentations (1963, p. 10); it is related, according to Bion, with concepts
such as a ‘selected fact’, or a ‘link‘ that unites facts having a deep but hidden analogy (1992, p. 18).
(2) Common sense could also be used from a private vertex within the individual, like “an adequate description covering an
experience felt to be supported by all the senses without disharmony” (ibid., p. 10). For instance, the sudden and unpre-dicted
tactile contact with fur gives rise to the thought of an animal that can be confirmed visually, and finally reaches a consensus
or a common sense agreement about what kind of animal the fur belongs to. It is common sense that allows the conclusion
that the observed facts are really facts. Common sense would be absent in the psychotic part of the personality, when the
delusional patient seems to have a feeling or a belief that although compatible with his own delusion, lacks the logical
“sense” common to the rest of the observers.14 Bion introduced this concept when he referred to his theory of thinking.
There he said:
The failure to bring about this conjunction of sense-data, and therefore of a commonsense view induces a mental
state of debility in the patient as if starvation of truth was somehow analogous to alimentary starvation. [1967, p.
119]
(3) All the examples provided so far, from public as well as private points of view, belong to a cognitive vertex.
(4) In relation to a common emotional vision , equivalent to a vision of common sense, Bion states:
… a sense of truth is experienced if the view of an object which is hated can be conjoined to a view of the same
object when it is loved and the conjunction confirms that the object experienced by different emotions is the same
object. A correlation is established. [ibid.]
This correlation corresponds, for instance, to a child’s understanding that hated and loved aspects of the mother are
one and the same.

Common sense or the capacity to maintain an agreement with the tenet that dominates a
group, would be indispensable to survive within that group because, as Bion explains, the
individual’s welfare is secondary to the group’s survival: “Darwin’s theory of the survival of the
fittest needs to be replaced by a theory of the survival of the fittest to survive in a group” (1992,
p. 29). If the individual cannot maintain a common sense with the group, he would have to face
his fear of the group, that is, to privilege narcissism over social-ism. When there is no common
sense, there is the risk of experiencing phantasy as a fact, a sort of narcissism that would make
public-ation impossible, because if published it would never be scientific (ibid., p. 24).
According to Bion, a private fact is made public within the person
… when it has become a matter of common sense; that is, all his senses combine to give the same information …
Private knowledge becomes public knowledge when the common sense of analyst and analysand agree that the
perceptions of both indicate that some idea corresponds to an external fact independent of both observers. (ibid., p.
197)

Although patients have common sense, usually they do not make good use of it: generally,
common sense is the least common of all senses. The interpretation represents a public-ation
of the analyst’s private knowledge to his patient, a translation of thought into action and a truth
shared because the common sense present in both would, in the long term, allow the cure to take
place.
Nebbiosi & Petrini (2000) have introduced the hypothesis that common sense is what
allows a contact between two persons. When contact is feared common sense is attacked giving
place to megalomania, indolence and psychosis, but if contact is tolerated, group
communication and sharing of knowledge and experience is possible (p. 167).

Communicable awareness: With this term Bion describes a mental state signifying to “have
knowledge” or to “know something about”:
“Knowledge” has no meaning unless it means that someone knows something, and this … is an assertion of
relationship …The term, “knowledge”, I propose provisionally to employ to describe a state of mind indissolubly
associated with a relationship between communicable awareness on the one hand, and the object of which the person
feels thus aware, on the other. [1992, p. 271]

Bion prefers “communicable” instead of “consciousness”, because it is possible to know

something and communicate it without being conscious of it, or the opposite, to be conscious
of something but not be able to communicate it. See: Conscious awareness (Cs), Awareness.

Communication: Bion described it as the capacity to make public (see: public-ation) a private
knowledge (1963, p. 92). When the analyst makes an interpretation, the facts implicit in it are
no longer private (1965, p. 31); also, when the analyst tries to make the unconscious conscious,
he is also making something private public. In the process of communication there is a complex
chain of events that go from the unknown, the ineffable or O, to the final transformation that
Bion has referred to as Tpβ (see: transformation). Take for instance, the relationship
established between a landscape, the painter who reproduces it and the public capable of
responding to a conveyed emotion when admiring the piece of art (ibid., p. 32); similarly, the
public reaction towards the presentation of a psychoanalytic paper could be related to the
emotion elicited in the session at the moment of transformation of O into K.
Bion refers to every analyst’s need to forge a private language to fabricate the
interpretation, avoiding saturation presented by some words already worn-out by use, such as
sex, fear, hostility, transference, etc.; or technical terminology that is usually indistinguishable
from jargon, “just noises, “learnèd nonsense” (1987, p. 315).
I think that each analyst has to go through the discipline—which cannot be provided for him by any training course
that I know of— of forging his own language and keeping the words that he uses in good working order. [ibid.]
Complex conjugate: In mathematics a complex conjugate is represented by a pair of complex
numbers whose imaginary parts are identical but differ only in sign, for example, 6 + 4i and 6 –
4i are complex conjugates. Or in simple words, they are like a mirror image of each other, a
concept Bion has used to represent narcissism geometrically: − 2 would be the mirror image of
+2.
He gives the example of a straight line, (representing an object) which cuts a circle
(symbolizing the mind) in two different points that could be represented as point-pairs (see
figure): (1) real and distinct, or actual and distinct: inside the circle, in the internal world,
would represent the analyst-analysand relationship working harmonically in search of O and its
transformation in K. Inside and outside are distinguished, in a manner that the place where the
object (i.e. the breast) was represented as -. (minus point), and the place where the object is: .+,
coincide. (2) Real and coincident, or actual and coincident: when the line is a tangent equally
inside and outside of the circle. Represents a relationship dominated by feelings of omnipotence
and idealization resistant to change. (3) Complex conjugate: when the line is completely outside
the circle. It corresponds to a narcissistic, or a mirror representation where the external is
compensated by the internal; for instance, an analyst-patient interaction dominated by
reversible perspective (1965, p. 83). See: point-pair

Concept: It represents a developmental level thinking process corresponding to category F of

the Grid’s vertical axis. Concepts are saturated elements, thoughts or fixed conceptions. See:
Vertical axis, Realization, Thinking, apparatus for; Thinking, theory of.

Conception: It represents a developmental level thinking process, corresponding to category E

of the Grid’s vertical axis. Because it is the product of a combination between a pre-
conception and a realization, the conception remains in constant conjunction with a
satisfactory emotional experience (1967, p. 111). The conception could be considered as a
variable that has been replaced by a constant. For instance, if a pre-conception of the breast is
represented by the formula ^(Q, where t, (see: psychoanalytic element) is an empty or
unsaturated (see: saturated-unsaturated) element waiting to mate with a realization with the
real breast, once this realization takes place, t, would be replaced by a constant or a concept (it
would be set, fixed). However, because the realization is never absolute, it would allow new
conceptions to remain open for further realizations and new conceptions to take place (1963, pp.
23-24). This theory reminds us of Piaget’s mechanisms of “assimilation and accommodation”.
See: Realization, Pre-concep-tion, Saturated-unsaturated elements, Thinking, apparatus
for; Thinking theory of, Vertical axis.

Conjecture: From Latin conjectura, or act of conjicere, to throw together, to combine. A

doubtful opinion founded on weak probabilities, supposition, presumption, hypothesis. In
science, all experimental truth goes through a conjectural phase.
Conscious awareness (Cs): Originally Bion identifies “conscious awareness” with the
“apparatus of perception”. In 1956 he said:
… attacks are directed against the apparatus of perception from the beginning of life. This part of his personality is
cut up, split into minute fragments, and then, using the projective identification, expelled from the personality.
Having thus rid himself of the apparatus of conscious awareness of internal and external reality, the patient achieves
a state which is felt to be neither alive nor dead. [1967, p. 38, my italics)

This is a confusion Bion seems to have had in mind when he wrote his “commentary” (see:
Bion, 1967) around nine years later in 1965. Here he said that it would be a mistake to use his
1956 remarks as
C category formulations and used by the reader as disclosure models . They are to be read, forgotten, but permitted
to reappear, as part of the evolution peculiar to a particular psycho-analytic emotional situation. [ibid., p. 154]

Discrimination is attempted afterwards when he tries to use geometrical abstractions in order to

represent aspects of the mind and to differentiate between “being aware” and “being conscious”.
The former he represented with the letters Cs or the sign ±←↑, and would mean almost the
opposite of the latter. “Being conscious” would be equivalent to the definition given by
Freud (1926), of a “sense organ for the perception of psychic qualities”; being aware or
Cs, on the other hand, implies a condition similar to the photo-tropism present in an
insect, or the awareness (alertness?) of a predator looking for its prey, or someone in
search of an “absent breast”; something Bion has represented as -. (minus point), or the
place where the object was (see: no-object, point). ←↑ symbolizes a direction contrary to that
one normally followed by the vertical (from A to H) and horizontal (from 1 to 5) axes of the
↓→, and it is equivalent to A1, that is, to the category occupied by β-elements, but not so much
by a β-element as such, but to its concept, something belonging not to A1 category but to D1,
D3 or D4. Cs and ←↑ would be inseparables and amount to an unsaturated constant conjunction
(Ψξ) that continuously seeks saturation, like “hunger” looking for food.
This “consciousness” is an awareness of a lack of existence that demands an existence, a thought in search of a
meaning, a defini-tory hypothesis in search of a realization approximating to it, a psyche seeking for a physical
habitation to give existence, seeking . [1965, p. 109]

←↑implies a category C3, and may be personified by a nonexistent “person”

whose hatred and envy is such that “it” is determined to remove and destroy every scrap of “existence” from any
object which might be considered to “have” any existence to remove. Such a nonexistent object can be so terrifying
that its “existence” is denied, leaving only the “place where it was”. [ibid., p. 111]

See: No-thing, No-breast, No-existence, Point.

Consciousness: Bion’s contributions are based on Freud’s (1926) definition of consciousness as

a “sense organ for the perception of psychical qualities.” Following Bion’s “thinking theory”,
consciousness is an organ that depends on α-function to convert sense information into α-
elements, in order to provide the mind with material to fabricate dream-thoughts, as well as
the capacity to sleep, to be awake, to discriminate between being conscious or unconscious and
to achieve a sense of self-awareness. For Bion this level of abstraction is originally obtained
from maternal reverie. A baby’s rudimentary consciousness is not associated with its
unconscious, all self-impressions are of equal value, they are all conscious, and it is the
mother’s capacity for reverie, which functions as a receptor organ, where all sensations that feed
the baby’s consciousness will be originally processed (1967, p. 116). The baby’s rudimentary
conscious is not able to process its sense information, that should be evacuated inside the
mother, and it will depend on her own α-function, if they are changed into α-elements or not.
“By definition,” says Bion, “the term conscious relates to states within the personality;
consciousness of an external reality is secondary to consciousness of an internal psychic reality”
(1965, p. 86).

Conscious-unconscious, relation between: In Learning from Experience, Bion (1962) stated

that Freud’s theory (1911) about consciousness being the only sense organ for the perception of
psychical qualities, was not satisfactory. His argument was not against the validity of such
asseveration, but against the fact that it did not discriminate between the different kinds of
interactions that take place between the conscious and the unconscious. According to Bion, the
correct model would be depicted by the existence of a capacity similar to the one given by
binocular vision, whereby two views of the same object are correlated. In psychoanalysis, the
use of both conscious and the unconscious to look at a “psychoanalytic object” is similar to
binocular vision. In order for images to superimpose without generating double vision, one must
look inwards with the unconscious eye, with the same eagerness consciousness looks outwards.
In the first place, the existing relationship between the pre-con-scious and the
unconscious is a container-contained relationship ( ) (similar to the one observed between
the baby and the breast). In other words and following Bion, it would represent the interaction
between a pre-conception and its realization, which results in a conception. The baby’s
instinctive need, similar to the unconscious, represents a biological truth, which is universal,
predetermined and unchangeable. The main differences in the interaction between “container”
and “contained” would be determined by the oscillations (plus + or minus −) within the
maternal reverie and never by the baby’s biological demands. The contained ( ) (or
unconscious) is always the same; what changes is the container’s ( ) (or conscious) attitude
towards it. The fact that the truth could be well received or might represent a threat will not
depend on the truth in itself, but on the one who receives it or disregards it. Such a difference
would be the consequence of consciousness being dominated either by the normal or by the
psychotic part of the personality.
Bion established the existence of a special entity between the unconscious and the pre-
conscious, whose particular configuration and physiology would depend on the mind being
dominated either by: (a) normal aspects; or (b) the psychotic part of the personality. In the first
situation he described the existence of a “contact barrier”, representing a structure composed
by the proliferation of coherent and continuous alpha elements, demarking contact as well as
separation between conscious and unconscious and discriminating outside from inside realities.
It will perform as a kind of permeable membrane whose nature will depend on how the supply
of a-ele-ments is established, and on how they relate to each other.
If, on the other hand, the mind is controlled by the psychotic part of the personality, then
the structure of this intermediary entity between conscious and unconscious would be organized
as an agglomeration of betα-elements, he referred to this as a “screen of betα-elements”,
placed between the unconscious and the conscious and responsible for a state of confusion
similar to dreams, as well as for the possibility of massive projections of betα-elements. These
elements might induce emotional changes in the analyst that could determine the profile of the
countertransference and the architecture of the interpretation. See: Alphα-elements, Betα-
elements, Alphα-function, Contact barrier, Screen of betα-elements, Agglomeration,
Binocular vision, Container-contained, Maternal reverie.

Constant conjunction: A concept Bion borrowed from the philosopher David Hume, to
explain how an object or a fact points to another, although the ideas implicit in both are not at
all related. It seems as if there is nothing logical to explain their relationship, which bears more
towards a causality or cause-effect relation, where both were linked by experience, by accident
and remain associated. Two elements are in constant conjunction, said Hume, when we infer
one from the other not by reason, but from the particular experience that surrounded them,
although we might fail to penetrate inside the logic of such conjunction. This concept is
different from the determinism described by epigenesis (Waddington, 1957; Piaget, 1971),
where fatalism is present in the progression of elements in a narrative, a history, or a myth, or
in biological or geometrical structures, in the sense that each step is indispensable to the sum of
the preceding steps although they are independent from the initial one. For instance, if we recite
the alphabet, letter N would not be present at the beginning at all, at the level say of C, but once
we reach letter M, N will be a determinant and compulsory step. In other words, the relationship
is not based on chance, like the constant conjunction, it is part of a narrative where one event
follows the other (like the Oedipus myth) fatalistically.
For Bion, constant conjunction has a meaning that could be represented as Ps↔D, that is,
according to him, it is, together with the selected fact, what determines the interaction between
the paranoid-schizoid and the depressive positions (1965, pp. 80, 108).
The term is first mentioned in Cogitations in a note headed “Scientific Method” dated
January 10th, 1959 (p. 13) and afterwards in “A Theory of Thinking” (1962 in Second
Thoughts, 1967). However, it is not used in Learning from Experience (1962) or Elements of
Psycho-Analysis (1963) in spite of its importance for the understanding of concepts such as
“model”, “scientific deductive system” or “narrative” and its difference from the interaction
of paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions.

Constellation: An obscure concept seldom used by Bion, who described it as a term that
“represents the process precipitating a constant conjunction.” (1970, p. 33n) He refers to the
analyst’s preparation to listen to the patient without memory or desire, in order to allow a state
of at-one-ment with the patient’s discourse and for O to take place. The analyst will avoid
remembering or desiring, but “a relevant constellation will be evoked [instead] during the
process of at-one-ment with O, the process denoted by transformation O → K” (ibid.). It
seems from this description, that “constellation” is a precursor or a catalytic state reached by the
analyst while listening to the patient without memory or desire, that will allow the precipitation
of constant conjunctions, in order to reach a condition of at-one-ment with O. In other words, it
represents the paradox of allowing memories or associations (constant conjunctions) to take
place, while avoiding remembering them. See: Memory, Desire, Act of faith, O, At-one-ment,
Transformation of O →K.

Contact-barrier: In order to depict what he thought was an entity composed by the

proliferation of coherent and continuous alphα-elements, Bion used the same term Freud used
to describe a neuro-physiological unit known later as the synapse. The contact-barrier is
supposed to be located amid the conscious and the unconscious, demarking their contact as well
as separation between each other and discriminating outside from inside realities. It will
perform as a kind of permeable membrane whose nature will depend, on how the supply of α-
elements is established, and on how they relate with each other. Alphα-function, during
wakefulness or when sleeping, changes sense impressions, related to an emotional experience,
into alphα-elements. These elements as they proliferate, may cohere, agglomerate, get
sequentially ordered to give the appearance of a narrative, get logically or even geometrically
ordered (1962, p. 17). According to the nature of the transition from conscious to unconscious
and vice versa, the contact-barrier could affect memory and the characteristics of some
particular memories. It also defines the nature of defences, deciding the way consciousness
behaves in relation to the unconscious, either repressing it or allowing it to become conscious
and to be used as a thought that might reveal the truth.
Investigation of psychotic patients, or on the psychotic part of the personality, allowed
Bion to become aware of a kind of conscious and unconscious interaction different from that
observed in neurotic patients, basically a lack of resistance about unconscious elements
becoming conscious, as well as a disturbance in memory processes. Such observations induced
Bion to create another psychological construct he referred to as the “screen of betα-elements” or
“Beta-screen”.
Meltzer (1978) associated contact-barrier with Klein’s concept of “unconscious
phantasy” (pp. 41–42), although it could also resemble the notion of “defence” in classical
theory. Unconscious phantasy, on the other hand, could be related to the concept of O
introduced by Bion.

Container-contained, interaction: The clinical notion of this theory seems to have been
mentioned for the first time when Bion, in his 1959 article “Attack on Linking”, refers to the
mother’s aptitude to deal with the baby’s “primary aggression and envy”. Bion used several
words to describe the mother’s reaction: “unreceptiveness”, to “remain balanced”, “comfortable
state of mind” and finally, when describing the transference-countertransference interaction
with a patient, he says: “Projective identification makes it possible for him to investigate his
own feelings in a personality powerful enough to contain them.” (1967, p. 106, my italics).
The concept of “container-contained” corresponds to an abstraction model of
psychoanalytical realizations, representing a psychoanalytic element to which Bion bestowed
the signs of : ‘container’ and : ‘contained’, meaning feminine and masculine respectively, but
without having a specific sexual connotation (1970, pp. 106). They are linked, according to the
pleasure principle, to objects or concepts such as vagina-penis, mouth-breast, thinker-idea, or to
models such as ‘evacuation-retention’, ‘remembering-forgetting’, etc. (ibid., p. 29). The
preference about when to use this model is similar to the decision of when to “include” or
“exclude” something, and related to questions like “what?”, “where?”, “when?”, or why is
something included or excluded? Bion describes three different kind of links between container
and contained: (a) commensal, (b) symbiotic, and (c) parasitic (1970, p. 95-96; 1962, p. 91).
Because of alphα-function operations, a baby is capable of incorporating relations of the
kind present in . One word could contain a meaning, or the opposite: a meaning could
contain a word; the relationship between the two will be established following one of the forms
mentioned above: “Commensal” will mean that both, container and contained benefit from each
other; for instance an invention could benefit from a thinker and vice versa. Or it could be
‘symbiotic’, and then one will destroy the other, for instance the word testify was originally
represented by Egyptian hieroglyphics with the picture of male genitalia, meaning that only
men, having testicles, were qualified to bear witness. Today the meaning of the word still
remains, but the concept that originally contained it disappeared. Finally the relationship could
be “parasitic” where both, would destroy each other, for instance a relationship dominated by
envy and revenge, that at the end will only have -K as a result.
Using Jaques (1960) notion of “integrative reticulum”, which describes the existence of
a complex mental schema that will help the mind finally to acquire the idea of a total object,
Bion explains how growth, intricate and successive, between container and contained, achieves
such levels of abstraction that allows the possibility of learning from experience. Development
follows the evolution of Klein’s paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions, and will require
at a given moment, the presence of a “selected fact”. Contents ( ) characterize doubts,
questions or variables linked by emotional experiences, that successively add to each other
within the containers ( ), in a continuum that could be portrayed as n + n, corresponding to a
process that at the end will guarantee growth and capacity to learn from experience. This
learning will depend on the capacity of n to integrate and to keep open at the same time, free of
rigidity and ready for further assimilations. An individual in whom this mechanism operates
will be capable of preserving knowledge and experience, and capable of using his past
experiences as well as being receptive to new ones (1962, pp. 92-93). Therefore, the level of K
will depend on this kind of “commensal” relationship, for instance, the successive complexity
of new hypotheses that will form systems and later on deductive scientific systems. Bion also
relates the apparatus for thinking to I (Idea), assuring that the material out of which the
apparatus is formed and has to deal with, is I (1963, p.31).
There is on the other hand, as was stated previously, a situation completely dominated
by envy, where the result will not be K but -K. Under these circumstances the baby splits and
projects its feelings of fear inside the breast together with envy and hate, a condition that
obviously will prevent the appearance of the commensal relationship that will have K as a
product. In this condition it is felt that the breast enviously removes all goodness and valuable
elements that could metabolize the baby’s fear of death, and in its place forces back inside
denigrated residues that will determine the manifestation of a nameless terror, a kind of
container-contained provision that Bion represents as -K. This condition becomes very serious
when the breast not only is unable to neutralize the wish to die, but removes the wish to live
(1962, pp. 97-99), represented again by Bion as (minus) - and qualified as a without-ness,
meaning:
… an internal object without an exterior. It is an alimentary canal without a body. It is a super-ego that has hardly
any of the characteristics of the super-ego as understood in psycho-analysis: it is a “super” ego. It is an envious
assertion of moral superiority without any morals. In short it is the resultant of an envious stripping or denudation of
 all good … and will continue this process till - - represents hardly more than an empty superiority-inferiority that
in turn degenerates to nullity. [1962, p. 97]

Co-operation: A form of voluntary relationship, conscious or unconscious, that can prevail

among members of a Work group (W). The organization and structure induced by co-operation
in the group, would stimulate further co-operation. It is equivalent to the concept of valence
within the group dominated by a given basic assumption.

Correlation: From Latin correlatio, meaning the character of two correlative terms, where one
cannot take place without the other. There is a correlation, for instance between slim and fat,
husband and wife, etc. From the point of view of mathematics, it corresponds to the rigid
relationship presented by two variables that will occur in a way not expected on the basis of
chance alone. In geometry, for instance, two quantities are correlated when the value of one
variable determines the other; for instance, the diameter is correlated with the surface of the
circle. Bion introduces the possibility of using “correlation” in splitting, as observed in
reversible perspective, where the two fragmented parts correlate with each other. It could also
be observed in addictive behaviour, where the perverse aspect correlates with the part that due
to guilt, repents. There is correlation in binocular vision, between conscious and unconscious,
common sense and selected fact, between projected and introjected identifications, etc.
(1965, pp. 66-67).

Countertransference: From his experience with groups, Bion introduced the importance of the
use of countertransference to formulate an interpretation:
It could be justly argued that interpretations for which the strongest evidence lies, not in the observed facts in the
group but in the subjective reactions of the analyst, are more likely to find their explanation in the psychopathology
of the analyst than in the dynamics of the group. [1948b, pp. 148-149]

Bion anticipated what later on would be expressed more con-cisely by Heimann (1950),
Racker (1953) and Grinberg (1957) among others, on the important role played by projective
identification in the structuring of countertransference. He said:
It is my belief that these reactions are dependent on the fact that the analyst in the group is at the receiving end of
what Melanie Klein (1946) has called projective identification … the experience of countertransference appears to
me to have quite a distinct quality that should enable the analyst to differentiate the occasion when he is the object of
a projective identification from the occasion when he is not. The analyst feels he is being manipulated so as to be
playing a part, no matter how difficult to recognize, in somebody else’s phantasy. [1948a, p. 149]

About this last aspect, Bléandonu (1994) adds:

When the concept of countertransference began to appear in the psychoanalytic literature of the 1950s, Bion had
encountered the phenomenon a good ten years earlier. His writings on psychosis, in their originality and their
density, are immediately distinctive. [p. 108]

In 1953, in his article “Notes on the theory of schizophrenia” (1967, pp. 23-35), Bion
stated that the “Evidence for interpretations has to be sought in the countertransference and in
the actions and free associations of the patient. Countertransference has to play an important
part in analysis of the schizophrenic …” (ibid., p. 24). Fourteen years later in Cogitations
(1992), in a note dated March 1967, he talks about the importance of experimenting with
persecutory as well as depressive feelings, during the analytical session, before producing the
interpretation:
I suggest that for a correct interpretation it is necessary for the analyst to go through the phase of “persecution” even
if, as we hope, it is in a modified form, without giving an interpretation. Similarly, he must pass through the
depression before he is ready to give an interpretation … I am fortified in this belief by the conviction that has been
borne in on me by the analysis of psychotic or borderline patients. I do not think such a patient will ever accept an
interpretation, however correct, unless he feels that the analyst has passed through this emotional crisis as a part of
the act of giving the inter-pretation. [1992, p. 291]

Later he said: “We may assume that what the psychoanalyst says about the analysand is likely
to be true of the psychoanalyst himself” (ibid., p. 361).
During his conferences in Brazil in 1974-75 (1987, p. 26; 1974, pp. 87-88, 189), Bion
distinguished between the conscious feelings the analyst experiences towards his patients and
therefore can be used to build interpretations, and those feelings the analyst is not aware of and
therefore cannot be used, unless they become con-scious. It is to these last feelings that Bion
has referred as true counter-transference.
In one of his supervisions in Brazil in 1975, one of the present-ing analysts expressed his
difficulty in communicating with one of his patients: I was never sure if the difficulty of
establishing con-tact lay with me or with the patient. Bion answered the following:
That is always worth considering. But here again I think there is a fallacious argument because analysts think that
they can use a countertransference. That is an inaccurate way of thinking. You can use a feeling you have, but
countertransference you cannot use. By definition I cannot do anything about my countertransference; there is
nothing to be done with it except to go to an analyst and get analysed. But most of us have to put up with the fact that
there is no analyst to whom we can go. [1987, p. 26]

Similar expressions were used the previous year in Rio de Janeiro:

Countertransference is a technical term, but as often happens the technical term gets worn away and turns into a kind
of worn out coin which has lost its value … The theory about a countertransference is that it is the transference
relationship which the analyst has to the patient without knowing he has it …One cannot make use of one’s
countertransference in the consulting room; it is a contradiction in terms. To use the term in that way means that one
would have to invent a new term to do the work, which used to be done by the word “countertransference”. It is
one’s unconscious feelings about the patient, and since it is unconscious there is nothing we can do about it. [1990,
pp. 122, my italics)

And some time later while in São Paulo, when someone asked him about the analyst making use
of the countertransference to build the interpretation, Bion said:
I think it would be better to get another analyst, because the analytic interpretations which are stimulated by
countertransference have a good deal to with the analyst. If the analysand is lucky they may also have something to
do with the analysand. Sooner or later, an analysis which is based on the countertransference will come to disaster, or
at any rate failure, because all the interpretations will have little to do with the analysand and a great deal to do with
the analyst. In physical medicine this would become apparent fairly early if the surgeon operated on the strength of
countertransference and not on the strength of the anatomical and physiological findings. [ibid., p. 191]

He also refers to the danger of counter-acting, for instance in relation to malignant

murderous and sadistic hate devoid of insight that the patient might induce in the analyst.
According to him, the lack of insight, or resistance to using it by the patient, could provoke
similar feelings in the analyst, for instance: “damned-if-I’ll-give-an-interpretation” feeling.
“Why should I give him an interpretation without being given what I call ‘evidence’?” (1992, p.
301). He continues as if talking to himself:
 I feel a deep lethargy. I cannot see my way, and when I cannot see my way I feel no disposition to act as if 1 could,
or in a way that would give substance to a reassuring phantasy that I could. I do not know. Nor does anyone else. It is
absurdly simple really—unless one wants to complicate it. When there is nothing to do—don’t do it! [ibid., pp. 301-
302].

It is difficult not to question the conflict, not to say confusion, Bion presents to his readers,
when comparing all these remarks about countertransference, with his description of what an
act of faith or becoming O consists of. One could ask the following question: Is there any
sufficiently analysed analyst free from countertransfer-ence feelings, in the sense expressed by
Bion, who therefore knows that when he makes an interpretation in a “state of hallucinosis”, is
“enlightened by O” or makes use of an “act of faith”, he is not dealing with his own
countertransference? It is possible that Bion might have discriminated between a “pathological”
component, corresponding to “countertransference proper”, and a “normal” one related to O and
to the act of faith. Although conceptually different, such statements might be related to the
demarcation made by Gitelson (1952), between the analyst’s reaction to the patient as a whole
(or the “analyst’s transference”), and the reaction to partial aspects of the patient (or the
“analyst’s countertransference”); a delineation widened by Racker (1953) when he
differentiated between “concordant” and “complementary” forms of counter-transference.

Crossroads: Bion uses this word to designate the crossing of the roads in Thebes where
Oedipus slays his father. It represents action or column 6 of the Grid. The problem, says Bion,
would be to know
… what impulses must dominate when thought is translated into action, or from meditation into decision, or from
one state of mind into another … This struggle may be regarded indifferently as tak-ing place within the psyche,
outside it, or tangentially … [1965, pp. 95-96]

Bion relates the “crossroads” to the paradigmatic emotion in all transformations;

emotion in the sense of the violence implicit in the Oedipal murder, be it real or fantasy, which
he symbolizes also as the penis’ transformation from child to adult, represented as the “no-
penis.” See: Conjugate complex.

Cs: see: Conscious awareness.

Cure, the: Psychotic patients might use mechanisms of splitting, evacuation of the sense
organs and hallucinations as the expression of “an ambition to be cured”, a condition that will
make these symptoms appear as creative activities (1967, p. 68). The “curing process” in these
patients can be seriously affected by “secondary splitting”, that is, by the repression of
defences just when the depressive position has been initiated during analytical treatment
ending up in a regression to a paranoid-schizoid massive splitting. Dreams can be useful tools
as reliable indicators of progress, in the same way they are in the analysis of non-psychotics, for
instance when images of “total objects” come into view (ibid., p. 80). A change to the
depressive position could be rather traumatic and often induces regression or secondary
splitting, with all the danger that this implies, including suicide or the impossibility of recovery
(ibid., pp. 80-81).
 Note
12 In the text “hypochandriachal” is written several times instead of “hypochondriacal”.
13 See figure in Complex conjugate.
14I have referred to a similar aspect by the name of “schizoid secret”, using as a paradigm
the narrative of “Eleusian mysteries” (Lopez-Corvo, 1990, 1994).
D

Dba: see: Dependent (group) basic assumption.

Deductive axiomatic system: see: Scientific deductive system.

Definitory hypothesis: Name used by Bion to designate column 1 of the Grid. It represents the
potentiality of all distinctions as yet undeveloped, like a group or a conjunction needing to be
bound by a name. It always presupposes a negative element because if we assume that
something is, in some ways we are also assuming that it might not be, in another way; if we say
this dictionary is about Bion we are implying that it is not about somebody else (1970, p. 24).
We could imply that something is in the same manner we could imply that it is not, a condition
that will allow an opening or the possibility to infer one or the other. For instance, if a person is
capable of tolerating frustration, there is no reason for that person not to assume the possibility
that something is, an attitude that will allow for it to become an unsaturated pre-conception
open for saturation. But if on the contrary frustration intolerance is “excessive”, then the
individual may react against that “something” to deny and destroy its existence. A model could
be the baby unable to tolerate weaning because being restricted by the loss of the breast, it
cannot accept what is left of that loss. If the patient does not tolerate the definitory hypothesis,
the pre-conception cannot be reached, something that could correspond in the Grid to D4 (1970,
p. 16).
Bion has also used an ironic publication of Bishop George Berkeley about Newton’s
differential calculus, to emphasize this aspect of the negative element in the definitory
hypothesis, using the Bishop’s expression of “ghosts of departed quantities” (1965, pp. 157-
158).
A word, like “daddy”, could represent a group of facts that remain together within the
word, in constant conjunction. Therefore, daddy could stand for a definitory hypothesis
because of the group of situations that implicitly is holding together. From a mathematical point
of view, says Bion, “one” (1) being the negation of the group, could be equivalent to a negative
hypothesis, to a void of hypotheses; or the other way around: “the negative quality of the
definitory hypothesis is a denial of the group” (1965, p. 150). Bion invented the concept of
psychic turbulence to describe a state of expectancy and relinquishment, equivalent to column
1 of the Grid.
Ferreira (2000) suggested that what Bion said about definitory hypothesis implicitly
carries the existence of three subdivisions: (a) the definition of the concept; (b) the negative
aspect of that definition; and (c) the annihilation of the definitory hypothesis. (p. 186) See:
Grid, horizontal axis. “Ghosts of departed quantities”, Psychological turbulence.

Déjà vu: Short-lived experience concerning a reduplication of memory. Bion tries to explain it
using what he calls “fundamental rules in the use of dreams” or myths: (1) all dreams have
only one interpretation and only one; in other words, the representations or alphα-elements
that support dreams or myths, follow an order according to a particular constant conjunction;
(2) every dream has a corresponding realization representing (like the realization of a wish) a
purpose, which is usually so insignificant or so uncommon that it never takes place, but on some
occasions, when the resemblance between the content of a dream and a conscious purpose is so
alike, the person has the impression that what has been dreamt has been fulfilled; a mechanism
observed in the phenomenon known as déjà vu. Bion also said that alphα-function has two
meanings: one will be to store up a narrative in the form of memories corresponding to a real
experience that could be used to build a dream, and another one, experienced in dreams as well
as when awake, corresponding to a déjà vu. [1992, p. 230)

Delusion: Represents the mechanism used by psychotic patients to interact with their bizarre
objects; that is, the way in which they are “contained” by them, or they “contain” them (1967,
p. 82). Delusions are usually associated with pre-conceptions in search of conceptions,
because of their mating with realizations that do not approximate to pre-conceptions closely
enough as to saturate them, but do approximate closely enough to give rise to a conception or a
mis-conception. Normally, “the pre-conception requires saturation by a realization”, says Bion,
“that is not an evacuation of the senses but has an existence independent of the personality”
(1965, p. 137). In other words, reality should be sensed as it is by its primary qualities, and
should not be confused with projections or evacuation of the senses.

Denude: Bion used it to signify impoverishment of the personality associated with hostile and
destructive impulses such as envy. He differentiates it from “negative growth” which is more
related to attacks on reality or on knowledge (-K).

Dependent basic assumption (baD): The basic assumption of this group culture stands for
the ambivalence experienced between the need to create a leader on whom to depend, and at the
same time the feeling that he cannot be trusted. The need to establish an individual relationship
with the leader prevails, because he is felt to be the only one able to cure or to provide
solutions. The model is similar to the doctor-patient or the teacher-pupil relationship. The
leader could be any member of the group that might be willing, and at other moments, the
history of the group is considered as the “bible”. The power placed on the leader is felt to come
from magic and not from science. Frequently, silence is used to try to deprive the therapist, the
“scientist”, from the material he might have required for his “investigation”, in order to
maintain the illusion of the magician. Some members consider the group to be a religious sect;
also, the greed of the group might contrast with the individual’s needs (1948a, pp. 74 and 78).
Feelings of guilt because of greed and depression predominate (ibid., p. 166).
 Bion refers also to a variant or dual of baD, representing some kind of reversible
perspective, where a group dominated by baD defends itself from the therapist’s attitude of not
taking responsibility for the group, by doing exactly the inverse, that is, they protect and nourish
the therapist who refuses to look after them (ibid., pp. 119-121). Another important aspect is the
tendency of this type of group, if allowed to evolve spontaneously, to choose the sickest
member as a leader, something frequently observed in many countries or in religious sects
(ibid., pp. 121-122). See: Basic assumptions (ba), Pairing ba (Pba), Flight-fight ba (Fba),
Oscillation of baD and Group, Group culture.

Depression: Bion says little about clinical depression: “Depression represents the place where
the breast or any other lost object was”, while the “space is where depression or any other
emotion was” (1970, p. 10).

Depressive position (D)-paranoid-schizoid position: see Depressive position.

Desire: It is the product of an unsatisfied or non-saturated idea, related to the future just as
memory is to the past, although both are linked with past sense experiences (1970, p. 45). Bion
explains that the concept of wish he is interested in, does not refer to simple reminiscences or
anticipations, but is related to experiences acquired through sense impressions, which are
already formulated and represent evocations of feelings that contain pleasure or pain, belong to
category 2 of the Grid and are used for transformations of O into K. For instance, like the
wish to cure the patient or the need to remember theories that will interfere with the access to
an act of faith representing the ultimate reality, the unknowable truth or O (ibid., p. 30). If the
psychoanalyst does not free himself from memory and desire, he faces the risk of inducing in
the patient the fantasy of being prisoner inside the analyst’s wish (ibid., pp. 43–43). This is
something often observed in “false-self” pathology. Bion confesses:
For example, I think it a serious defect to allow oneself to desire the end of a session, or week, or term; it interferes
with analytic work to permit desires for the patient’s cure, or well-being, or future to enter the mind. Such desires
erode the analyst’s power to analyse and lead to progressive deterioration of his intuition. [ibid, p. 56]

Disclosure Model: Concept used once by Bion in 1965 when he made written comments to re-
evaluate previous papers, published again in 1967 under the heading of Second Thoughts (1967,
p. 154). “Disclosure model” was a concept coined by archbishop of Canterbury Ian T. Ramsey
to describe abstract models used to cross meanings from one kind of observation with another
one. Some of the examples he used were the discoveries of such things as “a circle also being a
polygon with an infinite number of sides”, or in relation to what is involved or to the kind of
commitment implicit in a disclosure such as a surgeon finding a friend on the operating table, or
even more, finding his wife. It would be like invoking an insight, a disclosure of meaning or the
existence of givenness of something not appreciated previously. A certain relationship between
this concept and the selected fact, can be evoked. See: Cs.

Dismantling: Term used by Meltzer to describe a special form of defence observed in autistic
and obsessive patients, which he differentiates from mechanisms of splitting, where aggressive
impulses are used for the purpose of destroying linking. A process of dismantling is
characterized by an immediate and transitory suspension of mental activity, overall the
attention. It takes place in a rather more passive than active way, like a wall that crumbles
away slowly through the force of time, weather, fungi, and so on, but which could restore itself
suddenly; similar to those little toys that remain upright by the tension of a thread that secures
the pieces of wood together, but could tumble down if pressure is applied underneath the base
and would recover its posture again once the pressure was released. Because aggression is
absent, persecutory anxiety is also insignificant. A good example can be observed in the
incapacity of autistic or obsessive patients to distinguish a person from an inanimate object as a
consequence of dismantling or suspension of attention, which allows them to denude
individuals from their living presence or to reduce them to a simple non-existence. There is a
quote from Bion in relation to psychotic patients, in which autism is not mentioned, that shows
great resemblance to what is said by Meltzer, but since Bion wrote it in a note dated 1960,
nineteen years before Meltzer published his investigation on autism, it is worth reading it.
Evacuation of emotion, evidenced by the absence of all connections that are emotions, leads to disintegration of the
patient because that which holds the objects together is no longer available. This differs from splitting in that it is a
passive falling apart of the ob ects. [1992, p. 161]

The absence of violence referred to by Meltzer in this kind of defence, seems more
obvious in autistic rather than obsessive patients, in whom passive aggressive mechanisms are
present. Dismantling is more often observed in Anglo-Saxon than in Latin cultures.

Displacement: Bion refers to displacement in time, from past events to some other situation in
the immediate present, like the one observed for instance, in the transference. He says:
What seems to have happened is that the immediate cause is suppressed, perhaps before it has become clear to the
patient that he has [not]15 been stimulated at all [that nothing has happened]. And at once the old “memory” is
substituted for the awareness of the current event. The subject of the early story becomes the main character, after the
patient, in the current day-dream, which has been drawn across to shut out the thinking proper to the immediate
reality situation. Is not this account sumcientr [1992, p. 137]

Another explanation provided by Bion is related to mechanism of projective identification, for

instance, when a present event is projected on to someone in the past, presently absent in time
and space. At the end he asks:
In short, is it not possible that the mechanisms that Freud describes as peculiar to dream-work are in reality found to
be operating over a wide area of the psyche and in a great number of different functional fields? [ibid., pp. 137-138]

Disposition: Any given mental state or attitude, present in any individual as a consequence of a
series of internal and external circumstances that would compel that person towards that
particular way or disposition.
A man may be disposed to envy, or to violence of emotion, or to regard truth or life highly, or to be intolerant of
frustration. Whatever it is that causes him to be so disposed, I shall call his state of mind at the time he is so
disposed, his “disposition”. [1992, p. 262]

Dissociation: Bion used this term to describe fragmentation in less disturbed pathologies such
as neurosis (hysteria), different from splitting used to illustrate minute fragmentation as
observed in more severe pathologies like psychosis or in the psychotic part of the personality.
Dissociation will depend on primary verbal thoughts that could be used, as Freud expressed it,
by the body and the organs as a form of language.

Distance: Bion used the term to describe something unknown, to see coming, like the ghosts of
a departed quantity , or the distance that there once was but is no longer there. He represents it
by the following formula: Distance = Ψ (ξ), where (ξ)= a non-existing quantity, or where the
quantity used to be or will be, but never where it is presently, like an unsaturated element, “an
evanescent increment or departed quantity”. He associates distance with transformation in O,
for instance, the distance (ξ) that could exist between O and Tβ, or in other words, the time it
will take the analyst to know (K) what the patient is saying, to be illuminated by insight, or for
O to take place; and the time it will take before the next O takes place in the mind of the patient
or the analyst. He distinguishes between one direction from the position of “not-knowing” (K),
or “not-becoming” (O), to the position of “knowing” or “becoming”; and the opposite direction:
from “knowing” or “becoming” to “not-knowing” or “not-becoming” (O or K), and so on:
Transformations in K may be described loosely as akin to “knowing about” something whereas Transformations
in O are related to becoming or being O or to being “become” by O. The “distance” (ξ) between O and Tβ may be
artificially described in a series of stages.

Assuming a direction O→ T(β), O can be said to “evolve” by (a) becoming manifest (or
“knowable”) TβK→ (b) by becoming a “reminder”, an “incarnation” ..→(c) by becoming TpO
or “at-one-ment”. Assuming the reverse direction Tβ→O [1965, p. 163, my italics).

See: Hyperbole.

Donne, John: British poet (1572-1631), quoted by Bion from a short strophe of his poem “The
Second Anniversary. By the occasion of the religious death of Mistress Elisabeth Drury”:
Her -pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought,
That one might almost say, her body thought.

See: Betα-element.

Dream furniture: Constitutes an ambience structured by “things” similar to bizarre objects,

which according to Bion represents the world of psychotic patients. Would be composed by a
diffusion of sensuous particles, ideas or words, which being projected inside some external
objects, will encyst them, either containing or being contained by them and will provide them as
well with the characteristics of the projected part. For instance, if what has been projected is
“sight” or “hearing”, the object in question would be experienced as looking at or listening to
the person. These objects represent the furniture that normally would form dreams, but with
psychotic patients, however, it will be part of their everyday life.

Dreams: Considered a category in the vertical axis of the Grid, together with dream thoughts
and myths, corresponding to row C. “They are”, says Bion, “private myths” (1963, p.92), and
represent an
… emotional experience …that is an attempt to fulfil the functions which are incompatible; it is in the domain of the
 reality principle and the pleasure principle, and represents an attempt to satisfy both. That is to say, it is an attempt
to achieve frustration evasion and frustration modification and fails in both (1992, p. 95)

Something related to Freud’s statement about dreams representing wish satisfaction, a concept
many psychoanalysts disagree with and Bion considers rather irrelevant. He also states that the
dream manifests contents corresponding to a “narrativized collection of visual images” or
alphα-elements organized following a constant conjunction (ibid., p. 233).
The “sense” of a dream he explains as follows:
One of the reasons why sleep is essential is to make possible, by a suspension of consciousness, the emotional
experiences that the personality would not permit itself to have during conscious waking life, and so to bring them
into reach of dream-work-a16 for conversion into α-elements and a narrative form, consecutive and dominated by a
causation-theoretical17 outlook, suitable for being worked on by conscious rational processes of thought. [ibid., p.
150]

Also:
… the core of the dream is not the manifest content, but the emotional experience; the sense data pertaining to this
emotional experience are worked on by α-function, so that they are transformed into material suitable for
unconscious waking thought, the dream-thoughts, and equally suitable for conscious submission to common sense.
[ibid. p. 233]

Bion is in agreement with Freud’s remark that dreams are guardians of sleep, but he
differs from him on the role given to “dream-work”, in that it is able to discriminate between
sleeping and waking activities:
But Freud meant by dream-work that unconscious material, which would otherwise be perfectly comprehensible,
was transformed into a dream, and that the dream-work needed to be undone to make the now incomprehensible
dream comprehensible. [ibid., p. 43]

Bion thinks that it is the conscious and not the unconscious material, which is subject to dream-
work, that makes it more satisfactory for storage and more suitable to be used in the
transformation of the

paranoid-schizoid into the depressive position: “Freud says Aristotle states that a dream is the
way the mind works in sleep: I say it is the way it works when awake” (ibid.). Bion insists that
the dependence of waking life on dreams has been overlooked, for dreaming is indispensable
for the storage of sense impressions acquired when awake that will then become the “contents
of memory” (ibid., p. 47).
Alphα-function, states Bion—previously known as “dream-work-a”(ibid., pp. 43–49)—is
necessary for the formation of dreams, which have a similar “censorship” and “resistance”
function in the creation of a barrier (“contact barrier"), necessary to keep the unconscious
from becoming conscious and to preserve the individual from a psychotic state: “the ability to
‘dream’ preserves the personality from what is virtually a psychotic state” (1962, p. 16). In this
theory, dreams create the basis for a structured thinking that allows alphα-function to create
alphα-elements.
In relation to psychotic patients, Bion compares their dreams with a hallucinatory process
where the bizarre behaviour in the consulting room can be used as associations to understand
the dream content, which is usually announced but never referred to, by this kind of patient
(1967, p. 78). Such lack of association represents the transference of a hallucinated breast “that
gives no milk” (1992, p. 141). Narrating a dream verbally would require a capacity to tolerate
temporality as well as causality (ibid., p. 1). Bion compares the difficulty in narrating a dream
with the phenomenon of “invisible-visible hallucinations”, affirming that it will take many
years of analysis for these patients really to report a dream, because very often what they might
be saying is that their apparatus of perception is compromised by trying to expel something.
In this case dreams would be a “nocturnal evacuatory process” of the mind trying to get rid of
any unpleasant thing the individual feels it has incorporated during the day, something similar
to the excretory function of the bowels. Bion also insists on the relevance of vision as a
mechanism of excretion, often used by psychotic patients to expel image-ideograms of some
dreams, analogous to the means used by visual hallucinations (ibid., pp. 66-67). Dream
thoughts could also represent the undigested aspect of some event, which after being dreamed
might appear as if it has been digested, a process that will allow learning from experience.
Dreams seem to work in a manner similar to the digestive apparatus, and to analyse them would
mean to examine the content of the ingested food. Different from Freud, Bion did not consider
dreams to be the satisfaction of repressed impulses, but as a process of digestion of the
individual’s particular truth, something absolutely essential for the growth of the mind, like
food is for the growth of the body. In this sense it could be said that dreaming represents a
mechanism by which conscious lies18 are made obvious and truth is revealed.
The presence of total objects in dreams can indicate a manifestation of mental growth, a
mechanism that should be considered because
The “peculiarity” of the dream to the psychotic is not its irrationality, incoherence, and fragmentation, but its
revelation of objects which are felt by the patient to be whole objects and therefore fit and proper reason for the
powerful feelings of guilt and depression which Melanie Klein has associated with the onset of the depressive
position. [1967, p. 80]

Bion proposes some fundamental rules about dreams and myths: (a) “All dreams have
only one interpretation and only one”, that is, all representations or alphα-elements that
organize a dream, follow an order according to a particular constant conjunction. (b) “Every
dream has a corresponding realization, which it therefore represents.” The realization would be
similar to the satisfaction of a wish, but it would be so rare that it will usually never take place,
with the exception of a few times when the dreamer has the illusion that the dream has come
true; a mechanism also described as déjà vu:
In a dream an act appears to have consequences; it has only sequences. What is needed is a spatial model to
represent a dream. [1992, p. 1]

(c) “… certain factual experiences will never be understood by the patient, and therefore will
never be experiences from which he can learn, unless he can interpret them in the light of his
dream or the myth …” (1992, pp. 230-231). See: Insanity, realization of, Evacuation, Dream
work, Dreams furniture, déjà vu, Meaningful dreams.

Dream-thought: Bion uses this concept in the same manner Freud did. In a footnote written in
1925, Freud said:
At bottom, dreams are nothing other than a particular form of thinking, made possible by the conditions of the state
 of sleep …The fact that dreams concern themselves with attempts at solving the problems by which our mental life is
faced is no more strange than that our conscious waking life should do so. [1900, pp. 506n-507n]

And in another footnote, from 1914:

Thus the dream’s function of “thinking ahead” is rather a function of preconscious waking thought, the products …
phenomena. It has long been the habit to regard dreams as identical with their manifest content; but we must now
beware equally of the mistake of confusing dreams with latent dream-thoughts. [ibid., p. 580n]

Dream-thoughts, disinvested from idiomatic expressions, are visual metaphors presented as

symbolic representations of disturbances presented during dream-work. They are usually made
of condensations, displacements, and fragmented childhood memories, usually of a visual
kind. The concrete content of dream-thoughts is gathered and elaborated during the mechanism
of regression during the dream-work, leaving the analytical work to reconstruct the links that
were destroyed during the dream-work.

Dream-work (a): The name “dream-work-a” was used by Bion originally to describe a
combination of Freud’s concept on “dream-work” proper, and what later became Bion’s
“theory of functions”, including α-function as well as reverie capacity, and alpha and beta
elements. Although Bion agrees with Freud about the relevance of dreams in preserving
sleeping in that they discriminate between sleeping and waking activities, he disagrees with him
on the role of dream-work:
But Freud meant by dream-work that unconscious material, which would otherwise be perfectly comprehensible,
was transformed into a dream, and that the dream-work needed to be undone to make the now incomprehensible
dream comprehensible. [1992, p. 43]

The main difference with Freud’s concept of dream-work hinges on Bion’s notion that it was
conscious, not unconscious material—as Freud had stated—that was subject to dream-work.
The conscious material is stored as memory and later used to create dreams as well as to make
transformations from the paranoid-schizoid to the depressive position. “Freud says Aristotle
states that a dream is the way the mind works in sleep: I say it is the way it works when awake.”
(ibid., pp. 43, 47)
Originally Bion referred to “dream-work-a”19 but later on he changed it to merely “a” in
order to avoid confusion with Freud’s original idea (ibid., p. 73); however, he continued using it
in the same manner even after making such a remark. The term “α-function” was used for the
first time in Cogitations, in a note possibly dated at the end of the sixties, which allowed Bion
finally to discriminate between dream-work proper and α-function. To construct this concept
Bion used Freud’s “Interpretation of Dreams” (1900) and “Formulations on the Two Principles
of Mental Functioning” (1911), as well as Klein’s notion of guilt, superego and paranoid-
schizoid and depressive positions. Before he distinguished this function from dream-work, he
stated that a series of steps were essential for this function to operate: (a) to pay attention to
sensuous impressions; (b) to store these impressions in the memory; (c) to change them into
“ideograms"; and (d) depending on which principle dominated the mind, either to store them
and to remember them if reality principle dominated, or to expel them under the ruling of the
pleasure principle.
See: Alphα-function, Alphα-elements, Betα-elements, Dreams, Dream-thoughts.

Dream-work-a: see: Alphα-function and Dream-work.

Dual: see: Reversible perspective.

Dual of Dependence group, the: see: Dependent basic assumption (baD)

Dynamic links: Changes between categories A and H of the vertical axis of the Grid, could be
of two kinds: mechanics and dynamics. Mechanical links correspond to the structure 2 c?,
where a pre-conception (row D), for instance, is contained in a conception (row E), and this one
in turn is contained in a concept (row F), and so forth. Dynamic links on the other hand, are
reached by means of H, L and K elements. The benignity of the operation 2 c? will depend on
the nature of the dynamic link; the degree of persecutory anxiety, for instance, will be related to
the interaction between the envious attacks (H) and the love relationship (L) directed towards
the breast (1963, p. 34) See: Link.

Note
15In the original, the negative particle “not”, was omitted, however since it seems not to
make sense without it, it has been considered a mistake.
16 Afterwards Bion changes “dream work-a” to “α-function”.
17 See Causality, theory of.
18 Latin had provided the same basic root to mind (mentis) as well as to lying (mentior),
perhaps meaning that ‘the mind lies’.
19 A month after suggesting the name of “dream-work-a” Bion changed it to just “a”, in
order to avoid confusion with Freud’s original concept of “dream-work”, although he felt it
was too abstract.
E

Eckhart, Meister: see: Meister Eckhart.

Emotional links: Among all the possible emotional links (envy, gratitude, depression, sex,
guilt, etc) that relate the self to itself and to other persons, Bion has chosen three: love (L), Hate
(H) and knowledge (K). Such a selection, says Bléandonu (1994),
… of L, H and K is motivated not by the need to represent the totality of emotional facts of the session but by the
need for a key which, like a musical key, can give the value of the other elements which combine to create a
statement. [p. 161]

These links signify relationships between animated objects and are considered by Bion
as hypotheses+ or psychoanalytical elements that portray constant conjunctions and contain
all the other emotions (1963, pp. 249-250; 262-270). Each link represents whatever it is that it
should represent, although there are situations in psychotic patients or the psychotic part of the
personality, where the word is no longer the representation of a thing, but the thing in itself or,
following Segal (1957), a symbolic equation.
Links perform like hypotheses expressing a constant conjunction between feelings related
or not to the senses: (a) “those represented by terms that are succinct hypotheses of constant
conjunction of certain sense impressions”, for instance to say “I hate the sea”, the sea is
perceived by the senses; (b) those represented by terms that are succinct hypotheses of the
constant conjunction of impressions not related to the senses—for example, “I hate
depression”, depression does not have taste or odour (1992, pp. 266-267).
In cases of a wrong representation the K link might correspond to -K (minus K),
analogous to − H or L, although − L is not the same as H or vice versa. Different from physical
things, psychic qualities have no sensual information; anxiety for instance, has no smell or
taste. In this sense, Bion suggested that hypochondria might represent an attempt to establish a
link with a psychic quality, when substituting physical sensations with sense information that
are absent in psychic quality. Communicating with patients presents similar limitations: how do
we know what patients are talking about if their anxiety has no physical qualities? The only
reference we can depend on in these cases is our own, because there is no odour or taste to
compare them with.
L and H may very well represent the classical notion of life and death instincts, whereas
K could represent the epistemophilic instinct introduced by Klein. See: L, H, K, -K (Minus K),
-L (Minus L), Catastrophic change.
Emotions: Bion represents them as Love (L), Hate (H) and their corresponding negatives: -L, -
H; although − L is not equivalent to H, perhaps it could be more related to “indifference”. In
classical psychoanalysis they correspond to the concepts of sexual and aggressive drives.
Together with knowledge (K), Bion regards them as passions (1963, p. 4), as well as links that
unite persons, hypotheses or psychoanalytic elements.
Emotions deform the outline of ideation (I or K) (See: Grid), in a fashion similar to the
one observed when a reflection on the surface of a lake is distorted by the breeze, or any other
incident that produces a turbulence. Emotions represent complications that take place during
the progress of any process dominated by ideation, as can be observed during the
psychoanalytic process, which is eminently cognitive. However, during this process, emotions
could act as undesired but unavoidable complications, in both the analyst and patient, in the
form of transference and countertransference, that will induce true turbulence in the form of
a catastrophic change during the process of insight.
Bion questions whether the Grid can be used for situations different from K: “It is a part
of common experience that strong feelings of love and hate affect ability to discriminate and
learn” (1965, p. 70) The Grid, oriented towards knowledge similar to psychoanalysis, will be
disturbed like the surface of a lake, with the presence of emotions. In the horizontal axis a
feeling of love could correspond to category 1, as a definitory hypothesis (ibid.).
Using the notion of turbulence and catastrophic change, Meltzer (1986) has defined the
emotional experience as:
… an encounter with the beauty and mystery of the world which arouses conflict between L, H and K, and minus L,
H and K. While the immediate meaning is experienced as emotion, maybe as diverse as the objects of immediate
arousal, its significance is always ultimately concerned with intimate human relationships. [p. 26]

Empirical: An empirical preposition represents what can only be known with the help of sense
perceptions, by ours or those of some one we trust. Historical facts, the law or geographical
descriptions, for instance, belong to these categories. See: A priori.

Enforced splitting: Described by Bion as a form of splitting resulting from a disturbed

relationship with the breast, when the baby feels forced to choose between the need to suck in
order to survive, and the threat of envious attacks against the breast and fear of retaliation. The
dread of the destructive power of envy induces a splitting of the mind between psychical needs,
such as love, understanding, and solace, on one hand, and material needs on the other. This
splitting provokes a confusion between the need for affection and accumulation of material
things as a representation of β-elements. When the person lacks an α-function to help him
discriminate between inanimate and animate things, he then resorts to acquiring material
things, one β-element after the other, endlessly (1962, pp. 10-11). This form of behaviour can
be observed in the consulting room, in the interest some patients convey about material things,
such as the furniture, finding it difficult to conceive themselves as “alive” persons, as well as
other people who surround them. They usually come for consultation thinking of themselves as
a sort of machine that is not performing properly, although ignoring its mechanism and
expecting the analyst to know best, like a good “mechanic” who could fix any wrongdoing.
Envy: Bion’s conception of envy is very similar to Klein’s. In Cogitations (1992) he states that
envy plays a very important role in psychotic patient’s projections:
Envy contributes to the belief that external objects are the patient’s thought. Since he cannot admit dependence on an
external object, he claims (in order ultimately to escape feeling envy) that he is, like the breast that feeds itself, the
producer as well as the consumer of that on which he depends for this life. [1992, p. 120]

And some time latter:

Splitting of the breast enables the infant to take the milk without understanding its dependence on the breast and the
indulgence it extends to him. Such understanding involves hate and envy, and these impel attacks on the apparatus of
understanding20 to prevent the stimulation of envy—envy thus destroying envy. The attacks mean that in effect the
breast as a source of understanding, the mental breast, is felt to be destroyed since no apparatus to under-stand it
means no understanding of it, and so no it to understand. [ibid., p. 188]

At a given time he also alludes to mechanisms of “self-envy” (Lopez-Corvo, 1992, 1994); for
instance, when referring to the analysis of a patient in his article “Attacks on Linking” (1959),
he said:
This recurrent anxiety in his analysis was associated with his fear that envy and hatred of a capacity for
understanding was leading him to take in a good, understanding object to destroy and eject it— a procedure which
had often led to persecution by the destroyed and ejected object. [1967, p. 97]

And a bit further on, more explicitly:

I said that he felt so envious of himself and of me for being able to work together to make him feel better that he took
the pair of us into him as a dead piece of iron and a dead floor that came together not to give him life but to murder
him. [ibid.]

Bion considers the existence of a primary and essential form of envy, capable of
explaining the incapacity observed in psychotic patients to achieve satisfaction, even with the
use of hallucinations, a mechanism based on the omnipotence of being able to provide
anything, while in reality it provides nothing at all:
Apparently [patient] X can get nothing from analysis. In feeling it is a hallucination in which he cannot have either
love or hate, I am an object manipulated—like a masturbatory object—to obtain gratification but which yields none.
Why is this? Does it mean that envy is primary and precludes the possibility of any gratification, even hallucinatory
gratification? (1992, p. 112)

Establishment: Is defined by Bion as:

that body of persons in the State who may be expected usually to exercise power and responsibility by virtue of their
social position, wealth and intellectual and emotional endowment … I propose to borrow this term to denote
everything from the penumbra of associations generally evoked, to the predominating and ruling characteristics of an
individual, and the characteristics of a ruling caste in a group … Because of my choice of subject it will usually be
used for talking about the ruling “caste” in psycho-analytic institutes. [1970, p. 73]

He also differentiates between the group and the establishment: while the main purpose of the
former is to produce the mystic, the intention of the latter is to maintain the continuity of the
group. The establishment, in other words, represents the dominant basic assumption (ba) that
imposes itself on other basic assumptions, regardless of the group being social or therapeutic.
The advent of the genius, mystic or messiah is established, at least from a religious
vertex, on the separation and preservation of such separation, between god and men, by means
of mechanisms of idealization towards god and devaluation towards men. Bion describes the
relationship between the group and the mystic, as a kind of container-contained interaction
according to commensal, symbiotic or parasitic forms of associations. Paradigmatic of these
dynamics are the events that surrounded the lives of Jesus and Freud, who were well
appreciated while alive by their disciples as ordinary people, but were so idealized after death,
that any form of criticism was unsustainable and considered a sign of heresy (1970, pp. 76, 80-
81). Bion describes three progressive stages in the interaction between the group and the mystic:
(1) In the first stage there is not a real confrontation between god and men because there are no
differences among them. (2) During the second stage, there is a contrast between the infinitude
of god and the fini-tude of men. (3) In the third stage, some individuals, particularly mystics,
need to reaffirm a direct experience with god of which they have been, and still are, deprived by
the institutionalized group (ibid., p. 77).
The communication between the mystic and god takes place according to certain models;
for instance, in the case of Christianity it is achieved by means of a “light” or a “voice”. “It is
significant”, adds Bion, “that psychoanalysts seeking direct access to an aspect of O … conduct
their affairs through language”, but lacking certain sensuous support, such as memory, desire
or understanding (ibid., pp. 81-82). Followers of the mystic, who feel close to him, can
demonstrate their divine origin by means of an “inalienable element” which is part of the deity,
but resides within themselves and allows them to represent the establishment. The description of
these dynamics is very clear and easy to follow (see: 1965, Chapter 7). It can be interpreted as a
direct allusion to the hierarchy established within the IPA, many institutes and local
associations, as well as the psychoanalytic Congresses, something possibly experienced by Bion
in the British Psychoanalytical Society. See: O, Mystic, Commensal, Symbiotic, Parasitic.

Euclidian geometry: Euclid lived in Alexandria between 323 and 285 BC. Although some of
his contributions are still relevant in the field of mathematics, most of his postulates related to
geometry are considered inexact and have been abandoned since the nineteenth century His
work covers five axioms and five “commune notions” where he described the point, the line
and the circle, which Bion has used, together with other geometric schemes related to projective
transformations, spatially to represent myths, conflicts, symptoms, personality characteristics,
patient-analyst interaction, etc. He justifies the importance of such concepts on the basis that
geometry originally represented an abstraction from the realization of external space, and
could then find its realization again in the mental space whence it originated. This means that
geometry was initiated from practical needs, for instance having to measure the surface of a
portion of land, where calculation of a triangle’s surface was very useful. Afterwards,
mathematics became very abstract, losing the initial connection with the human needs that
originally gave them meaning (1963, pp. 88-89; 1992, pp. 203-204). “My suggestion”, says
Bion, “is that its intra-psychic origin is experience of ‘the space’ where a feeling, emotion, or
other mental experience was” (1965, p. 121) (see: mental space). Bion uses geometric elements
to represent biological realities such as emotions, no-emotions or anxieties of psychotic
intensity, for instance the point (.), the line (— ——), ←↑ ↓→, ←.— and ←.—↑. The last four
symbols represent backward movements through the axes of the Grid of the “line” meaning
“no-penis” or the “point”, meaning “no-breast”.
 Following Plutarch, Bion associates the Oedipus myth with a right-angled triangle, not
only because of the triangulation of the myth, but also because of the ancient Greek’s
description of the triangle as a “three-kneed-thing” and equal legs. Onians (1951)— who could
never be accused of supporting Freud’s theories on sexuality—argued that the knees were
frequently associated with the genitals in early Greek literature. “This has made me look”, says
Bion, “at Euclid’s Fifth Proposition in a new light. It also makes one inclined to attempt a
revaluation of the question traditionally attributed to the Sphinx” (1992, p. 202).
Bion introduces a distinction between geometric and mathematical elements, whereas
the former are primarily associated with presence or absence, existence or non-existence of the
object, the latter are related to the condition of the object itself: be it a whole, a fragmented, a
total or a partial object. Also, while a “geometric space” would be associated with depression
(absence-presence, separation), mathematical elements would be related to persecution and to
Klein’s paranoid-schizoid position (1965, p. 151).
Throughout a great part of his work, Bion insisted on the great advantages that the
substitution of mental abstractions for geometric elements would represent for psychoanalysis.
Describing what he called “the infinite universe of projection” in psychotic patients, he argues:
For the investigation of this mental state the patient cannot, but the analyst can, employ points, lines and space. The
geometer has used them for the investigation of three-dimensional space and, by the substitution of algebraic
geometry for the figurative geo-metry ot Euclid, has been able to extend his investigation to multidimensional space
and leave Euclidean space to be used for psychological preparation for the non-Euclidean geometries now available.
[1970, pp. 14-15]

Meltzer (1978), when comparing the book Transformations with Elements of Psycho-Analysis,
explains the difficulty the reader has to face when dealing with mathematical signs used by
Bion:
In the present work no such hope sustains us in the face of the pro-liferation of mathematics-like notations, pseudo-
equations, fol-lowed by arrows, dots, lines, arrows over (or should it be under r) words and not just Greek letters but
Greek words. How are we to bear such an assault on our mentality? [p. 71]

See: horizontal axis, vertical axis, Grid, Conscious awareness, mental space.

Evacuation, process of: Mechanism used by psychotic patients or by the psychotic part of the
personality, to expel split-off parts of the mental apparatus using different paths, in order to
inoculate external objects (see: bizarre objects). According to this, eyes, for instance, could
suck or eat, sight might be expelled through the anus or the skin and thrown away in a corner of
the room, words could be seen, as could odours or other sensations (see: hallucinations,
delusions). The process of evacuation could represent a mechanism to free the person from bad
objects, as was originally explained by Klein. In this sense, satisfaction of a need could be
equivalent to evacuation of that need. For Bion, these objects capable of being evacuated
correspond to β-elements (1962, p. 59). See: Projective identification, Maternal reverie,
Betα-elements.

Evolution: Bion distinguishes between evolution and memory. He defines the former as those
experiences where some kind of idea or pictorial impression, based on experiences that do not
have a sense impression but could be expressed in terms derived from sense impressions, can
suddenly and unexpectedly take place or “float” in the mind; for instance to say: “I see”,
meaning that I intuit through a visual image. Memory, on the other hand, implies a “conscious
attempt to remember something”. What Bion attempts to say is that while listening to the
patient’s discourse, instead of remembering or wishing something, the analyst should wait with
the mind open like a white sheet of paper, completely unsaturated until something “evolves” by
itself and suddenly and unexpectedly floats. See: memory, desire, psychoanalytic listening, O,
Act of faith, K.

Excessive projective identification: Expanding Klein’s statement on “excessive projective

identification”, Bion in 1962 added: “I think that the term ‘excessive’ should be understood to
apply not to the frequency only with which projective identification is employed but to excess
of belief in omnipotence” (1967, p. 114). Meaning that “excessive” should be defined not only
in relation to the quantitative but also to the qualitative aspects of the concept, to the power of
omnipotence carried by the process and experienced by the receptor. Two years previously, in a
note dated August 1960, Bion said that “excessive projective identification” could also refer to
the ‘exclusion’ of other methods (function?) such as “dream-work-a”, a term he later changed
to α-elements. It could be questioned, however, why he did not consider the exclusive use of β-
elements in projective identification, as “excessive” too? Although he had defined these
elements previously he did not mention them again at this time. See: dream-work-a,
evacuation, betα-elements.
20 It is quite possible that the “apparatus of understanding” represented at this time what
later on he named “apparatus for thinking thoughts”.
F

Factor: Word of Latin origin meaning “the one who makes”, “the author”. In arithmetic it
signifies each of the numbers gathered to obtain a product. From a wider conception, it
represents each of the elements that contribute to an end result or function of those elements.
The analysis of these factors, known as “factor analysis”, represents a method of assessment of
the interaction between variables in a table of correlations. From this point of view, Bion’s
Grid stands for a factor analysis of a correlation between thought evolution, represented by the
“genetic” or vertical axis on one hand, and those functions of the mind that make use of that
evolution, also referred to as “uses” or the horizontal axis, on the other. Bion presupposes the
existence of factors in the personality able to combine to produce stable entities that he refers to
as “functions of the personality” (1962, pp. 1-2) He states:
“Function” is the name for the mental activity proper to a number of factors operating in consort. “Factor” is the
name for a mental activity operating in consort with other mental activities to constitute a function. Factors are
deducible from observation of the functions of which they, in consort with each other, are a part …Factors are
deduced not directly but by observation of functions (ibid.)

For instance, in Bion’s “psychoanalytic theory of functions”, represented by *P (Q, t, represents

a factor, or unsaturated element, or preconception, in search of a realization to build a
concept.

Facts: External things about which we can do nothing and in consequence are not material for
analysis, such as physical appearance, financial situation, etc. (1987, p. 143).

Facts not digested or dreamt: Name initially used by Bion to call β-elements. The initial
development of these ideas as well as the concept of function and α-elements (the latter
identified as “dream-work a), can be read in Cogitations pp. 6-8, in a note dated August 10th,
1959. See: Betα-elements, Evacuation, process of, Projective identification, Psychotic and
non psychotic part of the personality.

Falsehood: Different from the truth, falseness requires a thinker or a thought inside a content
(1970, p. 117). A genuine example of O based on falsehood and lies could never exist, because
O represents the absolute truth of any object (ibid., pp. 30, 117) See: lie, O, Truth, Wild
thoughts.
Fascination: Although Bion does not elaborate further, he relates fascination to “repetition
compulsion”, referring to the masochistic need of a patient to search compulsively for
punishment as a way out from guilt. He said: “the more profitable the more guilty and the more
likely to be “fascinated”—being fascinated meaning what we would call repetition compulsion”
(1974a, p. 98).

Fba: see: Fight-flight (group) basic assumption

“Felt need": A concept Bion once described in relation to “resistance”. It represents a

countertransference resistance experienced as a need or wish to act something out. Bion
illustrated its meaning in relation to dream interpretation, stating that resistance in dream-
work is a compound of two elements:
resistance, as described by Freud; and a felt need to convert the conscious rational experience into dream, rather
than a felt need to convert the dream into conscious rational experience. The “felt need” is very important; if it is not
given due significance and weight, the true dis-ease of the patient is being neglected; it is obscured by the analyst’s
insistence on interpretation of the dream. [1992, p. 184]

See: Resistance

Fetishism: Bion introduces the idea that fetishism might depend on the form that guilt,
resulting from the feeling of attacking and destroying some objects, can be expiated by
attempting unsuccessfully to revive these objects with magic. He explains it in the following
manner: the baby dominated by the pleasure principle, would be surrounded by gratifying and
alive proto-objects, while those objects that frustrate would be “non-existent”. If intolerance to
frustration increases, either because the level of tolerance decreases or aggression from the
surrounding objects increases, or both, the need to be free from displeasure forces the baby to
attack the mental apparatus responsible for the transformation of sensuous impressions into
material suitable for dream thoughts, a condition that will have as a consequence that thoughts,
not having an apparatus to process them (think them), would change into “things” (or β-
elements). An excess of these “dead proto-objects”, plus the need to placate them, induces
idealization and future transformation into objects of adoration, providing them with super-
human attributes precisely because they are dead.
Contrary to common observation, the essential feature of the adored or worshipped object is that it should be dead so
that crime may be expiated by the patient’s dutiful adherence to animation of what is known to be inanimate and
impossible to animate. This attitude contributes to the complex of feelings associated with fetishism. [1992, p. 134]

In other words, crime will be paid for by the useless dependency on those objects that by being
inanimate (dead) are believed (invent them) to be animate, but because of this, they are not
capable of providing anything, for instance believing that a simple statue is capable of making
miracles. Fetishism as well as all religious beliefs can be explained in this manner. See:
Animate-inanimate, difference between, Magic, Thinking apparatus for, Proto-real
objects.

Flight and fight basic assumption: The basic assumption of this group culture stands for the
need either to fight or fly from something, regardless of what might be involved; for instance
the army. The group requires and searches for a leader capable of fulfilling the need either to
fight or fly; usually individuals with paranoid traits who defend themselves from internal
persecution by projecting the “enemy” outside (1948b, p. 73).
Feelings of anger and fear predominate (ibid., p. 166), although Bion states that in this ba,
panic, as well as the uncontainable need to escape, is in reality the same. “Panic” said Bion,
“does not arise in any situation unless it is one that might as easily have given rise to rage”
(ibid., p. 179), that together with fear does not offer a readily available outlet:
… frustration, which is thus inescapable, cannot be tolerated because frustration requires awareness of the passage
of time, and time is not a dimension of basic-assumption phenomena. Flight offers an immediately available
opportunity for expression of the emotion in the fight-flight group and therefore meets the demand tor instantaneous
satisfaction—therefore the group will fly. Alternatively, attack offers a similarly immediate outlet—then the group
will fight. [ibid., pp. 179-180]

The group will then follow any leader capable of facilitating either immediate flight or fight.
See: Basic assumptions, Dependent basic assumption, Pairing basic assumption, Groups,
Valence.

Forms, theory of; or Platonic forms: The word “form” (ijiopcfxa) has been used to translate
Plato’s concept of “Idea” (iSea), a Greek word akin to concepts such as “look at”, and extended
to words like “sort”, “kind” or “type”, similar to the Latin word species, but different from the
English notion of idea. What is called Plato’s “theories of Forms” refers to the existence of a
type or sort of “something” that exists independently whether or not something of that kind
exists. For instance, the idea of a book does not have a sensory form, however it is a possibility
present in any book, but only one book in particular, for example book X could change into a
“phenomenon” and become recognizable by the senses as book X, that will represent a
realization. Bion uses this notion to explain the transformation of O into K, or from
noumenon to phenomenon, by means of a realization. In a similar way, O could be conjured up
by the senses as a possibility within an individual, but could only be formulated once it is
touched by a special event, a realization.
Bion states:
As I understand the term, various phenomena, such as the appearance of a beautiful object, are significant not
because they are beautiful or good but because they serve to “remind” the beholder of the beauty or the good which
was once, but no longer is, known. This object, of which the phenomenon serves as a reminder, is a form. [1965, p.
138]

Bion declares that Plato presaged the pre-conception as well as Klein’s notions of the “internal
object” and his own concept of “inborn anticipations.”
Platonic Ideas and Forms are “noumena”, and phenomena are things that present
themselves to the senses. Kant refers to “phenomena” as everything that appears in our
perception and has two aspects: (a) what belongs to the external object that he refers to as
sensation ; (b) what belongs to our apparatus of perception and is capable of ordering what is
perceived, something he refers to as the “form”. Noumena, on the other hand, are objects of
which we have no sensible intuition and hence no knowledge at all, they are things-in-
themselves, and in a positive sense, could be conceived of as objects of intellectual intuition, a
mode of knowledge that man does not possess. The form, says Bion, could also be presented in
mystical terms like God in the Godhead, considered as a “spiritual substance, so elemental that
we can say nothing about it” (1965, p. 139). “In this view”, continues Bion, “God is regarded as
a Person independent of the human mind … The phenomenon does not ‘remind’ the individual
of the Form but enables the person to achieve union with an incarnation of the Godhead, or the
thing-in-itself.” Forms and Incarnation give the
… suggestion that there is an ultimate reality with which it is possible to have direct contact although in both it
appears that each direct contact is possible only after submission to an exacting discipline of relationships with
phenomena, in one configuration, and incarnate Godhead in the other. [ibid.]

Bion presents a similar mechanism in relation to the concept of O. See: Godhead,

Phenomenon, O, Meister Eckhart, Noumenon, thing-in-itself.

Fraunhofer, lines of: Joseph von Fraunhofer was a German physicist who, in the nineteenth
century, classified dark lines of absorption in the solar spectrum, a condition previously
discovered by William Wollaston. The absorption bands represent different wavelengths of
elements present in the atmosphere of any planet capable of reflecting light.
Bion uses the Fraunhofer lines as a “rudimentary” metaphor, where the dark bands
represent interferences or turbulences in the mind, contrasting with transparent bands
indicating areas of communication or at-one-ment with the other. Memory, desire and
understanding can be equated with opaque bands interfering with the analyst’s intuition (1992,
pp. 315-316).

Frustration, tolerance or intolerance of: When any wish conceived as a pre-conception,

meets with the realization of an absent breast, depending on either genetic or acquired
potentials, there are three possibilities: (a) Frustration is tolerated and the “absence” is changed
into thoughts that modify frustration making it more tolerable. At the same time, the
conception mating with a realization, be it negative (no-breast), or positive (good-breast), will
make it possible to learn from experience. (b) If frustration imposed by reality is not tolerated,
the mind attempts to evade as well as to dispose of the bad experiences represented by bad
internal objects, by means of massive projective identifications. Frustration intolerance could
block the development of thoughts and the capacity to think. (c) An intermediary position
related to omnipotence and omniscience. Bion said:
If intolerance of frustration is not so great as to activate the mecha-nisms of evasion and yet is too great to bear
dominance of the real-ity principle, the personality develops omnipotence as a substitute for the mating of the pre-
conception, or conception, with the negative realization. [1967, p. 114]

Such omnipotence involves omniscience as a substitute for learning from experience, making
discrimination between true and false a rather dictatorial and arbitrary decision based on what
is believed to be morally right or wrong; as can often be seen in many fanatical individuals.
Omniscience can also be responsible for a lack of preoccupation for life, for it makes
individuals incapable of discriminating between animate and inanimate objects, humans and
machines, in relation to others and to themselves, in relation to murderous or suicidal impulses
(1992, p. 248).

Functions, theory of: From Latin functio meaning “to perform”. “Theory of function” is
employed in several fields such as biology, psychology or mathematics, with different
connotations. In psychoanalytic practice, the use of functions allows the construction of
transitory models, similar to Bion’s invention of the concept of “a-function”, useful for
describing some clinical observations without having to create new theories to the detriment of
those already existent. Function and factor are mathematical terms used by Bion in his attempt
to make psychoanalysis an empirical verifiable theory. Bion presupposes the existence of
factors in the personality able to combine to produce stable entities he refers to as “functions of
the personality” (1962, pp. 1-2); although a function could be considered a factor of another
function of higher hierarchy or greater degree of sophistication. Bion’s “psychoanalytic theory
of functions” or simply “function”, is represented as a “psychoanalytic theory of personality”
symbolized by the Greek letter Ψ (Psi) (1962, p. 89). “Thought” and “α-function” are factors of
Ψ. Factors could be represented by unsaturated elements symbolized by Greek letter ξ in Ψ(ξ),
representing a pre-conception in search of a realization to build a concept.
He states:
“Function” is the name for the mental activity proper to a number of factors operating in consort. “Factor” is the
name for a mental activity operating in consort with other mental activities to constitute a function. Factors are
deducible from observation of the functions of which they, in consort with each other, are a part …Factors are
deduced not directly but by observation of functions. [ibid., pp. 1-2]

Functor: Bion uses the concept succinctly as representing elements that could be considered
both variables and constants: “They are variables or unknown in that they are replaceable. They
are constants in that they are only replaceable by constants” (1962, p. 90): for instance, elements
present in the container-contained interaction.
G

Generalization: Similar to abstraction, it represents a process according to which, saturation

of an unsaturated element is bound with something in order to consolidate the gain and avoid
losing the experience by dispersion or destruction of its components (1963, p. 85), similar to the
mating of a pre-conception with a realization to create a conception. For instance, the notion
of an idea is consolidated when it is bound with a word or some other sign, as observed in
Hume’s concept of constant conjunction, or in Freud (1911) when he said that thoughts
acquire new qualities perceptible to consciousness, once they are bound with the rest of words
(p. 226)

Genetic axis: see: Grid, vertical axis of the.

Genius: see: Mystic.

Geocentric theory: see: Heliocentric theory.

Geometric space: Stands for a space where a psychoanalytic empirical observation of an

emotional event could find a representation when replaced by constant geometric values, for
instance the point or the line, illustrating an “empty space, where the object was”, or element
←↑ signifying the existence of a “greedy non-existing object”. This is extremely important in
most of Bion’s contributions: he often argued that if geometry, as Euclid postulated, was
originally used to represent realizations in geometric space of feeling and human aspirations, it
should not be odd for him to try the opposite:
… if it is accepted that geometric space affords a link between unsophisticated emotional problems, their
unsophisticated solutions and the possibility of their restatement in sophisticated terms admitting of sophisticated
solutions, then it may be that musical and other artistic methods afford a similar link. [1965, p. 125]

See: conscious awareness, space.

Ghosts of departed quantities : Expression used by Bishop George Berkeley (1685-1753), in

his ironical criticism of Newton’s presentation of the differential calculus, published in 1734
under the suggestive name of: The Analyst, A Discourse addressed To An Infidel
Mathematician . He said:
And what are these fluxions? The velocities of evanescent increments. And what are these same evanescent
 increments? They are neither finite quantities, nor quantities infinitely small, nor yet nothing. May we not call them
the ghosts of departed quantities …? (Quoted by Bion, 1965, p. 156.)

Newton’s differential calculus represents a definitory hypothesis, while Berkeley’s ironical

criticism can be considered as the negative side of that definitory hypothesis, which might be
conceived as a “ghost of a departed quantity”. Bion states also, that Newton’s scientific
contribution represents a transformation of K corresponding to column 1 of the Grid, while the
Bishop’s criticism was expression of fear about a psychological turbulence, and would
correspond to column 2 of the Grid: “transformations in K are feared when they threaten the
emergence of transformations in O. This can be restated as fear when Tα→ Tβ = K→ O.”
(1965, pp. 157-158). See: Definitory hypothesis, Horizontal axis, Transformation of K,
Transformation in O, Psychological turbulence, O.

Gnomon: Early Pythagoreans used the so-called gnomones (γν ω μ ων ε ζ) meaning

“carpenter’s squares”, to designate odd or even numbers represented by dots (perhaps pebbles)
in the shape of a square. When Bion (1965, pp. 93-94) states that he will “add a ‘gnomon’ to the
previous figure”, he means that by adding dots in the shape of a square (right and upper sides),
he will increase the quantities in a form seen in the figure on p. 93: from 1 to 4, to 9, to 16, and
to 25. It was also a graphic way of representing square numbers with pebbles, because all of
these numbers are squares: 22, 32, 42 and 52.

Bion uses this notion as a symbolic representation of growth, of accumulation, or adding

something “to something or someone not specificied” (ibid., p. 94).
Gnomon is also the name given to the pointer in a sundial, perhaps because of its square
shape. See: Growth.

Godhead: As a proof of his theory of O, Bion used several hypotheses: (a) Kant’s concept of
noumenon or the unknown (or the preconception, the thing-in-itself, the ineffable, etc.) which
could only be intuited, and the phenomenon (conception, object, breast, etc.), as the end result
of a mating or realization between the noumenon and a particular object; (b) Aristotle’s theory
of form, which could be considered as the opposite, because now the phenomenon acts as a
reminder of an abstract and idealized concept considered as the Form. Bion also presented some
strophes from Milton’s Paradise Lost as a paradigm of Aristotle’s theory; (c) the Godhead, as it
could be inferred from descriptions made by Meister Eckhart, Blessed John Ruysbroeck, as
well as St. John of the Cross’s description of his union with God in “The Ascent of Mount
Carmel”.
From a religious vertex the Godhead represents the “three-in-one” or Trinity and can be
defined as the essence or divine nature of a person or a thing, which has been considered as
reason for adoration. Bion borrows this concept as stated by Meister Eckhart, or St. John of the
Cross, to explain the meaning of the ineffable, the unknown, the aprioristic notion of the object
(the breast), the thing-in-itself, the pre-conception or O. According to Eckhart, the distinction
between God sensed as “spiritual substance, so elemental that we can say nothing about it” and
the Godhead where God “Incarnates” as the Trinity, is a phenomenon men can witness. In this
sense, God would be the ineffable, the unknown, equivalent to O, that when incarnated
(realization) produces the Godhead, trinity, phenomenon, pre-conception or K, analogous to the
relation between the baby’s need to suck and the breast. God and Godhead are different from
each other like Paradise and the earth, the former is action but not the latter; equal to K and O,
where the former is a form of knowledge that implies action, but O is a form of knowledge that
emanates existence (1970, p. 88)
“Form” and incarnation—like O and K—suggest the existence of an ultimate reality that
could be known only by submitting it to the rigour of a special discipline, such as
phenomenology, religion or psychoanalysis. Bion quotes St. John of the Cross in “The Ascent
of Mount Carmel”:
The first (night of the soul) has to do with the point from which the soul goes forth, for it has gradually to deprive
itself of desire for all the worldly things which it possessed, by denying them to itself; the which denial and
deprivation are, as it were, night to all the senses of man. The second reason has to do with the mean, or the road
along which the soul must travel to this union—that is, faith, which is likewise as dark as night to the understanding.
The third has to do with the point to which it travels—namely, God, Who, equally, is dark night to the soul in this
life. [quoted by Bion, 1965 pp. 158-159]

In relation to psychoanalysis Bion emphasizes the importance of discipline that demands a

particular way of listening to the patient without memory, desire or understanding in order, like
Saint John of the Cross, “gradually to deprive itself of desire for all the worldly things”, to
become in O, “which is as dark as night to the understanding” (ibid., 139).
See: O, Form, Phenomenon, Noumenon, Thing-in-itself, Realization, Meister
Eckhart, K, Ultimate reality, Psychological turbulence, Memory, Desire.
Grid, amalgamation of the: Represents the intention to unite both, the “genetic” or “vertical
axis” and the “horizontal axis” or “axis of uses”, by providing double attributes to some
categories, for instance the pre-conception, which could represent both the use that can be
given to a certain statement, as well as the genetic stage to that same statement. It would be
appropriate, says Bion, to ask whether research would gain and the Grid be enhanced, if the
uses and genetic stages were to be put together. In this way, for instance, columns 4 and 5 could
amalgamate and be represented by the term pre-conception. At the end, Bion (1965) questions
such a procedure because it would create confusion by making unnecessary a series of concepts,
such as β-elements, dreams, concepts, etc. [p. 43].

Grid, as a psychoanalytic game: Bion presents the possibility of using the grid to play a
psychoanalytic game, to use it in a kind of analytic make-believe in which the experiential
aspect would be less determinant. He associates this “imaginative exercise” with the “activity of
the musician who practises scales and exercises, not directly related to any piece of music but to
the elements of which any piece of music is composed” (1963, p. 101).

Grid, functioning of the: The construction of the Grid, perhaps based on Mendeleev’s Periodic
Table, represents Bion’s attempt to cross the genetic evolution of thinking, on the one hand,
with the mind that contains and uses such evolution or transformation, on the other. He refers to
it as “an instrument for classifying and ultimately understanding [psychoanalytical] statements”
(1997, p. 13), or as a “convention for construing psycho-analytical phenomena. But if an
analyst uses this convention he entertains a pre-conception of which the Grid, as printed or
written, is a representation” (1963, p. 98).
The Grid usually moves from left to right and from top to bottom as thinking progresses
in degrees of sophistication both in the use as well as in the level of abstraction and
organization. In this way it could be said that, on a structuring level, the vertical axis follows the
progressive movements of Klein’s positions: PS↔ D, while the uses, or horizontal axis, follows
the mechanisms of the container-contained ( ), in the sense of a mind that contains.
The Grid is described as a manifestation of the development of K, which is consonant
with the purpose of the psychoanalytical process. “The analyst must decide whether the idea
that is expressed” said Bion, “is intended to be an instrument whereby feelings are
communicated or whether the feelings are secondary to the idea” (ibid., p. 96). At the beginning
he refers to I (idea) and later on, after he starts to use the theory of transformation, he changes
to K. Emotions might disrupt the cognitive purpose of the analysis, just as the wind would
disrupt the surface of a lake creating turbulence; the only difference would be that in the Grid
both emotional and cognitive aspects are mutually affected by each other (1965, pp. 70-71).
In Elements of Psycho-Analysis (1963), Bion gives the impression of sometimes solving,
and other times not, the “mysteries” of the Grid. He does it by bits, inducing great expectation
in the reader. Some of these difficulties can be observed, for instance, when he attempts,
unsuccessfully, to evaluate the Oedipus myth using the horizontal axis of the Grid. There he
admits the possibility of having forced things by inventing pre-conceptions, and he apolo-gizes:
It is not my object to establish an exact correspondence … Therefore to make the correspondence between the
horizontal axis and the elements of the myth appear to be exact would be a falsification that obscured the nature of
the myth. [1963, pp. 65-66]

The Grid’s level of abstraction makes it elusive and mysterious, like something that
cannot be grasped.24 Understanding the Grid is only possible through practice, using it for what
Bion has created it for; such as trying to introduce into it the content of a session, or when an
analyst wishes to do some “home-work” by extra analytic meditation about a session, or wishes
to enhance his intuitive deductive capacity, or simply because he is doubtful about the
preciseness of the work he is doing and wishes to refer it to the Grid. The use of the Grid during
the analytical session is obviously not recommended (1963, p. 73; 1977a, p. 3). On the other
hand—and this is very important—the fact that the Grid’s categories can be used in order to
classify the content of a session implies that in some way we are dealing with psychoanalytic
elements or “molecules”.
Francesca Bion (Bion, 1997) summarizes the possible uses of the Grid in the following
way:
1. to keep the analyst’s intuition in training;
2. to help in impressing the work of the sessions on the memory;
3. to increase the accuracy of observations;
4. to make it easier to bridge the gap between events of an analysis and their interpretation;
5. as a “game” for psycho-analysts to set themselves exercises as a method of developing their capacity for intuition;
6. to help in developing a method of written recording analogous to mathematical communication, even in the absence of the
object;
7. as a prelude to psycho-analysis, not as a substitute for it;
8. to provide a mental climbing-frame on which psychoanalysts could exercise their mental muscles;
9. as an instrument for classifying and ultimately understanding statements. [p. 5]

The Grid combines two main axes that cross each other: the Horizontal axis, marked 1 to …n
columns, which represents the “mind” that “uses” thoughts and the elements in the Vertical
axis. The Vertical axis consists of eight levels of evolution (A to H) showing the genetic
development of thinking, from the most primitive aspects to the more complex ones. According
to Bion, in the horizontal axis the terms are the same, but they can be used differently, while in
the Vertical one the terms vary, but have the same use (1963, p. 87). The Grid contains
elements that represent ideas (I) and feelings that can be placed inside its categories and, in
turn, be capable of forming psychoanalytic objects.
Throughout different expositions Bion shows an ambivalent attitude towards the use of
the Grid. At the beginning he frequently seems optimistic and stands up for its value.
Nevertheless, at some other points, especially towards the end of his life, he seems pessimistic
about its significance. In 1974, at the Rio de Janeiro conference, Bion said:
The Grid is a feeble attempt to produce an instrument. An instrument is not a theory. It is made up out of theories,
just in the same way as a ruler, which is marked in inches and centimetres, has been made in conformity with a
number of theories. But the ruler can be used by different people for all sorts of purposes. When I was a boy at
school the teacher would say, “hold out your hand” and then use the ruler to strike the palm … That is about all I can
claim for the Grid. Some people may be able to use it for different purposes … I think it is good enough to know
how bad it is, how unsuitable for the task for which I have made it. But even if it inflicts a certain amount of mental
pain I hope you can turn it to good account and make a better one. [1974a, p. 53]

Later on, by 1977 he says: “Nevertheless, its use [of the Grid] has made it easier for me to
preserve a critical and yet informative, illuminating, attitude to my work” (1977a, p. 6). In the
same year, in New York, he stated: “As soon as I had got the Grid out of my system I could see
how inadequate it is … the satisfaction does not last for long” (1980, p. 56). When asked if it
was difficult, he answered: “Not for me, only a waste of time because it doesn’t really
correspond with the facts I am likely to meet” (ibid.).

Grid, horizontal axis: Bion refers to it also as the “uses” or “schematic” axis. It represents the
“mind” that “contains” thoughts, that allows them to evolve (Vertical axis) and uses them
according to the circumstances. “The columns in this axis” says Bion, “represent the functions
that a statement is being made to perform. The statement may be an oracular pronouncement, an
announcement of the theme of the session …” (1963, p. 71). This axis is considered to be
incomplete (1 - …n), which means it can eventually be extended. The formulations on this axis
are always the same, the only thing that varies is the use that they are given. For instance,
statement X could be a formulation considered to be a “defini-tory hypothesis” (column 1)
used as defence, as a lie (column 2), recognized as a repetitive behaviour (column 3), that
eventually might determine a certain kind of acting-out (column 6). The meaning varies
according to the use that has been given to it, which in turn depends on the category, or column,
where the formulation has been placed. The mechanism by which transition from one use of this
axis (1 to … n) is transformed into another seems to depend on container-contained
mechanisms, while its dynamics are based on pleasure and pain (ibid., p. 34).
Column 1 represents a series of definitions of various uses, such as a myth, or the content
of a session that could represent a “defin-itory hypothesis”, denoting that facts in it are bound
by a constant conjunction, that they are meaningful, but have no meaning, and very important,
that they are limiting because the present constant conjunction excludes all the other previously
recorded. If I say “cat” for instance, such a term will represent a preposition or a constant
conjunction that joins hair, colour, eyes, lives, etc.; it will be so restrictive that it will exclude all
other animal characteristics,25 it would be unique because it will exclude any other previous
constant conjunction that, even if it might have represented something, will have no meaning.
The content of a session constitutes a defin-itory hypothesis and at the same time it also
represents the transformation of an emotional experience O, into a final product (Tβp), which
once presented in a session and understood by the analyst will help to construct the
interpretation. This also represents a definitory hypothesis that excludes any other previously
given interpretation and will correspond to the analyst’s final transformation product (Tβa) up
to that particular moment. Ferreira (2000), introduces the possibility of subdividing this column
into three parts: (a) the definitory hypothesis as such; (b) the negative aspects of the definition;
(c) the annihilation of the hypothesis.
Column 2, as well as row C, could have its own grid. It is used as a false statement with
the purpose of providing the patient with a theory that will act as a defensive barrier or a
resistance against feared feelings or ideas, and thus oppose the appearance of a catastrophic
change (1977a, pp. 5-6). In classical theory, column 2 would correspond to “resistance” in the
patient and countertransference resistance in the analyst. According to Bion, in a rather
abstract way, there could also be some sort of meta-defence by which, for instance, an idea, a
myth or a dream corresponding to C2, would act as a defence against another idea that in turn
was acting as a defence against yet another one. Or in other words, C2 would be used to inhibit
a G2 (1963, p. 80). Bléandonu (1994, p. 166), suggests that this column, designated by Bion
with the Greek letter i)», could be related to the proton pseudos (jtprotov iJjeuScx;), a concept
used by Freud parodying Aristotle to refer to the “first lie” present in a hysterical patient.26 Bion
distinguishes between falsities and lies:
The false statement being related more to the inadequacy of the human being, analyst or analysand alike, who cannot
feel confident in his ability to be aware of the ‘truth’, and the liar who has to be certain of his knowledge of the truth
in order to be sure that he will not blunder into it by accident. [1977a, p. 5]

Columns 3, 4 and 5 represent statements that are less defensive and of a more co-
operative level during the performance of the analytical work. Column 3, for instance, uses
aspects related to memory, or notation of statements that might unite or relate a given constant
conjunction with other constant conjunctions previously bound and registered, and in this sense,
provide relatedness and coherence that could yield meaning until then unrecorded (1965, p. 98).
Column 4 refers to what Freud defined as attention, especially to the way in which the
analyst’s listening takes place, to free floating attention or to the search and discovery of
meaning (ibid., p. 79). It also refers to the attention given to repetition of previous propositions
or constant conjunctions.
Column 5 is related to inquiry, curiosity, exploration or discrimination of facts related
specially with search for moral meaning (ibid., p. 79). In the first Grids Bion referred to this
column as Oedipus, mainly because of the tenacity with which Oedipus, according to the myth,
had “inquired” about the truth (1997, p. 10) (see: Arrogance, curiosity and stupidity).
Column 6 is related to acting-out, in the patient as well as the analyst. According to Bion,
the analysis itself could sometimes also be used as a form of acting-out. Muscular movements
or any other form of motor discharges are important because they can be intended to disburden
the mind from accumulations of stimuli (1963, pp. 71-72) (see: Projective identification).
Functions related to the interpretation also fall into this category. For example, a phobic
patient says she “repeats the interpretations in her mind with the purpose of not forgetting
them”; such an asseveration could represent an E6 category, but if it happens that the patient
repeats the interpretation to make sure she controls and “encapsulates” them as strange elements
in order to evacuate them, it would then be an A6 instead. However, it could also belong to row
C if it was later found that what the patient stated was a lie, if she were to say, for instance, that
she has dreamed it. Bion states:
All Grid categories may “be regarded as having the quality of Column 1 categories in that they are significant but
cannot be held to have meaning until experience invests them with it. [1997a, p. 10]

Bion proposes the use of arrows in the horizontal as well as in the vertical axis, to indicate
movements along the axes. For instance, would mean a notation that represents growthwhile
a would mean notation that is growth-inhibiting (1965, p. 94).

Grid, negative: see: Negative Grid.

Grid, origins of the: This is an instrument says Bion (1977a) of the Grid, for the use of
practising psycho-analysts , but it is not intended to be used during the working session (p. 3), it
is intended to aid the analyst in the categorization of statements. It is not a theory, though
psycho-analytical theories have been used to con-struct it, but has the status of an instrument
(Bion 1997, p. 8). Several aspects must be considered regarding the evolution of Bion’s
thinking with respect to the Grid.

(A) The first ideas about the Grid can be read in Bion’s 1957 article on the “Differentiation of
the Psychotic from the Non-psychotic personalities” (pp. 45–46), where he discusses Freud’s
sayings (1911, p. 220) about the relationship that exists between the sense-organs that are
directed towards the external world, and of the consciousness attached to them. Freud identifies
“attention” which searches the external world comparing what is new to what is already
familiar in case an urgent internal need should arise; “notation” which lays down the result of
this periodical activity of consciousness and contributes to memory formation; “judgement”
which has to decide what is true and what is false; “action”, a function directed towards motor
discharge under the dominance of the pleasure principle and serving as a mean of unburdening
the mental apparatus of accretions of stimuli; finally, “thinking”, as a measure to tolerate
frustration inasmuch as it represents a way of experimental action. Along with these theories
the Grid’s systematic, horizontal or “axis of the uses” will later be established. We can conclude
that this axis represents the “mind” which “contains” thinking as well as its progressive
complexity, this last one represented by the vertical axis.
In Cogitations (1992), dated October 11th, 1959, at the end of a brief note in which he
speaks of aggressive fantasies against a colleague, Bion suddenly says: “But what of
mathematics and music? Geometry is a kind of visual image; music can evoke visual images”
(p. 90). In the same note he suggests in a cryptic manner that his reluctance to get into [to use]
music and mathematics could be caused by lack of courage27; that is, to take the risk of facing
the reaction that the creation of a “geometric instrument” such as the Grid would produce (ibid.,
pp. 91, 201-202). Another important argument results from the problem faced by the analyst in
finding a method,
—If there is one—by which he can be aware that he is falling into error, and even (if possible) of what kind or error
he has become the victim. The search for this method constitutes for the psychoanalyst the search for a scientific
method. [ibid., p. 123]

(B) Later on Bion investigates a theory about thinking and determines the genetic evolution of
thought that goes from β-elements, which constitute entities that cannot be permeated or
mutated, neutral materials that can be useful only for discharge, or the thing-in-itself, using
Kantian language, up to the complexities of mathematical thinking (see: Psychic mathematics).
Along this line he elaborates the vertical or genetic axis of the Grid.

(C) In Chapter Thirteen of Learning from Experience (1962, pp. 38–41), Bion argues about the
need to use precise formulations that at the same time enable one to maintain flexibility of facts.
Such flexibility derives from the use of variables as factors that can be replaced … by theories
and concepts of fixed value (ibid., p. 38). This would be the case throughout the use of
Function Theory (as could be gathered from the notion of α-function) inasmuch as its
principles can remain unaltered even if its factors change. He believes in the necessity of
establishing a solid structure, a referential theory of psychoanalysis that is flexible in action.
This concept is not at all unfamiliar, after all the plasticity of O results from the rigidity of the
analytical setting. Bion states:
A record of sessions that showed succinctly the progress of the analysis by representing the theories employed would
thus serve a purpose that was more than an aid to the analyst’s memory …but the central problem concerns the need
for a system of notation that is valuable both for recording analytic problems and working on them … and that can be
communicated to others without serious loss of meaning. [ibid., p. 40]

However, Bion adds that this would not be enough because devel-opments in psychoanalysis
require finding a formula that stores information, as mathematical notation records facts, and
provides a means for calculation. Even though Bion does not specify in these arguments that he
is referring to the Grid, it is obvious that he was; something supported by Francesca Bion when
she said in the intro-duction of his posthumous work Taming Wild Thoughts that, It was written
after the publication of Learning from Experience in which the Grid is not mentioned, although
Bion had been working on the idea for some time before that (1997, p. 3).

(D) The next step is to concretize the abstract, which Bion tries out by equating concrete and
tangible functions, such as the digestive system or the baby’s food ingestion, to abstract
functions like thought formation and the apparatus needed to think them. According to Bion,
the digestive apparatus and the apparatus of thinking have a common origin because both have
to deal with sense impressions relating to the alimentary canal: the nourishment provided, or
not, by the presence or absence of milk, as well as the loving or painful sensations given by the
presence or absence of the “good breast”, arrive at the same time.
The infant is aware of a very bad breast inside it, a breast that is “not there” and by not being there gives it painful
feelings. This object is felt to be “evacuated” by the respiratory system [also by the skin and the digestive system] or
by the process of “swallowing” a satisfying breast. This breast that is swallowed is indistinguishable from a
“thought” but the “thought” is dependent on the existence of an object that is actually put into the mouth. [1962, p.
57]
In this way, the breast, or the thing-in-itself, is equivalent to an idea in the mind, and
reciprocally, indistinguishable from the thing-in-itself in the mouth. “It is clear that we have
arrived at an object very closely resembling a betα-element” (ibid., p. 58).
The difference between the concrete and the abstract (see: abstraction) can be seen as
follows: (a) Concrete statement: there exists a breast on which to depend in order to satisfy
hunger for food; (b) Abstract statement: there exists something capable of providing—and
which provides—whatever and whenever is needed. Bion concludes:
There is reason to believe that the emotional experiences associated with alimentation are those from which
individuals have abstracted and then integrated elements to form theoretical deductive systems that are used as
representations of realizations of thought. There is reason for using alimentary system as a model for demonstrating
and comprehending the processes involved in thought. [ibid., p. 62]
Grid, vertical axis: It is formed by non-saturated elements waiting for a realization, except for
row A corresponding to β elements. Each stage of this axis is a record of a previous one and a
preconception of the subsequent stage. Successive growth from A to H implies a difference in
degrees of sophistication instead of a difference in functioning (1963, p. 87; 1965, p. 43; 1997,
p. 6), similar to mechanisms of integration and disintegration described in the Kleinian Ps↔D
positions, where the dynamic links, as well as in the horizontal axis, are also L, H and K
elements (1963, pp. 34-35) Growth of this axis will depend on the following mechanisms: (a)
psycho-mechanics; (b) an alternation of particularization and generalization (concretization
and abstraction); (c) successive saturation; and (d) emotional drives (ibid., p. 84).
(A) Psycho-mechanics is described as a condition that takes place in the relationship that exists between proiective identification
and the alternation of the paranoid-schizoid and the depressive position, in relation to K. Bion considers that fragmented bits
might be capable of providing integration and solutions to problems, that will facilitate the alternation present in PS↔D and
also in
(B) Particularization and generalization processes are related to abstraction; that is, to a process by which an element is
particularized following a realization or a saturation, from where, later on, a generalization takes place. Naming the process
and then remembering it (notation), will prevent the loss of the experience by dispersion or disintegration of its components.
(C) Generalization or abstraction can be understood as a process by which an unsaturated element becomes saturated. Further
details about this mechanism can be found in the corresponding entrance in this dictionary under the heading Saturated-
unsaturated elements.
(D) Bion relates emotional impulses to a premonitory state that would represent more of an emotional condition than an
ideational content which is related more to a pre-conception, although similar to a pre-conception, a pre-monition is also
private and unconscious. In other words, emotions are to pre-monitions what ideas are to pre-conceptions.

I do not dissociate “pre-monition” from its association with a sense of warning and
anxiety. The feeling of anxiety is of value in guiding the analyst to recognize the premotion28
in the material. The premonition can therefore be represented by (Anxiety (ξ) where (ξ) is an
unsaturated element. [1963, p. 76]

Countertransference anxiety can become a premonition that guides the analyst in his
investigation and structuring of the interpretation.
Changes between A and H29 correspond to mechanisms of , where a pre-conception
(row D), for instance, is contained in a conception (row E), and this one contained in a concept
(row F), and so forth. Dynamic links between different categories in the axis are reached by
means of elements H, L and K. The benignity of the operation will depend on the nature of
the dynamic link; that is, the degree of persecutory anxiety will be related to the interaction
between the envious attack (H) and the love relationship (L) directed towards the breast (1963,
p. 34).
Bion proposes for both, horizontal and vertical axes, the use of arrows ↓ → to indicate
either progression or regression from K. A downward arrow (↓) represents a movement from A
to H or a progression in the direction of K, whereas the opposite (↑) or a movement from H to
A, would indicate a road to β, in the direction of fragmentation and destruction of K (1965,
pp.88, 99). (↑ ←) will represent movements contrary to the progressive movement of both axes
of the Grid, a kind of minus Grid. Bion also states that any existing object corresponding to the
direction of these arrows: (↑←) would represent an object considered to be violent, greedy,
envious,
ruthless, murderous and predatory, without respect for the truth, person or things. It is, as it were, what Pirandello30
might have called a Character in Search of a Author … This force is dominated by an envious determination to
possess everything that objects that exist possess including existence itself. [ibid., p. 102]

his -premotions give information about him that cannot be obtained from other factors”
(1963, p. 75). There are doubts whether this is a printing misspelling for “premonition” or a
neologism implying a condition previous to an emotional state. Similar thoughts have been
expressed by Dr Elizabeth Bianchedi (personal communication).state. Similar thoughts have
been expressed by Dr Elizabeth Bianchedi (personal communication).
The first row (A) of the vertical axis corresponds to β-elements, which cover a field of
confusions31 in relation to thought and feeling. In the domain of thoughts the confusion is
between them and things, similar to Segal’s concept of symbolical equation. In the domain of
feeling it might be equivalent to the confusion between fact and phantasy (1963, p. 97);
therefore, they could only be used in columns 2 and 6 (1965, p. 44). Beta elements cannot
discriminate the animate from the inanimate, nor the subject from the object or what is moral
from what is scientific; they can be used as projective identifications and have a capacity for
imprisonment. (See: Prisoner)
The passage from A to B, that is, from β to α-elements, is similar to a movement from a
pre-conception to a conception and will depend on Beta elements are dispersed but could
acquire cohesion by means of: (a) changes in terms of PS↔D; (b) according to an external
organizer acting as a , such as the breast, that would be a model, or some other factor that
resembles a selected fact; (c) other mechanisms Bion has described as “psycho-mechanics”.
Bion says:
The cohesion of β-elements to form is analogous to the integration characteristic of the depressive position;
[while] the dispersal of β-elements is analogous to the splitting and fragmentation characteristic of the paranoid-
schizoid position. [1963, p. 40)

Bion also advises that any inquiry about α- or βelements, should always involve both of them:
β-elements and α-elements are intended to denote objects that are unknown and therefore may not even exist. By
speaking of α-elements, β-elements and α-function, I intend to make it possible to discuss something, or to talk about
it, or think about it before knowing what it is. At the risk of suggesting a meaning, when I wish the sign to represent
something of which the meaning is to be an open question, to be answered by the analyst from his own experience, I
must explain that the term “β-element” is to cover phenomena that may not reasonably be regarded as thoughts at
all. [1997a, pp. 10-11]

And further on,

Ideally, any meaning that the term accumulates should derive from analytic practice and from analytic practice alone.
Much the same is true of the α-element, except that this term should cover phenomena that are reasonably considered
 to be thoughts. I would regard them as elements that make it possible for the individual to have what Freud described
as dream thoughts. [ibid., p. 11]

For Bion, β-elements represent an early matrix from where thoughts are supposed to
arise. They share the quality of inanimate and of psychic objects, but without any kind of
distinction between them. “Thoughts are things, things are thoughts; and they have personality”
(1963, p. 22). He is referring to the qualities of omnipotent magic thinking seen in psychotic
patients, in the psychotic part of the personality, in children and in all sorts of religious beliefs.
The second row (B) corresponds to α-elements, the product of α-function. One can
question whether the inference of this function on the whole genetic evolution of this axis
towards the evolution of thinking, might not justify its location at the margin of the Grid.
Something of this sort could be read in Bion when he states:
By the same token [that of the reverie function exercised by individuals within themselves as they grow] α-function
may be described as concerned with the change I have associated with the conception and the concept (E and F) as I
have described these entities in my exposition. [1963, p. 27]
And further on:
All the categories in the table, with the possible exception of the row B sets, may be considered to play a part,
sometimes more important, sometimes less, in any psycho-analytic material. [ibid., pp. 29-30]

Row C corresponds to thought categories that could be expressed in sensuous terms,

usually visual images like those that appear in dreams, myths, narratives, and hallucinations.
Bion suggests that this category should have a grid of its own (1977, p. 3).
Row D corresponds to pre-conceptions, which could be conceived as similar to Kant’s
concept of “empty thoughts” (1967, p. 111). They represent a state of mental anticipation for
some kind of realization, like the baby’s expectation of the breast right after birth, or the
analyst’s expectation as he/she figures out the meaning of the patient’s manifest content, that
will in turn enable the elucidation of the unconscious phantasy in order to structure the
interpretation. Bion represents the pre-conception with the following formula: Ψ (ξ), where
Ψrepresents an incognita, the unknown, and ξ signifies an unsaturated element, which once
saturated by knowledge, becomes a conception and will hence correspond to row E.
Row E represents conceptions that result from the union of a pre-conception with a
realization:
When the pre-conception is brought into contact with a realization that approximates to it, the mental outcome is a
conception. [ibid., p. 111]

And also:
In this respect it may seem misleading to describe Row E as consisting of pre-conceptions to the exclusion of the
remaining rows, for they are capable also of functioning as pre-conceptions. [1997, p. 11]

In summary, a conception might be considered as a variable that has been replaced by a

constant.
Row F corresponds to formulations of psychoanalytic and non-psychoanalytic theory,
which intend to show scientific observations. Conceptions change into concepts by a process
“designed to render it free of those elements that would unfit it to be a tool in the elucidation or
expression of truth” (1963, p. 24).
Row G is of little use and must wait until the psychoanalytic scientific deductive system
develops. Something similar could be said about row H, which also may have to wait until
algebraic systems build up. This row could be important in relation to research or publication.
Free floating attention and relaxed unsaturated listening to the patient’s material,
correspond to D4, that is, “attentive preconceptions”. The comprehension of this material would
imply a movement from D4 (a pre-conception) to a conception or E4. Searching for a
confirmation, comparing one material with the other, would signify a movement towards E3
and E5. Structuring the interpretation, verbalizing impressions, integrating and so on, would
correspond to F5. Lastly, when the interpretation is verbalized with the intention of affecting the
patient’s mind, it could be placed on G6.
Meltzer (1978) has summarized how some aspects of the vertical axis function:
…the “molecules” of psycho-analysis, are seen to be compounded of elements from three rows of the grid, B, C and
G, that is the sensa, or alphα-elements which have been derived from the perception of the emotional experience, the
myth or dream thought in which its elements are bound, and the passion of scientific deductive system into which it
would grow if allowed. [p. 67]
Group: Bion has introduced substantial theoretical and clinical changes in group therapy. His
experience started with the British army during the two World Wars in which he participated,
but more importantly during the second, when, at the beginning of the forties, the need to treat
soldiers suffering from war neurosis induced him to investigate group techniques at the
Northfield Hospital in Birmingham, England. A very important innovation was the creation of
“self-interpretative” or “leaderless groups”, where the “abstinence law” and “neutrality” of the
therapist, similar to individual psychoanalysis, were maintained. Bléandonu (1994) states that
the experience at Northfield was a determinant in the later development of the “therapeutic
community”.
Bion attempted to solve the differences between individual and group therapy when he
said:
One disadvantage of the group situation is that seeing, say, six or ten people at the same time leads one to suppose
that there are six or ten discrete personalities present. In other words, the distinct physiology of the participants is so
dominant that one is liable to assume that the personality is similarly bounded by physical appearance. The
“dramatic” affect of having the personalities present makes one suppose that the important thing is what any
individual participant is saying or doing—another caesura. [1987, p. 298]

In a similar fashion he affirms that, in a group, a spontaneous and common emotional reaction
can take place, that will join together several individuals at a given moment, and provide the
possibility of making one interpretation. This is typical of a group interpretation, said Bion:
One would have to develop a sensitiveness to what seemed to be the emotion common to the majority of the group;
the group analysis would have to depend on the assessment of the “gist” of an obtruding emotion. It bears a
similarity to psycho-analysis, but it is not the same thing. [1974a, p. 190]

He defined “group mentality” according to basic assumptions, as an unconscious

consensus of several individuals in a group, that will involuntarily neutralize all individual
aspirations (1948b, p. 59). He describes three basic assumptions (ba): dependent (baD),
pairing (baP) and fight-flight (baF). There is a polarization between a group level he named
“sophisticated” or “work group” (W) that operates according to reality, an idea or a conscious
purpose, and another level where the prosecution of that purpose or idea is emotionally
undermined, corresponding to one of the three basic assumptions previously mentioned.
Depending on its own dynamics, a group could change from one “ba” to another, but onceone
of them dominates and becomes manifest, the others would remain latent (ibid. pp. 96; 146-
152). See: ba Dependent, ba Pairing, ba Fight-flight, Proto-mental system, and valence.
“Group coming together": When a group during therapy behaves as whole, it resembles a
family organization (1948a, p. 69).
Group culture: In relation to group dynamics, Bion considered three entities: (a) the
individual; (b) the group mentality; and (c) the group culture, represented by those aspects of
behaviour resulting from the conflict between the dominating group mentality and the
individual interest. There will be three different kind of cultures: dependence, fight-flight and
pairing (1948b, pp. 59-61). See: Basic assumptions.
Group leader: It is established as a product of projective identification mechanisms;
responding to the group’s needs and never the other way around. It is, as Le Bon (1896) said,
“an automaton who has ceased to be guided by his will”, and it is precisely from this capacity
that according to Bion, the group leader derives his power (1948a, p. 177). The possibility for a
member to become the leader of the group depends on his capacity to combine instantly and
involuntarily (“maybe voluntarily”) with every other member of his group, as well as to fulfil
the necessary requirements needed to be the leader of such specific basic assumptions (ba).
The main difference from the leader of a work group (W) relies on the access this leader has to
external reality, whereas the basic assumption leader is confined to his specific assumption.
Group mentality: In group dynamics Bion considered three postulates: (a) the individual; (b)
the group mentality; and (c) the group culture. Group mentality represents the “unanimous
expression of the will of the group, an expression of will to which individuals contribute
anonymously (1948a, p. 59) … unaware, influencing him disagreeably whenever he thinks or
behaves in a manner at variance with the basic assumption” (ibid., p. 65).
Growth: At one point Bion represented it with the letter Y (1962, p. 70). It can be positive or
negative: ±Y, depending, in the case of a pre-conception, on the sense provided by its
realization. If the direction is towards the outside, towards reality (social-ism), towards the
primary quality of the object, to the breast for instance, it would be +Y; but if the direction is
egocentric or narcissistic, the growth would be −Y (ibid.). A 38-year-old, single patient still
living with his mother, struggling with ambivalence towards an internal object we had defined
as the “eternal son” (−Y), was trying unconsciously to sublimate his dependency creating a
system of hydroponics that “was not using earth”, as a symbolism of his mother (+Y).
Growth can be represented, within the tendencies of the vertical axis of the Grid,
according to a greater or lesser capacity for abstraction. Something Bion relates to Ps→D, ,
and to the nature of some myths such as: Oedipus, the Tower of Babel, the myths of Eden and
the Sphinx, all related to the fear of human knowledge (−K), that will restrict growth (−Y)
(1963, p. 63). The vertical axis of the Grid involves a premise of growth from A to H, which
according to Bion, will depend on four aspects: (a) psycho-mechanics; (b) alternation of
particularization and generalization (concretization and abstraction); (c) successive
saturations; and (d) emotional drives (ibid., pp. 84-86) (see: vertical axis). The movement in
the opposite direction of the Grid, from H to A and from 5 to 1, would represent a form of
negative growth that Bion represents as: ↑ ← (See: Conscious awareness or Cs).
Criteria about growth can rest on a consensus of observation, or common sense, about the
patient’s mental development, that is, that the capacity to capture reality has increased, while
the obstructive forces that had induced illusion and delusion have diminished (1963, p. 51).
Growth is a difficult phenomenon to assess, for both the growing object and the object that
stimulates it lack growth criteria and are influenced by the anxiety produced by the need to
obtain “results” from the analysis. Bion suggests the use of myths (row C of the vertical axis of
the Grid) such as Oedipus, the Tower of Babel, the Tree of Wisdom and the Sphinx as well as
the Grid, in order to measure growth and be able to find interpretations that might illuminate
some of the patient’s conflicts related to mental growth. “One of the advantages of reference to
the grid is that grid categorization of the patient’s response to interpretation should reveal
growth” (ibid., p. 63n). See: Gnomon.

Note
21 Perhaps Bion borrowed the sign i)» from the expression proton pseudos: “jtpOKov”
(proton) = first; and “\yevSoq” (pseudos) = false, to lie; possibly taken from Aristotle’s Prior
Analytics (Book II, Chapter 18, 66a) which deals with false premises and false conclusions,
asserting that a false statement is the result of a proceeding falsity (“proton pseudos”). It was
used by Freud (1886) in the “Project for a Scientific Psychology”, to describe the importance
of lying in hysterical patients. Strachey added that a Viennese physician, Max Herz, used the
same term in a similar context, in a paper previously read at a congress where Freud was the
secretary. (p. 352n)
22 In the first Grids this column was named “Oedipus” instead of “Inquiry” (Bion, 1997p.
7).
23 In the original Grid, files G and H were not present.
24 See for instance, Chapter Seventeen of Elements of Psycho-Analysis.
25“Carried to extremes”, says Bion (1963), “the term ‘cat’ is merely a sign analogous to the
point as the ‘place where the breast used to be’ and should mean the ‘no-cat’ “.
26 See fn 21
27 Attempts to find answers through Euclidian geometry could be inferred from Bion’s use,
in this passage, of the sphinx’s riddle: the animal that goes on four legs in the morning, two in
the afternoon and three by night. He free-associates the notion of three with a triangle and the
angles where lines articulate, with the notion of genitals as Greeks had previously speculated.
Was this passage an obscure way of Bion stating that to “mathematize” psychoanalysis,
courage (testicles) was needed?
28 My italics. Bion uses this word without giving any definition. A few lines before this
quotation he said: “… when a patient comes for a first consultation
29 Successive growth in categories that form the vertical axis, could also be understood
with the use of Piagetian constructs of “Assimilation” and “Accommodation”; although never
mentioned by Bion, these are well known within the ambit of genetic epistemology.
30 Pirandello (1996). Six Characters in Search of an Author. London: Penguin Books.
 31 Although Bion refers to “confusion”, I wonder whether “lack of discrimination” could
have been a better term.
H

H: Is a psychoanalytic element taken from the word “hate” that represents, together with L
(love), one of the passions or emotions, and with K (knowledge) a dynamic link that by means
of container-contained mechanisms (2 c?), bound the different categories of the Grid (1963,
pp. 34-35). Bion also considers the existence of -H, -K and -L, although − H is not the same as
love. In relation to classical theory, H should be equivalent to the “death instinct”, while L
would correspond to “sexual instinct” and K to Klein’s “episte-mophilic instinct”.
Hallucination: For Bion (1967) hallucinations represent a mechanism for unburdening the
psyche by the use of the sensuous apparatus in reverse (see: perception in reverse), meaning
from inside to outside instead of the other way around, as perception normally operates (p. 83).
He distinguished between two forms of hallucinations, both found in psychotic patients:
“hysterical”, which contain whole objects, and “psychotic” which contain elements analogous
to part-objects (ibid., p. 82). The difference between the two will depend on the capacity to
tolerate depression.
A psychotic patient, for instance, wishes to express a desire as a way to discharge his
mental apparatus from accretion of stimuli, but is obstructed by feelings of impotence, envy,
and hatred that hinder the discharge and fill him with frustration. Unable to tolerate this
frustration and to unburden the psyche of destructive hate and envy, the patient might try a
motor discharge instead, because during childhood and under the dominion of the pleasure
principle, such discharges, like a gesture, for instance, were useful. Gestures of this kind, like
changes of mien or movements that can be observed during the session, are useful for
constructing the interpretation. “Experience has shown the patient” said Bion, “that action of
that kind achieves its purpose far more swiftly than action directed to alteration of the
environment” (1967, p. 83). However, because he is unable to use mechanisms of repression
(see: Projective identification), and therefore unable to free himself from those unwanted
feelings, he then makes use of massive projective identifications by virtue of which his envy
and murderous hatred together with bits of his personality, are projected into the real objects,
creating what Bion refers to as bizarre objects. These objects start to “behave” according to
projections and this behaviour, perceived by the sense organs as a perception in reverse, gives
place to hallucinations and delusions; or in other words, hallucinations are the product of a
change of vertex (1965, p. 91). The anxiety elicited by such reversion of the system of
perception, leads to a destructive attack upon the perceptual apparatus, and this in consequence
increases the production of hallucinations and delusions.
Hallucinations can be used as a self-providing mechanism, because even a meal or
anything needed could be hallucinated, giving place to a feeling of self-sustenance and false
independence, which could be experienced by the patient as superior to psychoanalysis. The
patient, according to Bion, could feel that psychoanalysis is simply a method used to steal the
“sustenance provided” by the goodness of hallucinations. Failure of hallucinations to provide,
because they all obviously fail, is experienced by the patient as a consequence of the analyst’s
envy and rivalry against the power of hallucinations.
Meltzer (1986) has summarized some of Bion’s contribution on the subject:
His idea [Bion’s] is that the evacuation of the stimulation is mainly in one of two forms: either it is transformed into
group behaviour of the type described as the Basic Assumption Group mentality; or it is transformed into somatic
disturbance. This latter is the basis of his theory of psycho-somatic disorders. But there is a third method of
evacuation which is through the sense organs themselves, by reversing their functions so that instead of taking sensa
in, they give out the data as betα-elements which form hallucinations. [p. 105]
See: Transformation in hallucinosis, delusion.
Hallucination invisible-visual: see: Invisible-visual hallucination.
Hallucinosis: According to Bion (1970), this represents a state of mind considered normal and
useful (analyst) as well as pathological (patient); and represents a condition, a background,
where hallucinations could be prompted in both, i.e. in the analyst and the patients (usually
psychotics). The analyst can achieve such a state of hallucinosis by abandoning memory and
desire and, with the use of an “act of faith”, can also build interpretations. Some of these
concepts were already present in his paper “On arrogance” (1957a), but Attention and
Interpretation (1970) contains his main contributions on the subject. There he said:
This state [hallucinosis] I do not regard as an exaggeration of a pathological or even natural condition: I consider it
rather to be a state always present, but overlaid by other phenomena, which screen it. If these other elements can be
moderated or suspended hallucinosis becomes demonstrable; its full depth and richness are accessible only to “acts
of faith”. [p. 36]
And further on:
To appreciate hallucination the analyst must participate in the state of hallucinosis … Before interpretations of
hallucination can be given, which are themselves transformations O→K, it is necessary that the analyst undergoes
in his own personality the transformation O→K. By eschewing memories, desires, and the operations of memory he
can approach the domain of hallucinosis and of the “acts of faith” by which alone he can become at one with his
patients’ hallucinations and so effect transformations O→K. [ibid., p. 36]

The analyst’s state of hallucinosis provides a meaning to the patient’s hallucinations,

because this condition allows a situation where sensuous impressions rule over rational
thinking. Bion described a psychotic patient, who during the analysis felt that the analyst’s
words, during the interpretation, flew over his head and could be detected by what Bion felt
were the patterns on a cushion, and then travelled through his eyes back to him. Bion believed
that what he experienced was exactly what happened inside the patient’s mind, and was possible
only because he as well as the patient were in a state of hallucinosis, a situation where
hallucinations could take place.
Heliocentric theory: In ancient times Aristarchus of Samos introduced the “heliocentric
theory”, according to which, different from what is observed by the naked eye, the earth moves
around the sun and not the opposite. This theory seemed to have disappeared for two thousand
years until Copernicus established it again, struggling against the dominion of the “geocentric
theory” that was supported by the church and had dominated since the time of Aristotle.
Heliocentric and geocentric are two opposed theories, the first one is true but not obvious, the
second one is obvious but not true. There are still remnants from the geocentric theory; when
we say for instance: “I’ll see you tomorrow at sunrise”. Obviously, the sun does not rise, it is
the earth that moves round (1992, pp. 154-156). Similarly, in the analytic situation, a patient
could be a defender of the geocentric theory, meaning a scientific deductive system he has
used all his life, which is based on the obvious, but is not true. The analyst, on the other hand,
using another scientific deductive system, for example the heliocentric theory, that is based on
the truth but is not obvious, attempts to convince the patient of its effectiveness in reducing
mental pain. This condition resembles the situation observed in reversible perspective.
A patient with an important false self pathology said very apologetically after lying down:
“Yesterday when I was going to sign the document to buy the new apartment I was very
anxious. Imagine being afraid about such a foolish thing … I thought I was doing better, but I
can see that I am still failing”. According to her “geocentric” position, she presupposes “in the
transference” the existence of an idealized model that demands from her a “not anxious”
behaviour as a measure of achievement—like passing a test— or the contrary, suffering from
anxiety would mean a failure. In the transference this represents her thinking that the analyst is
also expecting her not to experience anxiety, and will view it as a failure, if she does. Instead of
the analyst going around her (heliocentric), she goes around the analyst (geocentric). Bion
believes that attempting to introduce a different scientific deductive system with the use of the
interpretation, will induce turbulence.
Horizontal axis of the Grid: See: Grid, horizontal axis of the.
Hyperbole: A rhetorical figure used to exaggerate with the purpose of convincing; for instance
saying a “goddess” to describe a beautiful woman. Bion uses it in a similar fashion to signify a
constant conjunction that involves an exaggeration in relation to feelings such as rivalry,
transference idealization, ambition, vigour that could induce violence and projection of objects
at exaggerated distances (1965, p. 162). He categorized hyperbole as a “theory of
observation” (ibid., p. 160) and provides an example related to the container-contained
model. An emotion representing a contained ( ) could be exaggerated with the purpose of
motivating a container ( ) to contain it: “a child cries copiously to produce a consoling mother”.
The container—in this case the mother—has two alternatives: (a) she could constitute into a
good breast and “detoxify” the feeling; (b) she might not be able to tolerate the emotion and try
to evacuate it, creating a condition that would indefinitely increase: the greater the need of the
contained for the container, the greater the need of the container to evacuate the feeling, in a
rather exaggerated and indefinite hyperbole (ibid., pp. 141-142). In another example, a patient
idealized the analyst and compared him with a soothsayer who lived in Peru many years ago, a
condition that represents an exaggerated projection in time (many years ago) and distance
(Peru). In the Grid, hyperboles could correspond to categories A (β-elements) also C, D or E
(ibid., pp. 160-162).
Hypothesis: If we can find theories, for instance quantum mechanics, where “statistical
hypotheses” have taken the place of “empirically verifiable hypotheses”, would it be possible
for a theory— questions Bion—in which verification by empirical observation was replaced by
“hypotheses based on idealization”, to be similar to “statistical hypotheses?” He distinguishes
three kinds of non-empirically verifiable hypotheses: (1) “high-level, generalized and not
empirically verifiable”, corresponding to a strictly theoretical statement, like a theory; (2)
statistical hypotheses, deduced from conceptions based on probabilities; and (3) ideal-type
hypotheses based on presumptions about situations that are supposed to exist. For instance when
someone says “this year in place X there will be a day of the greatest humidity”, or following
Bion’s example, to say “excessive splitting and projective identification lead to a
disintegration of the personality” (1992, pp. 127-128). It is ideal in the sense that such a
condition represents the maximum or the ultimate in possibilities either of “higher humidity” or
“excessive projective identification”. This exercise was written, according to the date of the
note, on February 12th, 1960, and shows Bion’s initial attempt to provide the mind with that
touch of precision that was so impor-tant for him. In this sense, Bion questioned:
How does this [his previous formulations about hypotheses] compare with the realizations of mathematical
formulas? Before attempting an answer to this, we must consider certain similarities and contrasts that emerge by
comparing mathematical formulas with dreams. [ibid., p. 128]

Bion also states that one word can condense so many meanings that it could, just by
itself, represent a hypothesis, for instance “breast” or “penis” that from a personal point of
view, may involve a constant conjunction (ibid., pp. 250-254).
I

Ice cream or I scream: see: “No-breast"

Idea (I): Is a rather ambiguous concept, sometimes considered as representing a
psychoanalytic object composed of α-elements product of α-function; also related to reason
(R) insofar as I represents a bridge between a drive and its satisfaction (1963, p. 4). A bit
further, it is considered as a function that contains thoughts as factors (ibid., p. 30); or
representing the horizontal axis of the Grid, as well as the whole Grid: “When I use the sign I,
I mean it to represent either the whole table or any one or more of the compartments I have
distinguished by co-ordinates” (ibid., p. 28); so according to Bion, I could be put to many uses
that could be categorized, representing the horizontal axis; but could also develop into many
stages, meaning the vertical axis (ibid. p. 25). In relation to container-contained, I could be
either (2 or o") indifferently. See: I (Idea), K, L, H.
Ideogram or ideograph: Word of Greek origin: gramma (ypa[i[ia), meaning “letter” or “a sign
that expresses an idea”, similar to Egyptian hieroglyphics where an image does not represent
what has been illustrated but something else, like the figure of a bird meaning “small” instead of
“bird”. Bion uses this concept to explain aspects not implicit in manifest communication; the
ideogram contains what is manifest and what is latent, “what is spoken but not articulated”
(1974, p. 26). Bion tries to represent the relation between what is an unconscious latent content
and the manifest variable, according to the following formula: K(ξ), where K is a constant and
t, an unsaturated element. Bion described a psychotic patient who reacted with silence to the
analyst attending several sessions wearing dark glasses. Bion interpreted that perhaps the
glasses, like an ideograph (K), contained several meanings (ξ): they resemble the breast, they
were dark because they were frowning and angry, or were dark to be able to spy on parents’
sexual intercourse, or because they were dirty and smelly, and so on (1967, pp. 57, 61).
In some patients ideograms can take the form of an “ideomotor activity”, like trying with
a movement or a series of movements to say something without naming it (1967, p. 54),
representing an attempt to free the organism of an accretion of stimuli, or the need of the
psychotic part of the personality “for an immediate repair of an ego damaged by the excessive
projective identification” (ibid., p. 57).
Ideomotor activity: see: Ideogram.
Imaginary twin:32 Represents the first psychoanalytical work presented by Bion at the British
Psychoanalytical Society on November 1st, 1950. There he concludes that clinical findings from
three of his patients were consistent with Klein’s theory about the existence of an early and
pregenital Oedipus complex. These three patients coincide in three aspects: (a) The presence of
a phantasy about a twin, either completely imaginary or taken from reality, identified with the
analyst or with other internal objects, and used as an obstacle to understanding mechanisms
such as splitting or projective identification. This mechanism would also represent an
obsessive defence that uses a “personification [as a twin] of the split-off portions of his [of the
patient’s] personality” (1967, p. 9). The main purpose of this form of defence would be to deal
with the fear that the “alive object” that cannot be controlled, would eventually threaten with
separation and exclusion. (b) Existence of elements related to the sense of sight and in one
patient with hearing, used with the purpose of exploring the environment to solve old conflicts
that were always there, but whose capacity to explore was impeded due to lack of intellectual
perception and the conflict with the “imaginary twin”. Bion states:
I have wondered whether the psychological development was bound up with the development of ocular control in the
same way that problems of development linked with oral aggression co-exist with the eruption of teeth. [ibid., p. 22]

(c) Consequently a more precise oedipal material appeared together with a greater disposition to
work with it; for instance, in the first case presented, Bion remarks that the change “from a
perfunctory and superficial treatment of the oedipus situation to a struggle to come to terms
with an emotionally charged oedipus complex was extremely striking” (ibid., p. 21).
Meltzer (1978) suggested that perhaps at the time of this presentation “Bion … was
experiencing a sort of psychoanalytical latency period in which dutifulness was indeed dulling
his creativity” (p. 17); and then adds “a preconceived theoretical framework is imposed on
rather recalcitrant material” (p. 18); or in other words, that in the central issue of the imaginary
twin, “sparkling bits of material appear giving evidence of Bion’s restiveness under the restraint
of psycho-analytical theory” (ibid.). Bion’s attitude about Klein’s work on “symbol formation”,
“can easily be taken for, apostolic behavior” (p. 19); only after Klein death in 1960, did Bion
manage to produce his major contributions (ibid.).
Inaccessible mental state: Bion refers very passingly to a mental state different from conscious
or unconscious states and related to the ineffable, to the presence of the unknown, like primitive
events that have taken place during very early in life or in the intrauterine stage. Other
researchers, independently of Bion and some even previous to his work, had also referred to this
subject as “fetal psychic life” (Raskovsky 1958; Aray, 1992); and also as the “schizoid secret”
(Lopez-Corvo, 1994). Bion states:
I am suggesting that besides the conscious and unconscious states of mind, there can be another one. The nearest I
can get to giving it a provisional title is the inaccessible state of mind. It may become inaccessible because the foetus
gets rid of it as soon as it can. Whether it is an awareness of its heartbeat, or an awareness of feel-ings of terror, of
sound, or of sight—the kind of sight experienced through the pressure on the optic pits by changes of pressure in the
intra-uterine fluid—all that may never have been what we would call either conscious or unconscious. [1997, p.
50]33
In Attention and. Interpretation (1970), there is some allusion to the subject, but in a rather
implicit manner as compared with the previous statement, which, according to Francesca Bion,
was written previously (see: 1997, pp. vii-viii).
Material may be pre-verbal because the individual who seeks to verbalize it has not had sufficient experience of the
material to observe a constant conjunction. He is in a state analogous to that seen in a number of similar
configurations such as: having pain without suffering it; not understanding planetary movement because the
differential calculus has not been invented; not being conscious of a mental phenomenon because it has been
repressed; not knowing an event because the event has not occurred. [1970, p. 11]
Inanimate: see: Animate and inanimate, difference between.
Induction: From Latin inducere, meaning “to drive to”. From the point of view of logic, it
means to extract general conclusions from particular facts. Bion introduces a more complex
situation, where induction might represent a way to answer questions, although some times
unsuccessfully, that has been introduced by reality (1992, pp. 190-191). For instance, a patient
might feel guilty about the death of X, but he might deal with it by the following hypothesis
“All men are mortal”, which helps him to establish a deductive system that make him conclude
that X died because of his mortality.
Bion described several steps in the process of induction, for instance in the act of creating
an interpretation: (a) awareness of the existence of incoherent elements: (b) capacity in the
observer to tolerate such incoherence; (c) to formulate a correct question dictated by common
sense; (d) what follows could be an inspiration on observation, or the creation of a selected
fact, or the formulation of a hypothesis, or rather a chain sequence that would help create a
scientific deductive system. Such an hypothesis would show that certain elements are in
constant conjunction and not the other way around, that is, that elements in constant
conjunction give place to a hypothesis. There should be a movement from high-level to low-
level hypotheses, decreasing generalization until a particularization is reached, one that is open
to validation by empirical testing; (e) the social aspect of the process, the public-ation (finally
phrasing the interpretation) as something essential and not as an accident (1992, p. 195) (see;
psychoanalytic listening, interpretation).
Inner reproductive system: Bion refers to this concept as the “mental counterpart” of: (a) “the
reproductory system”, analogous to an “inward eye”, “visualizing”, or “seeing in imagination”,
etc.; (b) representing also a counterpart of the “visual system” (1965, p. 91). It should not be
confused with “awareness of reproductory activity” either; in much the same manner as visual
images related with the mental counterpart of vision, should not be mixed up with visual
objects. The mental counterpart of the reproductory system is related to premonitions of pain
and pleasure. Although Bion has not mentioned it, it could be speculated that this concept might
be akin to what has been referred to as “feminine intuition” (ibid.). See: Intuit, O, Act of faith.
Inquiry: Represents column 5 on the horizontal axis of the Grid, and is a word that precisely
describes its purpose, that is, the increasing curiosity to understand the last “issue of the matter”,
of the unconscious; this perhaps explains why Bion originally decided to use the name of
“Oedipus” to designate it. Parthenope Bion, in her introduction to Taming Wild Thoughts, a
book posthumously edited by Francesca Bion, discusses this change:
… the Grid itself has a slight change in it: in the paper printed here, Column 5 is indicated as Oedipus, whereas the
Grid printed in Elements of Psycho-Analysis and onwards has this column labelled as Inquiry, as though the author
had decided to opt for the more general category, of which “Oedipus” is simply a special case, as the discussion of
this column in the book shows. [1997, pp. vii-viii]
Insanity, realization of: (see: Notes on the theory of schizophrenia , 1967, pp. 33-34). If
psychoanalytic treatment has been suc-cessful in helping a psychotic patient to solve processes
of massive splitting, to improve their ego and their object integration, as well as to give them a
greater awareness of reality and a proper articulation of verbal thought, the analyst, alerts
Bion, should be prepared to face an even more difficult situation. He says:
What takes place, if the analyst has been reasonably successful, is a realization by the patient of psychic reality; he
realizes that he has hallucinations and delusions, may feel unable to take food, and have difficulty with sleep. [1967,
pp. 33-34]
The patient feels hatred for the analyst, whom he blames for everything bad that is happening to
him. The analyst, on the other hand, would have to reassure the family, now concerned about
the patient’s welfare, and to keep distant the surgeon and electroshock therapist who would like
to profit from the situation. But the most important situation, according to Bion, would be to
avoid the patient’s rejection of the awareness he now has of being “crazy” and of the
transference hatred against someone he feels was courageous enough finally to bring him to
face all he had been trying to avoid throughout his life.
Instincts: The most important difference between what Freud and Klein said about instincts is
based on the separation between drives as independent forces and drives as object
representations. Bion, on the other hand, emphasizes as “a more fruitful division”, a polarization
between narcissism and what he refers to as “social-ism":
By these two terms I wish to indicate the two poles of all instincts. This bi-polarity of the instincts refers to their
operation as elements in the fulfilment of the individual’s life as an individual, and as elements in his life as a social
or, as Aristotle would describe it, as a “political” animal. [1992, p. 105]
The problem, he states, is not around the dichotomy between ego and sexual instincts, but in
relation to their tendencies, if love (L) impulses are narcissistic, then hate (H) would be aimed
at the group and vice versa; if hate is directed against the individual, the group would be loved
socially (ibid., p. 122). The ego is involved in this conflict, because it is the ego that establishes
a link between internal and external realities, between narcissism and social-ism.
It is possible that Bion’s experience during War World I might have had some influence
on the conception of this form of polarization:
The exclusive mention of sexuality ignores the striking fact that the individual has an even more dangerous problem
to solve in the operation of his aggressive impulses, which, thanks to this bi-polar-ity, may impose on him the need
to fight for his group with the essential possibility of his death, while it also imposes on him the need for action in
the interests of his survival. [ibid., pp. 105-106]

Nebbiosi and Petrini (2000) suggest that what defines this polarization between self and
group is “common sense”, because exactly what provides cohesion to the senses inside is also
what provides a sense to the relation with the group (pp. 174-177). If, by any chance, the
individual feels attacked by the group and is not able to reach a consensus between both criteria,
the interest towards the self could create a rejection of the group (hate), turning his attention to
what he believes or does (love), because his common sense might help him to see how unfair
the reaction of the group is. An example taken from Bion’s work, could be the relationship
between the mystic and the establishment.
Integrative reticulum: Described by Elliot Jaques (1960) as part of a mental mechanism
necessary, according to him, to conceive a total object. He defines it as follows. The integrative
reticulum is the mental schema of the completed object and the means of creating it, organized
in such a manner that the gaps both in the mental picture of the object and in the methods of
creating it are established. Consciously, it is a combination of any or all of concepts, theories,
hypotheses, and working notions or hunches. Unconsciously, it is a constellation of ideas-in-
feeling, memories-in-feeling, phantasies, and internal objects—brought together and
synthesized to the extent necessary to direct behaviour, even if not sufficiently to become
conscious (p. 360).
Interference: When questioned about this concept, Bion said:
When you are talking to your patient you can sometimes see and feel that he is not attending to you. At the same
 time you can feel that he is attending to something; the conversation between the patient and the analyst is being
interfered with. That is what I mean by interference. Are you going to pay attention to what he tells you, or what
your books have told you, or are you going to pay attention to the interference? …What you have to listen to then is
psycho-analytic ‘interference’, just as somebody had to listen to radio interference. [1974a, pp. 72-73]

Interpretation: Psychoanalytic interpretations, says Bion, could be understood as theories

sustained by the analyst in relation to models and theories the patient feels about the analyst,
and if correct in expression as well as in content, they might be able to exercise a therapeutic
effect (1963, p. 17). Also, from the point of view of metatheory, that is, beyond theory, Bion
synthesizes interpretations as “those words, or collection of words, which indicate a constant
conjunction of elements” (1992, p. 257).
“An interpretation should not be given on a single association; a single association is open
to an enormous number of interpretations” (ibid., p. 210). Just as two different points might
determine the direction of a line in Euclidian geometry, two different associations (or more)
might also provide the direction that the interpretation would eventually trail. Usually, the
choice about when and how to interpret is determined by the analyst’s personality and historical
development (1965, p. 166). There are also other variables capable of affecting the form in
which an interpretation is made, and they should be avoided: (a) to make it just because it is
available, an attitude that would correspond to column 2 in the Grid; (b) to avoid turbulences
in the analyst; (c) recondite interpretations related to distant “desires” in the analyst belonging
to the area of the hyperbole (ibid., p. 167). The interpretation represents the product of a
relation based on K and not on L or H (1963, p. 70). In relation to O, Bion said: “The
interpretation is an actual event in an evolution of O that is common to analyst and analysand”
(1970, p. 27).
Bion researches the interpretation from several perspectives:
(A) According to functions theory, α-function changes sense impres-sions related to emotional
experiences into α-elements that will cohere as they proliferate, would be able to agglomerate,
to order sequentially and give the appearance of a narrative; something Bion has referred to as
the contact barrier. In this sense, α-function is indispensable for the transformation of
emotions into something meaningful like α-elements, and this is precisely what the
interpretation attempts to achieve, to help patients provide a meaning to their emotions in such a
way that they could learn from them, a process that necessarily requires the presence of α-
function (1962, pp. 17-18).
(B) From the point of view of container-contained ( ) theory, where contents ( ) represent
doubts, questions or variables bound by emotional experiences that sequentially add to each
other in a series that could be represented as: n + n; a process that will eventually guarantee
the growth of the apparatus for thinking and the possibility of learning from experience.
Such learning would depend on the capacity of n to integrate while at the same time remaining
open, free from rigidities and ready for successive and future assimilations. An individual who
uses this mechanism, will show that he is capable of withholding experience, learning from the
interpretation, and also, associate it with past experiences. The level of K will depend on the
capacity to sustain container–contained relations of a “commensal” kind, where the three
elements involved: patient (+ ), analyst (+ ) and the interpretation (+K) would benefit from
each other. However, if the interaction is dominated by strong feelings of envy, the relationship
might become destructive, something Bion represents as -( ) and the link between them as -K.
In contrast with n + n, the relation would be: - n- n, where + is replaced by envy, and the
contained, subdued by the container, is stripped from its meaning leaving only worthless
remnants. This is exactly what happens to any interpretation when it is contained by a mind
dominated by envy that will convert it into - , or something insignificant like a simple noise;
different from the relation +( ) dominated by K, where the interpretation under a process of
abstraction promotes growth and learning (1962, pp. 96-99). Bion believes that a “sense of
achievement of a correct interpretation will be commonly found to be followed almost
immediately by a sense of depression” (1970, p. 124).
(C) From the point of view of the theory of transformation, Bion states that from the vertex of
any specific psychoanalytical theory, all interpretations are transformations of representations
embodying invariants, thus all interpretations can be meaningful depend-ing on the invariants
that they contain, for instance the Oedipus situation.
Just as impressionism can be regarded as a method of transforming landscape into a painting, so the grouped analytic
techniques are part of transformation of analytic experiences into interpretation. As the painter’s transformations
vary according to the understanding his painting is to convey, so the analyst’s transformation will vary according to
the understanding he wishes to convey. [1965, p. 5]
When the patient and the analyst agree upon a certain interpretation, this can be symbolized by
the signs Tp and Tap34, and since it has been shared by two persons, it is not a private but a
public communication. In psychoses the interpretation should illuminate the condition of the
apparatus for thinking, the nature of its deficiencies and associated drives, for instance, that an
impulse might induce a defect in a particular form of thinking, or the opposite, that frustration,
induced by failure to solve a problem, brings about a destructive attack on the analytic situation
(ibid., p. 60).
The interpretation should also facilitate the transition from knowing about O to becoming
O. Bion describes a particular form of perversion where the patient induces growth of K in
order to obstruct a growth to O. He said:
By agreeing with the interpretation it is hoped that the analyst will be inveigled into a collusive relationship to
preserve K without being aware that he is doing so. If the manoeuvre is successful transformations in K fulfil an F235
role preventing the inception of Tα→ Tβ = K→ O. [ibid., p. 160]

Interpretations that imply becoming O can produce apprehension, because they might be
experienced as related to megalomania, or what the psychiatrist calls delusions of grandeur (to
be like God) (ibid., p. 164).
(D) Referring to the scope of the interpretation, Bion suggested that if he was correct in
assuming that phenomenon is known but reality becomes, the interpretation should be able to
provide something more than just increasing knowledge. It could be argued that this
“something” should not really be a concern of the analyst, for he can only “increase
knowledge”; the rest, the more advanced steps to reduce the gap should come from the
analysand, most of all from his “Godhead”, or the capacity of O to “incarnate” in the person of
the analysand. Bion uses the Godhead, as a concept taken from religion to signify the capacity
of at-one-ment with God, something Bion uses as a simile to explain the capacity to become O
or the ultimate truth. See: Godhead, Meister Eckhart, O, Psychoanalytic listening, Pure
and absolute interpretation, Transferential interpretation.
Interpretation, pure and absolute: see: Pure and absolute interpretation.
Intra-uterine life:36 In “Inhibition, symptoms and anxiety” Freud (1926) said: “There is much
more continuity between intra-uterine life and earliest infancy than the impressive caesura of
the act of birth would have us believe” (p. 138). Based on this statement Bion questioned:
After all, if anatomists can say that they detect a vestigial tail, if surgeons likewise can say that they detect tumours
which derive from the branchial cleft, then why should there not be what we would call mental vestiges, or archaic
elements, which are operative in a way that is alarming and disturbing because it breaks through the beautiful, calm
surface we ordinarily think of as rational, sane behaviour? [1987, p. 308]

Bion presupposed that the foetus, at the end of gestation, could be aware of unpleasant
oscillations in the amniotic fluid as a consequence to contacts between the parents, or something
similar, or hear voices or loud noises coming from the mother’s digestive system, etc. Bion
thinks that at this level of nearly full-term, the personality might develop to experience feelings
of hostility towards these disturbing things: proto-ideas or proto-feelings , that would split them
up, fragment them and try to evacuate them. He also suggested the existence of certain
conditions that could appear at a given moment to be so ephemeral, so imperceptible that we
might not even be aware of them, but that could later on become so real that they might even
destroy us without our being conscious of them (ibid., p. 318). See: Caesura, Proto-thoughts,
Ideogram.
Intuit: It means intuition by means of perception. Bion proposes that this concept be used in the
psychoanalytic domain in the same way a physician will use see , touch , smell , and hear ,
because anxiety, for instance, has no smell or taste.37(1970, p. 7). He argues about the existence
of a psychoanalytic domain with its particular intuitable realities:
I am supposing that there is a psychoanalytic domain with its own reality—unquestionable, constant, subject to
change only in accordance with its own rules even if those rules are not known. These realities are “intuitable” if the
proper apparatus is available in the condition proper to its functioning … The conditions in which the intuition
operates (intuits) are pellucid and opaque. [1992, p. 315]

The opacities that obstruct such aptitude to intuit psychoanalytic reality, are revealed by Bion
as “understanding, memory and
desire"; conditions that can be avoided only through permanent and continuous discipline.
Invariants: Specific characteristics of an object that, by remaining unaltered regardless of any
transformation experienced by that object, will allow the identity of that object. An
interpretation, for instance, carries invariants that belong to some particular psychoanalytic
theory, like the Oedipus situation (1965, p. 4).
The relationship between invariant and constant, on one hand, and variable or non-
saturated element, on the other, is represented by Bion with the formula K(ξ), representing an
ideogram where both, the latent content, the invariant or unconscious phantasy, coexist with
the manifest content and variable or non-saturated element (1974, p. 25).
Invisible-visual hallucination: Bion describes this kind of hallucination in relation to a patient
who suddenly sat on the couch and stared attentively into space. When interpreted that it
seemed that he was looking at something, he answered that he “could not see what he saw”.
Bion concludes that the patient is dealing with an invisible object, a kind of hallucination related
with dreams in psychotic patients, which are usually mentioned but never described because
the images of which they are made of had suffered a process of splitting that makes it
impossible to recognize the existence of real objects and to be able to refer to them. In these
patients dreams are used as a process of discharge of the mental apparatus, a condition that
reaches the extreme in the case of invisible-visible hallucinations. Bion states:
 …this evacuatory process may not reach the extremes that are represented by invisible visual hallucinations that are
the outcome of transformation into pictorial images, extremely minute fragmentation, and ejection by the eyes to a
great distance. Some degree of pictorialization and other transformations take place to form the (from the analyst’s
point of view) bizarre, hallucinatory objects. [1992, p. 79]

Note
32 The concept of the imaginary twin reminds us of Fairbairn’s (1952) concept of the
internal saboteur , of Freud’s (1919) work on the phenomenon of the “double” based on
Rank’s (1914) contributions, and more recently, of publications such as those of Aray and
Bellagamba (1971), Lopez-Corvo (1980).
33 Although there is not a precise date when this was written, Francesca Bion believed it
could have been in 1963, at the time Elements of Psycho-Analysis was published (see 1997,
pp. vii-viii).
34 See “abbreviations” at the beginning of this dictionary.
35 See the Grid.
36 There is a wide Latin-American psychoanalytic literature about “foetus’ psychics” or
intra-uterine life, such as the works of Aray (1992) and Raskovky (1958).
37 Communicating with patients presents similar limitations; how do we know what
patients are talking about if their anxiety has no physical qualities, like odour or taste? The
only reference we have in these cases, is our own.
J

Judgement: According to Freud (1911), one of the functions used by the ego to achieve
awareness of reality, together with attention, notation, action and thought, is judgement; a
condition that allows the ego to discriminate between a true and a false idea, or to know if it
could develop to take the place of the repressed. In psychotic patients, not capable of
discriminating between reality and phantasy—Bion states—judgement as a function of the
mind has been repressed and expelled inside some external object to become part of a bizarre
object that will then contain the patient’s “capacity to judge” (1967, p. 81).
K

K(ξ): Represents a formula used by Bion, where K signifies a constant, for example the
repetitive aspects of the Oedipus myth: triangulation, exclusion, envy, incest, etc.; and t, is a
sign that stands for a non-saturated element that could be represented by those particular or
latent aspects of the myth, such as the specific courses the tragedy might have pursued in each
individual. It can also represent an “ideogram” containing “what is not spoken (constant) but is
articulated (variable)” (1974, pp. 23-25).
K: see: Minus K
Keats, John, see: Negative capability, Language of achievement. (See references.)
K link: Bion uses the initial of the word “knowledge” to designate the capacity to “know”
something; not about what is already known, but about the propensity to know or to contain:
“Knowledge” has no meaning unless it means that someone knows something, and this … is an assertion of
relationship, or of some part of a relationship. The term, “knowledge” I propose provisionally to employ to describe
a state of mind indissolubly associated with a relationship between communicable awareness on the one hand, and
the object of which the person feels thus aware, on the other. [1992, p. 271]

K represents, together with L (love) and H (hate), a hypothesis that expresses a constant
conjunction. These links, L and H, remain sub-ordinated to K in a fashion similar to the
subordination that exists between a basic assumption and a work group (W). L and H are
respectively related to the classical conceptions of sexual and aggres-sive instincts made by
Freud (1917), whereas K appears to follow a line similar to Klein’s (1931) notion of the
epistemophilic instinct or drive to knowledge. However, Bion has provided knowledge with
such a level of relevance and independence, as was never previously emphasized (see Green,
2000, p. 122).
From a container-contained ( ) theory perspective, the level of K will depend on the
capacity to sustain container-contained relationships of a “commensal” type, where the three
elements involved, for instance: baby (+ ), mother (+ ) and mental growth (+K), would benefit
from each other (1962, p. 91); or the relationship between a thinker who contains an idea or
invention, and a purpose that is beneficial for both the thinker and the invention. Contents ( )
represent doubts, questions or variables bound by emotional experiences that sequentially add
to each other in a series that can be represented as: n + n; a process that will eventually
guarantee growth of the apparatus for thinking and of K, as well as the possibility of
learning from experience. Such learning would depend on the capacity of n to integrate while
at the same time remaining open, free from rigidities and ready for successive and future
assimilations. An individual who contains this mechanism, will show that he is capable of
withholding experience, learning from interpretation and, also, associating it with past
experiences. There is a successive increment in degrees of sophistication, for instance, to create
new hypotheses that will then form systems and afterwards scientific deductive systems that
can recombine again and again (ibid., pp. 92-94).
However, when the interaction is dominated by strong feelings of envy, the relationship
might become destructive, something Bion represents as -( ) and the link between them as -K.
In contrast with n + n, the relation would be: - n - n, where + is replaced by envy, and the
contained subdued by the container, is stripped from its meaning leaving only worthless
remnants. If K represents growth and α-function, -K stands for absence of α-function and
presence of thing-in-itself equal to β-elements. K should be represented as something open in
continuous transformation, always unsaturated like a state of “being knowing”, because the
level of knowledge, as can be seen for instance when comparing Freud with Bion, is always
changing as it moves closer to the truth.
From notes, written perhaps in 1960, Bion states that he has reserved the term
“knowledge” for the total sum of alpha and beta elements:
It is a term that therefore covers everything the individual knows and does not know. As I use it, the term must not be
supposed to imply the existence of a thing in itself called “knowledge”; it is a name for a postulate that has no
actuality. [1992 p. 182]
Later on Bion would discriminate between K and -K.
Grinberg et al. (1972, p. 101) states that a process of abstraction is essential to K link
emotional experience, because those elements that have been abstracted are useful for the
understanding and learning of that experience.
Knowledge: see: K.
L

L: see: Minus L.
Language of achievement: An expression Bion has borrowed from a letter written by John
Keats38 to his brother, referring to a “Man of Achievement”. It was used together with another
expression: “Negative capability” or the capacity to tolerate uncertainty. It is equivalent to the
expression: “action speaks louder than words”, that is, language is a prelude to action but also
its substitute. Although “Language of Achievement” is present during the analytic session; it
should not be a place for the analyst to react, instead he should remain sensible to it. It is a
concept related to the envy produced by the consensus that decides who is the one who knows
or who is the one that chooses what is and what is not, etc. There is a subtle difference between
the exact significance of “Language of Achievement”, on one hand, and the exact meaning of
an envious and destructive attack that would obstruct growth, on the other. It would be a
consequence of the incapacity to build a mental space in which to contain uncertainty,
ignorance or Negative Capability. It is possible that the obscurity in the explanation of this
concept, considered in the last chapter of Attention and Interpretation, might have been a
consequence of Bion’s sentiments about the rejection some of his ideas had produced within the
British Psychoanalytical Society:39
Who or what is to exercise the power and what voice is to utter the Language of Achievement is a matter of
consequence and has been accepted as such whether the field in which the struggle is carried on is the individual or
agglomerations of individuals. [1970, p. 127]

Leaderless groups: The main philosophy in this technique was introduced by Bion, and it
consists in applying mechanisms of individual psychoanalytic therapy to group dynamics as a
whole, such as maintaining the “abstinence law”, or the therapist’s intervention remaining
always on an interpretative level and directed to the totality of the group’s unconscious
phantasy, depending on the predominant basic assumption. Interpretations directed to one
person, as a form of individual therapy taking place in public, should always be avoided. “The
endeavour that I myself make”, says Bion, “is to illuminate the obscurities of the situation in the
group by clear thinking clearly expressed” (1948b, p. 84).
One of Bion’s innovations in this form of treatment, in order to follow a parallelism with
individual analysis, was his capacity to deal with the anxieties of the “dependent group”,
always trying to establish and to profit from the status quo of a relationship based on a “doctor-
patient” model. He tried, despite the difficulties that such an attitude represented within the
group culture, to remain neutral, as another member and in the position of observer.
As I said, the doctor-patient foundation for a sophisticated structure soon shows its inadequacy, and one reason for
this is that it is only a thin disguise for the dependent group, so that emotional reactions proper to this kind of basic
 group are immediately evoked, and the structure of sophistication sags badly. [ibid., p. 79]

The dependent group can have the following disadvantages: (a) it promotes rivalry for the
leader’s attention; (b) the benefit experienced does not come from the group but from the leader
and is only possible when he speaks, something that induces the belief that the treatment is
something simple that requires little effort; (c) the “dependency game” generates feelings of
deceit and hunger for affection, because members always feel that they are not receiving enough
from the leader; (d) the belief that the therapist looks after everyone equally is never possible
and never convincing.
Learning from Experience: Bion used this expression as a title for one of his books, which
summarizes some of the clinical experience he had acquired during his previous
psychoanalytical research. He emphasizes the danger of failing to communicate accurately what
he wishes to say, or not being truthfully understood by others.
He discriminates between a form of “learning from experience”, that changes the learner,
and “learning something” that might increase information, but does not change the individual.
He refers to the hatred of “learning from the experience”, which represents the feeling that
experience is not necessary for learning, because it can be achieved suddenly, as it were by
magic. Such an attitude is often observed when patients in analysis ask about the length of
treatment, as if knowledge was only the analyst’s privilege. In relation to groups, Bion states
that this difficulty to learn can be a consequence of feeling that the “Dependence Basic
Assumption” (Dba) is insufficient and thus searching for other basic assumptions will be
needed.
Lie: The difficulty to research lies, said Bion, hinges, among other things, on the issue that the
same language required to search for the truth is also used to fabricate lies. Lies are thoughts
that require a “thinker” to formulate them; truth, however, does not require any. To say for
instance, “the sky is blue”, does not need anyone to think or formulate it, it is a truth that stands
by itself. When a “thinker” feels he is indispensable to some thought, he might feel very
envious of someone else who might also feel indispensable to the same thought. What
Descartes implicitly felt, that thoughts presupposed a thinker, is valid only for the lies (1970,
pp. 102-103).
Can a liar be psychoanalysed? Although Klein, according to Bion, felt at a given moment
that it was not possible, he thought that, usually, the analyst as well as the patient suddenly
stumbles into lies without expecting them and frequently after the treatment has began. Also,
the possibilities that lies could put themselves forth as unsaturated elements associated with -L
and -K, might leave them open to a possible saturation or realization. For instance, dealing
with a patient who is always late and repeats the same excuses, the analyst has several
possibilities: (1) to accept the excuses as if truth was of no importance to him and become its
host; (2) to turn into the patient’s conscience, representing an unthought thought; (3) or to wait
for a proper moment to appear, when he can provide the precise interpretation that might
saturate the lie with truth (1970, p. 98). On the other hand, lies can represent a reaction against
change, similar to what happens in “catastrophic change” (ibid., p. 99).
Lies can correspond to category 2 of the Grid; however, when they became evocative or
provocative of accusations and defences, they can then correspond to category 6, because they
might be capable of inducing emotional disturbances related to action. If they change into
fabrication of idealizations, resembling a myth, they could then be placed in C category. Many
liars in history have defended the world threatened by the truth of science: “It is not too much to
say that the human race owes its salvation to that small band of gifted liars who were prepared
even in the face of indubitable facts to maintain the truth of their falsehoods” (ibid., 100). The
nature of a lie might be suggested by the use of − L or -K, which enter into conflict, in theory,
with the analyst’s interest for the truth; furthermore, the intelligence and degree of
sophistication of some patients allow them continuously to make use of their resources to
convince themselves of the efficacy and superiority of lies (ibid., p. 99).
Access to the truth might be equivalent to a step taken from the paranoid-schizoid to the
depressive position. The domination of O can change into a paranoid system and a threat for
the liar, or in other words, the impact of becoming O within the territory of a “thinker” who
“thinks” the lie, is marked by persecutory feelings like those present in the paranoid-schizoid
position: O and lies are incompatible by definition.
Meltzer (1973), using the concept of “idealization of the bad object”, as well as
Rosenfeld (1971) with his notion of the “narcissistic gang”, have emphasized the idealization of
lies and the systematic attack of truth represented by the “object’s goodness”. In this case,
following Bion, the relationship between thinker and lie is equivalent to a parasitic form of
container-contained interaction where both destroy each other (ibid., p. 103). In this sense,
Bion has suggested the creation of a “negative Grid”, some kind of a mirror image of the
regular Grid capable of representing concepts such as lies, equivalent to category 2 as well as -
L, − H and -K.
Bianchedi et al. (2000) discriminate between: (a) the lie as a kind of defence; and (b)
another form representing a projective identification destined to denude the receptor of any
contact with the truth (pp. 220-235). For Bléandonu (1994) lies represent an attack on free
association making analysis an impossible task. Grotstein (1996) states that psychotic patients,
because of their closeness with O, will confuse O with K, while neurotics and normal persons
will do the opposite, confuse K with O.

Line, the (——): Could be conceptualized in a manner similar to the point (.) and the circle (O),
corresponding to visual images that remain invariable in the face of many situations, and are
used by Bion as geometric representations of symbols. Different from the point that has been
used to represent the “place where the breast was”, or the circle signifying the “no-inside-or-
outside” (O), the line, because of its shape, represents the absent penis or the place where the
penis was, or no-penis. It would correspond in the Grid to category A1, the same as “no-breast”
or Ǧ-elements. The line can be annihilated and changed into a series of points, or into a single
point, to the place where the point was. “The point” concludes Bion, “is thus indestructible”
(1965, p. 95). Bion also questions whether line and point should not be considered together, like
“different manifestations of one entity” (ibid., p. 89). He considers the existence of a minus line:
-——, similar to a minus point: -., capable of holding meaning similar to the “no-thing”, not
only because they represent the footprint of something that once was but no longer is, but
mainly because while they are capable of retaining a notion of time, while they keep their
duration, they will not be empty of past and future. See: point, circle, no-thing, no-breast,
complex conjugates.
Link (linking): see: Emotional link, Attacks on linking.

Listening: see: Psychoanalytic listening.

L (love) link: Represents a psychoanalytic element taken from the initial of the word Love,
and used by Bion to denote, together with H and K, one of the passions or feelings, as well as a
dynamic link that, following mechanisms of container-contained, bound different elements in
the Grid (1963, pp. 34-35). Bion also considers the existence of -H, -L and -K, although he
says little about − L and -H. In relation to love, Bion says so precisely:
A term like “love” cannot describe something even as well as the term, “the love of God”—that at least makes an
attempt to introduce an element that shows that it is not a discussion about something that is so simple as physical
love known to the human animal. A lioness nuzzles and shows every sign of feelings of love and affection—if
interpreted in human terms—for prey it has destroyed; but it is murderous love, the love that destroys the loved
object. Such visual images may be used to talk about love, even what we imagine to be mature love, but there is
some other love that is mature from an absolute standard. This other love, vaguely adumbrated, vaguely
foreshadowed in human speech, is of an entirely different character; it is not simply a quantitative difference in the
kind of love one animal has for another or which the baby has for the breast. It is the further extension to “absolute
love”, which cannot be described in the terms of sensuous reality or experience. For that there has to be a language of
infra-sensuous and ultra-sensuous, something that lies outside the spectrum of sensuous experience and articulate
language. [1992, pp. 371-372]

Love: see: L.

Note
38The fragment of this letter that inspired Bion to describe “Language of Achievement”
and “Negative Capability”, can be found in the description of this last concept, in the last
chapter of Bion’s book Attention and Interpretation.
39 See, for instance, Donald Meltzer’s ambivalence in “The Kleinian Development, Part
III”, in The Clinical Significance of the Work of Bion (1978).
M

Magic: Bion defines magic as an attempt to control the physical environment, and “ritual”, as a
part of magic concerned with the control of the spiritual world. There are two areas of
importance in magic that eventually developed into scientific research: one is Astrology, that
gave place to astronomy based on mathematical calculation; the other is alchemy that produced
experimental chemistry. This can make one think that the existence of a universal spirit or
principle animating the world could be “a psychoanalytic fact”. Bion adds: “The gap between
theories of psychoanalysis on one side and invocation and prayer on the other is narrow.
Sometimes it becomes narrower; sometimes it widens” (1992, p. 298).

Marbles: see: Transformations.

Maternal reverie40 Concept based on Kleinian projective identification theory (1962, p. 90)
and mentioned by Bion in his “Theory of thinking” (1967, p.116). It refers to the mother’s
capacity to develop a psychological receptor organ capable of metabolizing the baby’s
conscious sensuous information and transform it into α-elements, which are in turn necessary to
develop α-function (See: factor and function) and a thinking apparatus. “Reverie”, says
Bion, “is a factor of the mother’s alphα-function” … her love is expressed by reverie (1962, p.
36).
According to him, a normal development takes place if the relationship between the baby
and the breast enables the baby to project inside the mother a feeling such as, for instance, that
he is dying, and then re-introject it after its permanence in the breast has made it more tolerable
for the baby’s mind. If the projection is not accepted by the mother the baby feels his death to
be real and instead of re-introjecting a more tolerable fear of dying, he will re-introject a
nameless terror. The baby benefits from the mother’s daydreaming or capacity for reverie, just
in the same way he benefits from the milk he consumes that is digested in the digestive canal. If
the α-function is the one that makes available to the baby that which in other circumstances
would be unavailable for any purpose except for evacuation as β-elements, “… what are the
factors of this function that relate directly to the mother’s capacity for reverie?” (ibid., p. 36). If
the mother’s reverie is not associated with love for the baby, this fact will be communicated to
him although in an incomprehensible way41 Bion associates reverie only with feelings of love
and hate from the child, and believes it to be a factor of the mother’s α-function, which permits
a total disclosure towards the reception of any projective identification coming from the baby
regardless of being felt as a good or bad object (1962, p. 36; 1974, pp. 83-85). See: Projective
identification, Alphα-function, Alpha element, Tropism, Nameless terror.

Mathematical objects: see: Psychoanalytic objects.

Mathematical symbols: Bion considers that symbols, such as addition, subtraction,

multiplication and division (+, −, x and +), can represent different forms of interaction:
This and this and this and this = a table (addition);
A table without legs or a top or hardness or softness = a hallucination (subtraction);
A table multiplied by today and tomorrow and the next day and the next day = lots of tables;
But if it is the same table? And if two people have to share it, is the table divided by two? [1992, p. 274]

Meaning: Represents the relationship between the opinion one might have of oneself
(narcissism)—or self-esteem or meaning— and the opinion others have (social-ism). Bion states
that the importance in psychoanalysis of the “narcissism-social-ism” extension can be better
understood, if the relationship between meaning and narcissism is considered. The breast is an
essential source from where to gather meaning—or even more, it is meaning itself—or
narcissistic relevance, which later will be translated into love, understanding, and meaning, as
well as incrementing the capacity to learn. This last skill is observed in the response towards the
interpretation, which can be considered either as a criticism or as a source of knowledge and
insight. The loss of the breast, regardless of the reason, is translated into a fear of losing
everything, as well as a fear of losing all meaning, as if the person were “a material thing” that
had ceased to exist (1965, p. 81).
Meaning is a function of the kind of love (L), hate (H) and knowledge (K) we might feel
about ourselves. The criticism of a universe without meaning, said Bion, regardless of how big
or small that might be, derives from the fear that such lack of significance could be a sign that it
has been completely destroyed, something that might change into a threat to the person’s own
narcissism. When this happens, that is, when the universe cannot provide meaning, a belief that
meaning could be obtained from some powerful beings or objects might develop. Incapacity to
experience love of oneself can translate into intolerance towards meaning or its absence (ibid.,
p. 73). It could be thought in this sense, that significance is associated with hope, depending on
whether the opinion given by someone else is positive or negative, like the patient who demands
the analyst’s interpretation regardless of what has been said, just for the comforting sound of the
voice, as an attempt to deny an internal (narcissistic) lack of meaning (ibid., pp. 81, 101). There
is the danger in these cases that analysis could halt, because the patient’s need to project
“insignificance” could be acted out by minimizing the interpretation, coming late, missing
sessions, reversing perspective or eventually discontinuing altogether. See: Dreams, Dream-
work, Dream thought.

Mechanical links: see: Dynamic links

Medical model, the: In relation to medicine, Bion said:

The parallel with medicine was, and still is, useful. But as psycho-analysis has grown so it has been seen to differ
from physical med-icine until the gap between them has passed from the obvious to the unbridgeable. [1970, p. 6]
An important difference between physical and mental categories is based on the quality of
realizations, while the former depends on sensuous experiences, such as touch, vision, smell,
etc., the latter lacks these kind of realizations: anxiety for instance, has no taste or smell. Bion
recommends that psychoanalysts make use of the term “intuit” in the same way smell, touch or
test, etc., is used within the medical domain. While the model of realizations is linked to the
presence of objects, the mind has to deal with absences, with “no-things” or nothingness.
Communicating with patients presents similar limitations: how do we know what patients are
talking about if their anxiety has no physical qualities? The only reference we depend on in
these cases is our own, because there is no odour or taste to compare.
Eigen, trying to explain Bion, said, “To treat the mind as a thing, would mean to murder
it” (1995). To avoid the difficulty of containing the no-thing, not only do we fill no-thing with
things, but we also relate to no-things as if they were things. Intolerance to mental pain induces
the need to free the mind from such pain with the use of β-elements—since they are good only
for evacuation— by means of projective identifications and acting-out (corresponding to
category 2 of the Grid). The capacity to tolerate pain induced by the absence of the “thing” or
the “no-thing”, on the other hand, is a good protection for psychic life, to guard it from being
changed into a thing like the body, or from being reduced to the condition of a thing.
Viewed from a different perspective, somatic language displaces speech-unconscious
scotomas that have been suppressed, filling them with soma, while the symptoms, often
conditioned by culture, determine the profile of neurosis. Animism or magic is the product of
the incapacity to conceive a notion of totality, to conceive those dimensions that form the
architecture of total objects, instead magic or animism creates the paradox of denuding life from
live objects and projects it into inanimate things, this in turn represents, as is often observed,
the culture of potential violence, for life becomes worthless. It represents a flat or bi-
dimensional perception of the world, where there is no sense of selfness, of identity, and
analysis would not be different from a mechanical intervention as if the patient perceived
him/herself as a machine. The body can be experienced as alien, even as someone else’s affair,
but the mind represents the place of “selfhood”, of at-one-ment with oneself and thus the only
path through which to achieve autonomy.

Medicine: see: Medical model.

Meister Eckhart or Eckehart: German Dominican monk and mystic philosopher, born in
Hochheim in 1260 and dying probably by 1328 in Avignon, France. His real name was
Johannes (Johann) Eckhart von Hochheim, but after obtaining a master’s degree in theology in
Paris, he became known as Meister Eckehart. Accused of heresy, some of his sermons and
writings were posthumously condemned and were almost forgotten until more recently when
interest has revived, both inside and outside of religion, the latter mostly from Zen Buddhism.
A review of a number of his sermons reveals some of this connection; for instance, when
referring to God, Eckhart said: “He is He because He is not He” or “Separate yourself from all
two-ness, Be one on one, one with one, one from one”. The sense of universality sensed in this
and many other quotations, made some scholars consider him a Pantheist as well as a follower
of Plotinus’ Neoplatonism.
 Bion has chosen Eckhart, as well as Saint John of the Cross, because of their mystic
experience and sense of inner illumination in what they have described as an union or at-one-
ment with God. Bion uses these experiences as a paradigm of what he wished to portray in his
description of the meaning of O. This is why some have judged O to have a “metaphysical and
religious meaning” (Symington and Symington, 1966, p. 10). Bion described O as:
that which is the ultimate reality represented by terms such as ultimate reality, absolute truth, the godhead, the
infinite, the thing-in-itself … does not fall in the domain of knowledge or learning save incidentally … It is darkness
and formlessness but it enters the domain K when it has evolved to a point where it can be known, through
knowledge gained by experience, and formulated in terms derived from sensuous experience; its existence is
conjectured phenomenologically. [1970, p. 26]

Bion’s interest in Eckhart’s Godhead, is not so much on the “contained” ( ), on what is

contained as a proof of God’s existence or any other religious concern; his interest is directed
towards the phenomenology of the experience itself, towards the “container” ( ) that
experiences such union with something unknown, unthinkable, the ineffable, the truth itself or
ultimate reality. For Bion, the revelation of the mystic with his God, whatever this God might
be, is similar to the revelation experienced by the psychoanalyst while listening with “floating
attention”, without “memory or desire”, with O, with the ineffable, the unknown, unthinkable,
the truth itself or ultimate reality, of what the patient might be expressing in that particular
moment.

A Memoir of the Future: Trilogy written by Bion in the seventies, during the time he spent in
California. He refers to this book as a “science fiction” story, possibly modelled around the
three songs of Dante or Milton (Bléandonu, 1994), and perhaps inspired by the literary style of
Joyce and Ezra Pound, according to professor Meotti (2000). It consists of three parts
sequentially published: The Dream (1975), The Past Presented (1977b) and The Dawn of
Oblivion (1979). In 1979 they were all published in one book with the title A Memoir of the
Future (1991).
According to Bion Talamo (1997) in the first place, this book represents some kind of
theatre script, and its reading was “intended to be interactive … in the sense that the reader is
supposed to react emotionally: emotions first and reasoning afterward”. In the second place, its
reading also entails some kind of attention similar to the one required by the analyst during
psychoanalytic listening, which could be validated by common sense obtained from him and
from the psychoanalytic community. In the third place, she feels that Bion demands from his
readers, patience in order to tolerate:
The paranoid-schizoid position, induced by the fragmentary, nonlinear, non-narrative presentation of the text, long
enough for a selected fact, α-element, to emerge and convey the reader to a temporary island of “security”. “Oh, so
that’s what he’s getting at!” But this is precisely what Bion thinks happens in an analytic session at its best, so that
the reading of A Memoir of the Future, on one level, is an exercise in the PS↔D shifts and oscillations, a sort of
practical demonstration of them—so it is hardly surprising that it is tough going. [p. 238]

Francesca Bion (1995), on the other hand, referring to this volume depicts it as a:
“magnum opus” (it is certainly a hefty tome of almost seven hundred pages) is a fictionalized, dramatized
presentation of a lifetime’s experiences, filled with a crowd of characters voicing the many facets of his own
personality and thought; at the same time we recognize ourselves among the “dramatis personae.” Had he remained
in England he would certainly not have felt able to express himself in this frank and revelatory way. [p. 12]
And Bion himself made the following warning in the epilogue:
“All my life I have been imprisoned, frustrated, dogged by common-sense, reason, memories, desires and—greatest
bug-bear of all— understanding and being understood. This is an attempt to express my rebellion, to say “Good-bye”
to all that. It is my wish, I now realize doomed to failure, to write a book unspoiled by any tincture of common sense,
reason, etc. So although I would write, “Abandon Hope all ye who expect to find any facts, scientific, aesthetic or
religious—in this book” I cannot claim to have succeeded. All of these will, I fear, be seen to have left their traces,
vestiges, ghosts hidden within these words; even sanity, like “cheerfulness,” will creep in.” [Bion, F., 1995, p. 13]

It is possible that this trilogy represents a sort of “Biography of his unconscious life”, just
as the The Long Week-end (1982) and All my Sins Remembered (1985) represent a “Biography
of his conscious life”.

Memory: For Bion memory is related to K, it relies on the senses and it represents a container
that contains the past—which might try to evacuate by means of projective identification—
but does not contain the future because this does not exist, unless it has been changed into a
past. Memories are possessions, similar to desires, although the latter can possess the memory
and the mind, when they change, under certain circumstances, into a container that imprisons
memory. The analyst who knows and remembers everything is not able to learn, instead he
would appear as a saturated element unable to absorb anything else. It is important for the
analyst, while listening to his patient, to discriminate between memories that saturate and the
capacity to remember (1970, p. 107). Memory cannot be trusted because its origins are either
retentive or evacuative, dominated by the pleasure principle and with a tendency to remember
what is pleasant and to forget what is not.
As a recompilation of past events, memory is usually distorted due to the presence of
unconscious forces, such as “desires” for instance, which can act as a resistance to
remembering, something delineated by Freud in his description of ‘screen-memories’.
Memories deal with the past, while desires deal with the future, but psychoanalysis depends on
the present, on what is happening now:
Every session attended by the psychoanalyst must have no history and no future. What is known about the patient is
of no further consequence: it is either false or irrelevant. … If it is “known” by the one but not the other, a defence or
grid category 2 element (1,2) (see Grid, p. 295) is operating… . Nothing must be allowed to distract from intuiting
that. [1992, p. 381]

Bion distinguished between evolution and memory. He defines the first as the “experience
where some idea or pictorial impression floats into the mind …” and is regarded as “based on
experience that has no sensuous background but is expressed in terms that are derived from the
language of sensuous experience” (ibid., p. 383); for instance, to say “I see”, meaning a form of
intuiting through a visual impression. Memory, on the other hand, implies the conscious and
deliberate attempt to recall something (ibid.). See: Desire, Evolution, Act of faith,
Psychoanalytic listening.

Mental counterpart: Bion uses this expression to describe the inner representation of a given
situation, for instance to visualize an internal figure without any outside representation: it is
similar to the use of “the inward eye”, “seen in imagination”, etc. “I consider this activity”, says
Bion, “to depend on a ‘mental counterpart of the sense of sight’. Similarly the ‘bitterness’ of a
memory is dependent on a mental counterpart of the alimentary system similarly with others
including the reproductory system” (1965, p. 91). See: vertex, internal reproductory system.

Mental development: see: Growth.

Mental disaster: see: Psychological disaster.

Mental pain: Considered by Bion as a “psychoanalytical element” and an essential part of the
whole analysis, not because it is indispensable as a sort of achievement, but because if there is
no pain it means the analysis is leaving out a “central reason for the patient’s presence” (1963,
p. 62). Many patients feel analysis should implicitly carry a decrease of pain, however, it is not
necessarily so; what analysis does accomplish is an increase in the capacity to tolerate suffering.
The analogy with physical medicine is noteworthy, in the sense that to destroy the capacity to
feel pain can be very dangerous, unless you are dealing with death. For instance, posture can be
a form of avoiding physical pain; in a similar way, patients can resort to reversible perspective
as a means of avoiding pain, by changing something dynamic into something static (ibid., pp.
60-63).
Using these contributions from Bion, Joseph (1981) has presented an article: “Toward the
experiencing of psychic pain”, where she compares tolerance of mental suffering with Keats’
expression “negative capability”, used by Bion.

Mental space: Described by Bion as a synonym of O, as a thing-in-itself, or the unknowable,

although capable of thought representation (1963, p. 22). “In thought”, said Bion, “I include all
that is primitive, including alphα-elements … I exclude, arbitrarily by definition, betα-
elements” (1970, p. 11). Psychotic patients or the psychotic part of the personality, on the
other hand, lack the equipment, such as α-function, that would help them map the realization
of a mental space. Their position would be “analogous to that of the geometer who had to await
the invention of Cartesian co-ordinates before he could elaborate algebraic geometry (ibid., p.
12). They lack the conception of a container into which the projective identification can take
place, something equivalent to the absence of a coordinate system such as α-function capable of
producing α-elements and thought representations. In psychotic patients the mental realization
of space is “felt as an immensity so great that it cannot be represented even by astronomical
space because it cannot be represented at all” (ibid.). Therefore, capacity to experience
emotions, use verbal thoughts or to be aware of time and space, are all destroyed, leaving
only debris that float and get dispersed in the immensity. It is accompanied by feelings of panic,
or “psychotic panic”42 that the patient often expresses “by sudden and complete silence”,
equivalent to moving to “an extreme as far from a devastating explosion as possible” (ibid.).
Bion makes comparisons with the condition seen in some patients during a “postsurgical
shock”, where the dilatation of the capillaries throughout the body increases so much that the
blood escapes inside them creating a situation similar to bleeding to death inside their own body
(ibid.).
Bion associates the theory of the “expansion of the universe” with the tendency of the
individual to escape from the Oedipal situation, something he refers to as “a kind of expansive
mental universe from primary scene to the nebulae.” Later on he writes:
 The attempt to escape will tend to betray the corresponding attempt to discover that from which escape is sought in
the expanding concepts of space as the individual travels from infancy to adulthood. The psychotic shows a desire to
occupy a very small space. [1992, p. 204]

He also tries to differentiate between “physical limits” and “mental realities”, where the former
is considered to be limited and concrete, whereas the latter is conceived as infinite and
unknown, “because we do not know where the boundaries of the mind are, or where the
impulses commence” (ibid., pp. 372-373). See: beta-space, no-breast, nameless terror.

Mental suffering: see: Mental pain.

Messiah: see: Mystic.

Messianic idea: In group dynamics it represents the “idea” produced by the couple in the
‘pairing group‘ (baP), although also considered by Bion as the counterpart of the mystic or
genius. When idea and mystic are fused, the former can consider himself as mes-siah, or in
other words, the mystic may contain the idea, or the idea may contain the mystic and thus
become an “idol”, as observed in psychotic delusions of grandeur (1970, p. 110). “The
messianic idea may be supposed to have a counterpart, the absolute truth, O, for which a
thinker is not necessary” (ibid., p. 117). The messianic idea represents the point where the
evolution of O and that of a thinker intersect, like the analyst at the moment of grasping the
unconscious phantasy during psychoanalytic listening, or when the religious man feels in
communion with God as in the Godhead. The messianic idea appears also to be similar to an
idealized phantasy, for instance the “wish to cure” or the idealization of transference (ibid., p.
119).
The messianic idea could be unknown and would then be hated or feared. People deal
with it by projection or materialization in a thing or a person, which will make it less
persecutory because it can be controlled either by idealization, and thus proved to be real, or by
realization and in turn proved not to be ideal (1992, p. 318). Scientific curiosity (representing
the conscious) characterizes a threat for the messianic idea within magic or religious beliefs
(representing the unconscious), although an important break could still remain between the two
preventing the correlation, as it can be observed in psychoanalysis (ibid., pp. 319-320).

Minus -( ): Represents a relationship where the container-contained interaction is linked to -

K. This situation is dominated by the presence of powerful feelings of envy, which Bion has
referred to as “without-ness”, which would prevent the possibility for a commensal kind of
relationship to take place. Commensal represents a kind of relationship where the three elements
involved: + , + and K (like baby, breast and thinking; or scientist, idea and invention) benefit
from each other. In contrast, when the condition is represented as: - , - , it means that a
content, subdued by a container will be denuded of every meaning, until useless remains are the
only thing left, a situation that would take place when the mind is dominated by envy (- ). In
relation to the interpretation, for instance, it would be transformed into an insignificant noise;
a condition very different from the interaction based on a +( ) dominated by K, where the
interpretation under a process of abstraction, will promote growth (1962, pp. 96-99).
“Successful operation of -( )” would be translated into an increment of - power that will
convert into - elements. “In other words alphα-elements, however obtained, are acquired
for conversion to betα-elements”, which means that the patient feels surrounded not by real
objects, but by things-in themselves, bizarre objects, representing residues of thoughts “and
conceptions that have been stripped of their meaning and ejected” (ibid., pp. 98-99).

Minus H (-H): see: Minus L (-L)

Minus K (-K): Normal growth can be achieved when a mother-child relationship is established
as a container-contained interaction dominated by a commensal link. In this condition the
baby projects his feelings inside the mother, for instance, that he is dying, and then re-introjects
it after the mother has changed it into something more bearable to the baby’s mind. This
condition represents a basic model where the apparatus for thinking thoughts can be
structured as well as the growth of K. But if the situation were dominated by envy, the baby
would split and project his feelings inside the breast together with envy and hatred, which will
hinder the possibility of establishing a + relation of a commensal type. Under these
circumstances, the breast is felt enviously to denude all good and valuable elements capable of
metabolizing the baby’s fear of death, and in its place it will force back denigrated residues that
will determine the manifestation of a nameless terror, or a container-contained interaction
between the baby and the breast, represented by Bion as -K. Such a condition is serious indeed
because the breast not only does not mitigate the fear of death, but also takes away the desire to
live (1962, pp. 97-99). Bion represents this state as - ( ) and qualifies it as a “without-ness”,
which he describes as:
… an internal object without an exterior. It is an alimentary canal without a body. It is a super-ego that has hardly
any of the characteristics of the super-ego as understood in psycho-analysis: it is “super” ego. It is an envious
assertion of moral superiority without any morals …The process of denudation continues till -cf-2 represent hardly
more than an empty superiority-inferiority that in turn degenerates to nullity. [ibid., p. 97]

If we draw two straight lines crossing each other, O will be the point where they cross
and whatever is on the left we name -K, and K what is on the right. O can be replaced by a word
like breast or penis or any other sign representing a constant conjunction, it would be
equivalent to the knowledge of the “breast” or the “penis” or K, and should be placed on the
right. For the left side it could be used a point (.) or a line (——), representing the absent breast
and the absent penis respectively equivalent to -K (1965, p 77). They could also, according to
Bion, be equivalent to an absence of space or the place where a space once was, occupied by
no-things or objects that have been violently filled with envious greed towards any object
showing existence. For instance, referring to the abstract painter, Bion said:
…that -K “space”, is the material in which, with which, on which (etc.) the “artist” in projective transformation
works. As an analogy with space may easily distort I propose to drop the term and speak of transformation in -K.
[ibid., p. 115]

Bion describes the dynamics seen in reversible perspective, as a clinical example of the
interaction between -K and K. Other examples could be used, like the case of a patient, the last
of three brothers, who remembered being sent away when very small to a summer camp.
Although he remembers little about the event, feelings appearing in the transference showed
that it was a very traumatic experience. He only remembered two situations: that he was always
carrying a camera with him, to the point that he was nicknamed “little camera”, and that he had
a dream in which he saw a car with someone inside, that was pushed away by the powerful
stream of a nearby river, which in reality was a dry water bed. Motivated by the memory of the
camera he searched family albums for pictures and felt rather bewildered after finding nothing.
It was then interpreted that the camera he carried had just that purpose, to make sure he would
remember nothing, it was a “minus camera”, to photograph absences and forgetfulness (-K) as
the only means to make sure something was completely forgotten in order to avoid a terrible
mental pain. He wished not to photograph the absent breast, or what Bion would refer to as a
“minus point”: (-.) It was the presence of an absence. He pursued his investigation further and
decided to go back to the summer campsite he had not visited since. He found the place very
different, invaded by “delinquents” and when he called at the door two “murderous dogs”
appeared. He was then told that perhaps the picture he did not wish to take was the invasion of
his memories with “murderous violence” because of the impotence he then experienced when
sent away; the only picture taken that remained, was the car with someone inside (his parents?
brothers who stayed at home?), which was being carried away, but not ever to be carried away.

Minus L (-L): Together with − H and -K, it represents a negative form of link, not equivalent
to H, as − H is not equivalent to L either. Bion provided little illustration of the meaning of − L
and -H, as he did with -K. They are related to the “absence of something” but it is not clear
what exactly was that something for Bion. “The first problem”, he says, “is to see what can be
done to increase scientific rigour by establishing the nature of -K, − L and -H.” Later he
questions:
Is it possible to glean from the mechanisms involved in this behaviour any material that will throw light on minus
phenomena …and incidentally on the problem of establishing the elements of psychoanalysis? [1963, pp. 51, 53, my
italics]

Perhaps − L could be represented by emotions observed in the transference, as in “ transference

love”, or the difference between “need” and “unconditional love”. -H, on the other hand, might
be equivalent to emotions present in autistic patients, where repudiation of the object is
achieved by means of mechanisms different from splitting and direct aggression, which Meltzer
has described as dismantling.

Minus Ps↔D (-Ps↔D): Different from the positive form of Ps↔D, that could represent
“interaction involving dispersal of particle with feelings of persecution [related to the paranoid-
schizoid position] and integration with feelings of depression” [related to depressive position]
we have according to Bion, in (minus) − Ps↔D, the following clinical characteristics:
“disintegration, total loss and depressive stupor; or intense impaction and degenerate stuporose
violence.” He adds: “Although these descriptions … are incomplete they may serve until further
experience is forthcoming” (1963, p. 52).

Model, the: A “model” represents for Bion a construction that conjugates observations related
to each other, following a non-fortuitous logic of cause-effect produced by the experience,
where the links that bound them are secondary and are expressed in the form of a narrative. A
model can be made of any observation or series of observations that would acquire coherence or
would be precipitated by a selected fact. Bion makes a difference between models made to
provide understanding of some kind of observation, and the person who creates the model. An
interpretation is a model used to provide an illumination of the latent content from a given
manifest discourse. It is precipitated by a “selected fact”, it is ephemeral and it differs from
theory in this respect: it will also require the analyst’s α-function to produce α-elements in
order to abstract the necessary elements to construct the interpretation. “The model”, says Bion,
“may be regarded as an abstraction from an emotional experience or as a concretization of an
abstraction …The model was made to illuminate the experience I had with a particular patient
and is used for comparison with the realization” (1962, p. 79). The interpretation has to be
matched against its realization to prove its degree of success or failure.
I have no compunction in discarding a model as soon as it has served or failed to serve my purpose. If a model
proves useful on a number of different occasions the time has come to consider its transformation into a theory. …
A psychoanalyst may make as many models as he chooses out of any material available to him. [ibid., p. 80]

It is important not to confuse a model with a realization, because the latter is a consequence of
the model, it is its main purpose, but it is different from the model. Abstraction might follow a
realization and from there proceed to make a model and then to elaborate a scientific deductive
system. The model, however, advises Bion, should not be confused with the realization,
because then the model would lose its purpose: “I ignore the contingency that arises when the
realization is mistakenly matched with the model; that failure is dealt with by the creation of a
new model” (ibid., p. 80). The transformation that a model has to suffer in order to allow
generalization is similar to the process by which sense data is transformed into α-elements.
Bion discriminates between models made with inanimate objects and models related to
living organisms, for instance the characteristics of growth, as is the case with psychoanalysis:
“The term mechanism implies the model of a machine which is precisely what the realization is
not” (ibid., p. 81). See: Medical model, Psychoanalytic elements.

Money: Following contributions made by Eizing (1949), Bion attempts to use group dynamics
to connect money with basic assumptions. For instance, if originally money appeared as a need
to provide the bride with a dowry—a ‘bride-price’—it would then be related with the pairing
group (baP); but if linked with the payment made to the kindred of someone murdered or
wergild, it could then be considered as expression of a flight-fight basic assumption (baF).
The dominant “ba” in a given group, for instance the political situation of a country, will
psychologically determine the value of money (1948a, pp. 109-112).
In a note made some years later, Bion explains how money can be used to measure the
position of an individual, such as the dowry, the papal bull, etc. It could represent the thing-in-
itself, determining someone’s value, like the fee paid to the analyst, which can be used either to
exalt or debase, like hiding his/her devaluation behind a high fee (1992, p. 307).

Moral System: Bion refers very briefly and defines this system as similar to the sense of
morality induced by a myth, or as its narrative cause; that is, the way elements in the myth
associate with each other. For instance, the myth of the sphinx in Oedipus, showing how men’s
curiosity turns against themselves, or the tower of Babel, trying to reach heaven; they represent
different ways in which curiosity towards knowledge changes into a sin (1963, p. 46). See:
Myth, Narrative, Oedipus, Tower of Babel, myth of.

Mystic (Genius or Messiah): They could be creative or destructive and might establish
themselves in religion as well as in science. The creative one fulfils the demands of his group,
whereas the destructive or the “mystic nihilistic” destroys his own creations: “I mean the terms
to be used only when there is outstanding creativeness or destructiveness, and the terms
‘mystic’, ‘genius’, ‘messiah’ could be interchangeable” (1970, p. 74). It is also the person who
contains or is contained by the messianic idea, in a similar form as a container contains a
content, or a meaning contains the word that expresses it (ibid., pp. 87, 110). The mystic could
be a thinker who confesses having a direct access to the truth, to God if he is religious, or to O
if he is a psychoanalyst. On the contrary, if it were the idea that contained the mystic, then he
would be transformed into an idol. The degree of falsehood between the mystic and O varies
depending on whether the container-contained relationship between them is commensal,
symbiotic or parasitic. The mystic appears in the analyst when he is capable of grasping the
patient’s unconscious, or becoming O, corresponding from the vertex of religion to the
messianic idea.

Myth: Corresponds to a primitive form of pre-conception, as well as a stage in the publication

or communication of individual private knowledge to the group (1963, p. 92). “Myths”, says
Bion, “must be defined; they must be communicable and have some of the qualities of common
sense—one might call them ‘common nonsense’” (1992, p. 186). They could be represented by
the formula K(ξ), where K represents the constant in a myth, what is always repeated, whereas
t, means what is variable, what is individual and unsaturated (1974, p. 23).
Myths correspond to category C of the Grid. Bion refers mostly to the myth of the
Garden of Eden, the Tower of Babel and the Sphinx in Oedipus, as concepts representing
evolutions of O (1970, pp. 84-85) The common fact in all of these myths is the attitude of the
deity that punishes men for their wish to satisfy their curiosity towards knowledge (ibid., p. 92).
See: Ur, Xi, also Abbreviations.

Note
40 According to the Symingtons (1966), reverie derives from Latin radix, meaning root;
“through rabere, to be furiously angry, presumably uprooted in the mind, to the Old French
reverie, rejoicing, wildness, thence to resverie, a state of delight, violent or rude language,
delirium, to rever, to dream” (p. 67n).
41 I have previously referred to these “incomprehensible feelings”, as the schizoid secret ,
that is, patients who have suffered tragedies at such an early age that later on such memories
became inaccessible. I used as a paradigm the situation that took place at the Eleusinian
Mysteries in ancient Greece, where the initiates took LSD (Kykeon) without knowing it,
during special offerings to Persephone, and afterwards were incapable of communicating the
experience, because their delusions were so private, so schizoid, that they were never able to
reach a consensus, a “common sense” to share it, fabricating through history a “secret”
impossible to make public, to disclose (Lopez-Corvo, 1993, 1994).
42 Bion has previously refer to this kind of panic as “nameless terror” (see 1967, p. 116).
N

Name: (For instance the name of a person.) Stands for something invented with the purpose of
binding together in constant conjunction, a series of phenomena of unknown meaning is
unknown. The binding performed by the “name” not only provides cohesion to a pre-
conception and prevent its components from getting dispersed and lost, but it also allows the
possibility of finding a meaning for it. When we say, for instance, “dog”, we presume we know
what we are speaking about, because the penumbra of associations related to the constant
conjunction bound by the “name” dog, represent the pre-conception. We will require the
presence of a true dog, as a realization, to reach its real meaning or concept. (1963, pp. 88-90).
The name, says Bion, is capable of accumulating meaning with the use of operations of
container-contained (2cf).

Nameless terror:43 Mentioned for the first time in 1962, in Bion’s “theory of thinking” (1967,
p. 116), when he refers to feelings experimented with by the baby when the mother is unable to
metabolize the sensory information of anxiety she has received from her baby; or in other
words, when the mother’s capacity for reverie does not exist. A normal development between
the baby and the breast is established when such a relation allows the baby to project feelings
inside his mother, for example that he is dying, and then re-introject it after its permanence in
the breast has changed it into a more bearable feeling for his mind. If such projection is not
accepted by the mother, the baby might feel that his fear of death is real, and its re-introjection
would be, not just a more tolerable fear of death, but a “nameless terror”. The baby’s
rudimentary conscious cannot deal with the demand placed on it (1967, p. 117). Another way
to say it, would be that if reverie prevails the container-contained relationship would be of a
commensal kind, because all the elements involved will benefit from this relationship and the
end result will be an apparatus for thinking and K. But if envy dominates the relationship, the
product would be -K and a nameless terror (1962, pp. 96-99), a container-contained condition
represented by Bion as -(2 c?). This condition is really serious because the breast not only does
not obstruct the wish to die, but subtracts the wish to live (ibid., pp. 97-99).

Narcissism: see: Social-ism.

Narrative: Represents a form of public and well known kind of cause-effect interaction, for
instance the narration of a renowned story. It would be different from what happens in the
selected fact, the constant conjunction or the move from paranoid-schizoid to the depressive
position, where the realization or association of elements is absolutely private, it begins by
chance but repeats itself by compulsion, tied by a constant conjunction. The Oedipus myth
represents a public narrative related to the theory of causality, equivalent to the maxim: “who
live by the sword die by the sword”. However, at the same time there is a personal side to the
Oedipus complex, the product of a constant conjunction, of how everyone has carried out their
own history, their own private travelling to build their own myth. Narrative and causality
represent the memory, of how facts once did relate—or in relation to the Oedipus myth—as
Bion stated: “where the penis once was”—and its relation to the future-”where the penis will
be”. It could be placed in category 3, or notation, of the Grid. What happened at the
crossroads in Thebes, says Bion, is something public or well known to everyone and would
correspond to column 3.
On the other hand, a word like “cat”, for example, where obviously there is not narrative,
could reunite a series of private events to a certain individual, provide a sort of personal
meaning representing a constant conjunction, or a definitory hypothesis belonging to category
C1 (1965, pp. 96-97).

Negative Capability: Represents a mental state capable of tolerating “ignorance”, uncertainty,

mystery and doubt, a condition that, according to Bion, psychoanalysts must promote. He
associates it with the depressive position and the concept of “security”. The concept is based
on an expression invented by poet John Keats in a letter written to his brother, to describe his
concept of creative receptivity:
I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke on various subjects; several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at
once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare
possessed so enormously—I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties,
mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. [1970, p. 125]

The incapacity to build a mental space that tolerates ignorance or uncertainty, induces the
creation of a language of action or Language Achievement, from where power can be
exercised arbitrarily. In a note written in 1969, Bion said:
The capacity of the mind depends on the capacity of the unconscious-negative capability. Inability to tolerate empty
space limits the amount of space available. Curiosity should be part of the dependent group, but it can share fight-
flight qualities when the wish is to avoid impending discovery (category 2). [1992, p. 304]

Reading between the lines, it could be conjectured that Bion was also referring to the
reactions he was observing in many colleagues towards his innovative ideas; such as his
emphasis on listening without memory, desire or understanding. In other words, the “negative
incapability” to tolerate spaces of ignorance and allow new discoveries to take place: instead of
a dependent group, a fight-flight basic assumption was induced.

Negative Grid: Bion has introduced the idea of the possibility of a “negative grid”, a sort of
mirror image of the Grid, a table to represent lies corresponding to column 2. He considers the
possibility of adding a “negative” extension to the standard table by expanding the horizontal
axis from-n and continuing it with -5, -4, -3, − 2 and -1. He concludes that in this way the
negative use could serve as a barrier against the unknown or against what is known but disliked.
According to the theory of transformation, the “negative Grid” represents the possibility of a
movement contrary to the movement ordinarily followed by the Grid’s axes: from H to A in the
genetic axis, and ..n to 1 in the axis of uses. Bion represents this negative movement
geometrically with arrows: ↑←. If they were to represent an object, this object would have the
following characteristics: “violent, greedy and envious, ruthless, murderous and predatory,
without respect for the truth, persons or thing” (1965, p. 102).

But if presented like this: ←. ↑ it would then mean geometrically, a “no-breast”; or in this
way: ←——→, a “no-penis”, carrying the characteristics described above. Such representation
implies a contradiction, because “a thing can never be unless it both is and is not” (1965, pp.
102-103).
Meltzer (1973), through his concept of the “idealization of the bad object”, and Rosenfeld
(1971) with his notion of the “narcissistic gang”, have emphasized the “idealization of lying”
and the systematic attack on the truth and represented the latter as the “goodness” of the object.
In a similar way, Bion refers to the relationship between the thinker and the lie, corresponding
to a container-contained parasitic relationship, where they destroy each other.

Negative growth: see: Growth.

Negro, dream of the: see: Significant dreams.

Newton, Sir Isaac: see: “Ghosts of departed quantities”.

No-breast: For Klein this represents a kind of presence-absence, that is, a negative realization,
in the sense that the absence of the breast is translated into a series of emotions that would later
consolidate as the presence of a “bad breast”, as a psychic entity opposed to the presence of the
breast or “good breast.” According to Freud, thinking, originating from ideation, acquired
special qualities of action; something that allows the mental apparatus, if motor discharge is
obstructed, to free itself from accretion of stimuli. When satisfaction is not possible (no-breast)
the future will depend on how the ego would or would not tolerate frustration. Following Bion,
the ego could: (a) use evacuative forms of thoughts or β-elements, which are projected into
internal or external objects; (b) modify the situation; (c) establish a splitting between physical
(materialistic) and mental aspects; or (d) create a thought by mating a pre-conception with a
conception or negative realization of the absent object. See projective identification, thought.
The no-breast differs from the breast and can be represented using geometric similes
such as the point (.), a mark or a stigma (σ τι γμ η), an ephemeral spot analogous to a staccato
mark in a musical score. It would correspond to a breast that has been reduced to a simple
position, to the place where the breast was, but disappeared consumed by greed or because
splitting has destroyed it leaving only its position, its σ τι γμ η (1965, p. 54). Regarding the
relationship between the psychological concept and the geometric representation, Bion
wonders: “Why then, to revert to the point and line, do these visual images lead in one case to
the efflorescence of mathematics [when absence of the breast is translated into mathematical
thoughts] and in the other to mental sterility [psychosis]?” (ibid., pp. 56-57).
Bion describes the case of a psychotic patient who continuously repeated for almost three
years that he had not been able to find icecream: “no ice-cream”, something Bion interpreted as
representing the expression “no I-scream”; he explains:
I now know that a violent attack had been delivered on a relationship in which the link between the two personalities
had been “I scream”. This had been destroyed and the place of the link “I scream” had been taken by a “no—I
scream”. The “I scream” link had itself previously been food, “ice-cream”, a “breast”, until envy and destructiveness
had turned the good breast into an ‘I scream’. In narrative form: he had been linked to his object by a good breast
(he liked ice-cream). This he had attacked, possibly bitten it in actuality. The place of the breast as link was then
taken by an “I scream”. Further attacks made it a “no—I scream”. [ibid., p. 13]

The patient’s complaint recurred over many years, something Bion did not realize until the end,
representing the immensity of time and space within the psychotic’s mind:
Mental space is so vast compared with any realization of three-dimensional space that the patient’s capacity for
emotion is felt to be lost because emotion itself is felt to drain away and be lost in the immensity. [ibid. p. 12]

Non-existence: Bion states:

The patient feels the pain of an absence of fulfilment of his desires. The absent fulfilment is experienced as a “no-
thing”. The emotion aroused by the “no-thing” is felt as indistinguishable from the “nothing”. The emotion is
replaced by a “no-emotion”. In practice this can mean no feeling at all, or an emotion, such as rage, which is a
column 2 emotion, that is, an emotion of which the fundamental function is denial of another emotion. … As a
column 2 element [see: definitory hypothesis and Grid] all felt emotion is a “no-emotion”. In this respect it is
analogous to “past” or “future” as representing the “place where the present used to be” before all time was
annihilated … “Non-existence” immediately becomes an object that is immensely hostile and filled with murderous
envy towards the quality or function of “existence” wherever it is to be found. [1970, pp. 19-20]

Bion uses the signs ←↑ to symbolize the movements opposite to the direction followed
by the Grid’s axes, that normally move from left to right and from top to bottom. Such opposite
movements represent what Bion calls a state of “awareness”, alertness or Cs, different from the
concept of consciousness used by Freud. It is similar to the awareness of an insect, that driven
by phototropism, searches for the light:
This “consciousness”, is an awareness of a lack of existence that demands an existence, a thought in search of a
meaning, a definitory hypothesis in search of a realization approximating to it, a psyche seeking for a physical
habitation to give it existence, seeking . [1965, p. 109]

But if preceded by a minus sign: ←↑, it would then imply a C3 category in the Grid, and may be
personified by a non-existent “person”:
whose hatred and envy is such that “it” is determined to remove and destroy every scrap of “existence” from any
object which might be considered to “have” any existence to remove. Such a nonexistent object can be so terrifying
that its “existence” is denied, leaving only the “place where it was”. [ibid., p. 111]

X is the third of four brothers who consulted because of intense anxiety attacks, insomnia
and all sorts of hypochondriacal complaints. He is the son of a very successful Italian
immigrant, “a rather ruthless businessman”, and a very dependent, phobic and hypochondriacal
mother. Together with his three brothers he worked for his father until three years ago when,
with the help of his wife, he started his own business, a courier company that lately has been
performing very well. Leaving his father was not easy because the father demanded absolute
commitment, was very demeaning with everybody, including his mother and disapproved of his
departure assuring him that he was going to fail. X states that he had always tried to please his
father; he went to university to study architecture because it suited him for his construction
business, but he has never practised it, even now when he is working on his own. He had
suffered from panic attacks in the past and sporadically looked for professional help with rather
poor results; however, lately there has been an increment of his symptoms apparently related to
“stress” because of the success of his own business, something that could be understood
according to the crossroads or Oedipus murder mechanisms. In the sessions, X continuously
repeats the same complaints about his anxiety attacks, body ailments, bad luck, poor
achievement, etc., giving the impression of a “negative therapeutic reaction” and bringing to
mind the countertransference image of a child threatened by a castrating father, and hopelessly
screaming in distress for help to an unmindful mother. He complains in order to make others—
like his wife and the analyst—feel useless, a total failure; because of very intense envious
feelings against sentiments of well being that he feels others are experiencing but he is not.
Nullified by his father’s envious castrating need and rather abandoned by his c he feels as “non-
existent” and attacks others whom he experiences as comfortable with their own life. First of all
he destroys his α-function, memory and capacity to learn from experience; his mind then fills
up with β-elements in the form of narcissistic rage, hopelessness, body ailments (language) he
projects as projective identifications inside others endlessly. Every session is a carbon copy of
the previous one and all interpretations attempting to clarify the reason of his permanent
suffering are also continuously forgotten. As Bion has described it, he “is determined to remove
and destroy every scrap of ‘existence’ from any object which might be considered to ‘have’ any
existence to remove”, regardless that by doing so, he pays such a high price. He attempts to
induce feelings of non-existence in other persons, as a way of freeing himself from feelings of
non-existence, but in so doing he creates more feelings of non-existence. It is precisely this
feeling of non-existence which is the main reason for his terror, which he paradoxically
continuously induces in himself, while trying inefficiently to free himself from them. See: Cs,
no-breast, no-thing, K.

Non-saturated: see: Saturated-non saturated, elements.

Noösphere: From Greek noos (votta) = “mind” and sfaira (cr(|)aipa) = “sphere”. A word used
by Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1959) in 1925 to explain the notion of a “sphere of
reflection, of conscious invention, of conscious souls” or “collective mind or conscious”, some
kind of global trade network, communication, accumulation, and exchange of knowledge,
related to fields such as economy, “psychic affiliations” and so on, which knits itself at
increasing speed, penetrating and engulfing each of the individuals within the media who, as
time evolves, find it much more difficult to think or act in any other non-collective way. For
many, Chardin had predicted what we know today as Cyberspace or the Internet.
Bion uses the concept of “noösphere” to explain what he refers to as a-space. He explains
that the concept of “noos” is more useful than that of “sphere”, because the latter carries a
penumbra of associations that could complicate instead of facilitating understanding, therefore
he prefers the use of Greek letter 2 (S), sigma, something he explains: “I shall employ a sign
that is as devoid of meaning as I can make it”, capable of carrying the communication expected,
identified as sigma (1992, p. 313).
Later on he contrasts sphere with “amorph”, because the former entails a limit, a
contention, different from the latter that has no form. However, there should be no conflict
between the two, similar to the situation portrayed by quantum theory of light which
sometimes behaves as a wave (amorph) and other times as a corpuscle (sphere) (1992, p. 319).
Bion also creates the neologism “psycho-sphere”, similar to the Cartesian definitory
hypothesis of “a thought without a thinker”, equivalent to “a psycho-sphere without a
noösphere” (ibid., p. 326).

No-penis: see no-breast.

Notation: Bion takes the concept from Freud (1911) together with attention, judgement,
action and thought, as functions used by the ego to reach awareness of reality. Its purpose
would be, as an ingredient of memory, to secure results from the continuous search for
attention. Afterwards Bion uses notation as one of the elements of the horizontal axis of the
Grid, together with the other functions already enumerated above.

“No-thing”: A concept Bion relates to space in the same manner that “no-present” would be
related to time. “Words”, for instance, symbolize “no-things” or representation of absent things,
different from nothing or, as Bion states, “a thing can never be unless it both is and is not”. He
also presents this rule in a different way: “a thing cannot exist in the mind alone: nor can a thing
exist unless at the same time there is a corresponding no-thing” (1965, p. 103), meaning that −.
(minus point) and +. (plus point) coincide, like Shakespeare’s Falstaff, if there is no-thing the
thing must exist. The “no-thing” has taken the vacant space of the thing, or of that space that
should have been occupied by it, it is a saturated(ζ) space with “no-thing”.
The “no-thing” represents a space linked to mental suffering due to absence of the object
and it could be, depending on the condition of the mind, either contained and suffered, or if
there is intolerance to pain, changed into a thing-in-itself or β-element and evacuated by
means of projective identifications. The no-thing also represents the breast, or the place where
the breast was or no-breast: (-.), or no-penis (− ——). The no-thing is indispensable to
symbolize or represent the absent thing, something that does not exist in psychotic patients,
where things and no-things are the same, following mechanisms of symbolic equation, that is,
the nothing will always exist in a state of no-thing, because there is no difference between one
state and the other.
From a geometric point of view, Bion represents three different positions of the no-thing
in relation to the mind: (i) Conscious, real and coincident: symbolized by a straight line between
two points and tangential to a circle (representing the mind), meaning that there is no distinction
between a thing and a no-thing or that they both coincide, representing a thought disturbance as
observed in psychotic patients. (ii) Conscious of an external reality, real and separated:
represented by a straight line inside the circle, meaning something real and external represented
internally; (iii) conjugate complex or straight line completely outside the circle: representing
the narcissistic relationship of something staying in a mirror like fashion, inside and outside
(1965, p. 83).
Bion also distinguishes three other possibilities between the presence of the no-thing and
the realization that is felt to approximate to it: (a) the no-thing and no corresponding
realization, like hunger without a breast; (b) the realization but no corresponding no-thing, like
the presence of the breast without hunger; (c) the co-incidence of the no-thing and the thing,
when they are both present (ibid., p. 107).

Noumena: Concept used by Kant to describe what is intuited, what cannot be conceived and is
beyond phenomena. Represents the thing-in-itself, the absolute reality for which we have no
empirical or sensible knowledge, and can be grasped by intuition only. Bion uses it to explain
the notion of instinct, what we are born with but have no knowledge of; for instance the need to
suck the breast, sexual intercourse, curiosity, epistemophilia, etc., whatever guides the initial
relationship with the object or realization, that later on acquires structure as we learn from
experience.

Number: All numbers but one represent signs denoting a constant conjunction that keeps a
group together and provides them with a meaning. Number 1 would symbolize the negation of
the group. The numbers constitute an element in category 1 of the Grid, or a definitory
hypothesis, that is, an object that contains the potentialities of all undeveloped distinctions in a
group: the attempt to bind and then to understand or find a meaning for the group; or as Bion
states: “to bind the ‘groupishness’ of the group by a name, a column 1 element” (1965, p. 150).

Note
43 Grotstein (1993) suggests that concepts such as “nameless terror”, “catastrophic
change”, “thalamic terror”, etc., are closely related to Bion’s life experience during World
War I, when he became the only survivor of his company on the 8th August 1918 (Bion 1985,
see also the Introduction to this dictionary).
O

O, ultimate reality: Letter taken from the word “Origin”, probably related to the same term
used to designate the centre of the Cartesian coordinates that correspond to the point where the
X and Y axes intercept; however it could have also been taken from the concept of “Origin” in
Zen Buddhism. Bion defines O as the thing-in-itself, or that which is immeasurable, the
“absolute fact” taking place in a session (1965, p. 17, 40), in an artistic creation or in a state of
“illumination”, and because of its own nature, it cannot be known (K) (ibid., p. 17). There is a
possibility for O to become known only if the transformation of O is capable of combining the
invariants present, in such a way that its communication to others becomes feasible. In order
for this to happen two things must take place: memory and desire must be abandoned, and a
state of union with O which—Bion calls it a state of at-one-ment—must be allowed to take
place (ibid., p. 102). O is continuously becoming, O from this moment—just like the present
time—would not be the O of later on, this is why it cannot be known because if you know it, it
is not O any longer, or in other words, just when it is, it is no longer, it can only be when it is
not. It is not a “position” or a condition, O is just a possibility that could be or could not be. In
classical theory O would be equivalent—although different—to the concept of “insight” as a
sudden revelation of the truth, either in the analyst, the patient or—ideally—both.
He also refers to the existence of some kind of a function that permits the precipitation of
a “constant conjunction”, which is identified as a constellation that would act as some sort of
catalyst to enhance fusion or at-one-ment with O (1970, p. 33). This fusion can become public
in several circumstances; by means of interpretation during the analytic session, or through the
feeling experienced by some artists, when faced with their own O, who are able to transmit their
work to the audience that listens to (music) or watches (painting) their piece of work (1965, p.
97). It is as if O will become visible through the invariant that results from the thing’s
transformation, something that can be observed in Descartes’ (1641) communication about the
transformation of a piece of wax from the honeycomb.44 In religion, for instance, Meister
Eckhart expresses that the Godhead evolves to a point where it becomes apprehensible by man
as the Trinity. O could be interpreted as the unconscious continuous becoming; for instance, no
matter how dense our experience might be, we will always face unknown dilemmas about some
of our dreams.
There cannot be a genuine becoming of O based on falsehood, O is the absolute truth of
any object. The analyst cannot identify himself with O, instead he must be it (at-one-ment) and
in this way he will be able to know the events from the evolution of O (1970, p. 30). Perhaps O
could be better understood if one thinks that it represents the ultimate reality, be it good or bad.
Bion makes a distinction between the patient’s O (Op) and the analyst’s O (Oa). To ask in a
session, for instance, “what is Op?”, implies asking what the patient is talking about (1965, p.
17). “I therefore postulate,” says Bion, “that O in any analytic situation is available for
transformation by analyst and analysand equally” and hence, concludes, in psychoanalysis any
O that is not at the same time common to both patient and analyst, and therefore is not available
for the transformation of both of them, must be ignored and considered irrelevant, for it would
not be feasible to investigate it in any way (ibid., p. 48).
The reaction of some patients to O can be primitive, with material belonging at the same
time to rows A and B of the Grid: for example, a patient who comes to analysis with the
unconscious purpose of denying the existence of the analyst, trying in this way to deal with the
dread of the analyst’s absence (TpO). The patient’s presence in the session is evidence that the
patient knows that the analyst is present (sensuous level or p-elements, row A of the Grid: A2);
but at the same time, the patient acts as if the analyst is not there, corresponding to row B,
column 2: B2 (ibid., p. 53). Bion has considered O as different from the patient’s reaction,
conceiving it as a definitory hypothesis, belonging to column 1, that could be defined as
containing the following negative characteristics: its existence as a dweller or inhabitant within
a person is irrelevant, regardless of the individual being God or the Devil, because O is neither
good or bad, it cannot be known, loved or hated, can be represented by terms such as “ultimate
reality” or truth. The most or the least one could be is to be it, but to identify with it is a way of
getting away from it and is often an expression of psychopathology in the form of delusions of
grandeur. In classical psychoanalysis inaccessibility to O is an expression of resistance. There
is, as Bion states, a penumbra of associations related to O: Truth, form, and those phenomena
distinguished as ζ45, distance, Godhead, etc. (ibid., p. 162).
He also points out the existence of a bipolar condition in O, especially within the analyst,
for there could be a conjunction of: (a) an aspect of O dependent on the analytic experience;
together with another intuitive aspect of O (ibid., p. 49). He refers to the first one as Taβ of O1
and to the second as Taβ O2 (ibid., p. 50) (See transformations).
The space into which psychotic patients project can have infinite dimensions, where the
total analysis can be seen as a transformation in which a catastrophic intense emotional
explosion of O has taken place: “elements of personality, link, and second personality having
been instantaneously expelled to vast distances from their point of origin and from each other”
(1970, p. 14), a mechanism Bion described as “hyperbole”. Such an explosive event in O is
then transformed, by virtue of the β-elements, into some sort of action or acting-out
(contortions, changes of mien, grimaces, etc.) in the patient, which corresponds to Tpβ (1970, p.
14), and may be registered in column 6 of the Grid.
Even though Bion does not state it this way, I believe that capturing O at a given moment,
or the transformation of O into K, can somehow be equivalent to the concept of unconscious
phantasy described by Klein, but going even further and touching an intuitive deepness and
generalization, something Bion compares with what mystics have described as an act of
illumination. On the other hand, I believe O has been mistakenly described as “zero” (Grin-berg
et al. 1972, Bion, 1974, p. 107). Transformation of O into K (O →K) represents the act of
structuring the interpretation, but this act will require from the analyst a special stance in order
previously to allow transformation of K into O, a condition already present in Freud’s “free
floating attention”, although observing in Bion’s notion a greater density that perhaps indicates
a connection with Zen Buddhism. In order to apprehend O one must accept and believe
whatever comes up intuitively during analytic listening, something Bion describes as an Act of
Faith.
Bion has referred to Eckhart as well as Saint John of the Cross, because of their mystic
experience and sense of inner illumination in what they have described as a union or at-one-
ment with God. Bion used these experiences as a paradigm of what he wished to portray in his
description of the meaning of O. This is why some have judged O to have a “metaphysical and
religious meaning” (Symington and Symington, 1966, p. 10). However, Bion’s interest with
Eckhart’s Godhead, is not so much with the “contained” (c?) or with what is contained as a
proof of God’s existence or any other religious concern; instead his interest is directed to the
phenomenology of the experience itself, with the “container” (2) that experiences such union
with something unknown, unthinkable, the ineffable, the truth itself or ultimate reality. For
Bion, the revelation of the mystic with his God, whatever this God might be, is similar to the
revelation experienced by the psychoanalyst while listening with “floating attention” and
without “memory or desire”, to O, to the ineffable, the unknown, unthinkable, the truth itself or
ultimate reality, to what the patient might be expressing in that particular moment.
In summary, it could be said that as a proof for his theory about O, Bion used several
hypotheses: (a) Kant’s concept of noumenon or the unknown (or the pre-conception, the thing-
in-itself, the ineffable, etc.) that can only be intuited, and the phenomenon (conception, object,
breast, etc.), as the end result of a mating or realization between the noumenon and a particular
object; (b) Aristotle’s theory of form, which can be considered as the opposite, because now the
phenomenon acts as a reminder of an abstract concept considered as the “form”. Bion also
presents some strophes from Milton’s Paradise Lost as a paradigm of Aristotle’s theory; (c) the
Godhead, as can be inferred from descriptions made by Meister Eckhart, Blessed John
Ruysbroeck, as well as the description of St. John of the Cross of his union with God in “The
Ascent of Mount Carmel”.
See: Godhead, Transformations of O, Transformation in O, K, Transformation of K,
Act of faith, At-one-ment, Thing-in-itself, Noumenon, Phenomenon, Form, Meister
Eckhart, Zen Buddhism, Memory, Desire, Truth, Lie.

Oedipus complex: There are two sides to the Oedipus myth: one is private, the other public.
The first one represents the person’s own reading of the tragedy, what each individual has
experienced in private; the other side represents the account communicable to the public. The
private version corresponds to an α-element or preconception, used by the baby to establish a
contact with his parents just as they exist in the external world. The mating of this α-element or
pre-conception with a realization of the real parents provides a conception of them. At the same
time, the envious attack towards the parental couple carries destruction of α-elements or
preconceptions, in such a way that not being able to conceive his parents it is impossible for the
baby to “resolve” the complex because, paradoxically, he has never been able to structure it.
Bion believes that behind this myth, just like in the Tower of Babel, the Garden of Eden and the
Sphinx myths, there is a hostile attitude from God to humans acquiring knowledge (-K),
because this is felt as a threat to supremacy. It represents the myth’s moral characteristics.
 Bion discriminates between an “Oedipus theory” (psychoanalytical understanding)
corresponding to categories F4, G4, F5 and G5 of the Grid, and an “Oedipus myth” (narrative
of the story) pertaining to C area (1963, p. 58). He describes three parameters in the theory: (1)
the realization of the relation between Father, Mother, and child; (2) an emotional pre-
conception that mates with awareness of a realization to produce a conception; (3) a
psychological reaction stimulated in an individual by the members of the triad.
From the point of view of the myth and by virtue of its narrative, its elements would
combine with each other in a fashion similar to the way in which letters come together to create
words, or the way different hypotheses combine within a scientific deductive system. All
elements in the myth, such as sex for instance, acquire meaning due to the manner in which they
are arranged in the narrative of the myth. Bion emphasizes two aspects: (a) the insistence of
Oedipus to know the truth even after Tiresias had alerted him to the danger (ibid., p. 45),
something Bion has referred to as Oedipus’ arrogance, curiosity, and stupidity; (b) the
enigma, traditionally credited to the Sphinx, could represent an expression of men’s curiosity.
Bion attempts an exercise to evaluate the myth—although incomplete—using the
horizontal axis of the Grid. He admits the possibility of trying to force the facts by making up
pre-conceptions (1963, p. 49), and apologizes: “It is not my object to establish an exact
correspondence …Therefore to make the correspondence between the horizontal axis and the
elements of the myth appear to be exact would be a falsification that obscured the nature of the
myth” (ibid., pp. 65-66). Bion considers, in relation to the horizontal axis, the following
elements:
(1) (Category 1) The Oracle’s account of the story of the myth cn be considered as a definitory hypothesis, similar to a pre-
conception or an unsaturated element, that progressively saturates as the story unfolds.
(2) (Category 2) The warning given by Tiresias, who was blinded because of his attack on the snakes he had seen mating, can
represent a false hypothesis as a defence against the anxiety generated by incidents in the myth.
(3) (Category 3) The Sphinx’s riddle can signify at the same time, a menace and a stimulation to curiosity; representing the
Freudian concept of attention.
(4) (Category 5) Because Oedipus pursues the investigation with arrogance, he can be guilty of hubris or exaggerated pride, a
behaviour that could be considered as a symbol of scientific integrity or instrument of investigation or inquiry.
(5) (Category 6) The unfolding of the myth itself might stand for action of column 6, represented either by Oedipus’ exile or the
dispersion of the characters, or both. To these elements could be added a series of disasters: the plague that attacked Thebes,
the suicides of the Sphinx and Jocasta, Oedipus’ blindness, the slaying of king Laius, the original riddle introduced by the
monster, or an object made by a number of characteristics that are incongruent with each other (ibid., pp. 46–47).

Following Plutarch, Bion attempts an association between the triangulation of the

complex and the triangle rectangle as presented by Euclid‘s theorem of the “Bride’s chair”. He
also uses the theorem of “Pons Ansinorum” about the isosceles triangle, and an ancient
description of this triangle as “the three-kneed thing with equal legs”. Plutarch had stated that
the triangle rectangle can be equated to the triangulation made by both parents represented by
the sides of the right angle and the child by the hypotenuse. Onians (1951) also stated that the
Greeks considered the term “knee” equally to represent the angles of the triangle as well as the
genitals.

Omniscience: Incapacity to tolerate frustration can obstruct the foundation of an apparatus to

think thoughts. But if frustration is tolerated the mating between a conception and its
realization is feasible, making it possible to learn from experience. Between these two
extremes there can be an intermediary stage, in which frustration intolerance is not so great as to
activate mechanisms of evasion, but important enough to determine a control of reality. In this
case, omnipotence is stimulated as a substitute for mating the preconception with the
conception. Bion states that omniscience will take the place of both the capacity to learn from
experience with the use of thinking, as well as the mental ability that enables discrimination
between true and false. In this sense, omniscience will represent a dictatorial and capricious
intention, outside of every scientific logic, to discriminate between true and false, as can be
observed in magic or religion (1967, pp. 114-118).

Opacity: A concept that contrasts with transparence, representing a saturated mental state
due to opacities such as memory, desire and understanding, capable of generating states of
turbulence, that may interfere with the capacity to intuit O during analytic listening.

Organs of perception: see: Perception, organs of.

Origin: see O.

Oscillations of Dependent basic assumption: Emotional oscillations present in a group

dominated by a dependent basic assumption (Dba), between the therapist leader of a working
group (W) and the accidental leader chosen in a given Dba, the latter usually being represented
by a disturbed individual. Emotional oscillations produced between both situations can generate
high levels of anxiety that if not properly contained by the therapist, get extended to other
larger groups. For example, the need of a small therapeutic group (or any other kind), to write to
hospital authorities, the press, the Congress or even the President. See: basic assumptions,
Dba, Fba, Pba, group, valence, schism.

Note
44 A piece of wax taken fresh from the honeycomb has not yet lost its taste of honey, the
smell of flowers, its colour, shape, malleability, it is hard and cold, and when struck with a
finger emits a sound. But if you put it near a fire, all these qualities disappear, the taste goes
away, the aroma evaporates, the colour changes, the shape is destroyed, the size increases,
becomes liquid and it is impossible to manipulate it and if struck no sound is produced. Is that
the same wax after all of those changes? We shall confess that it remains, and nobody could
judge differently … Certainly, we could have known absolutely nothing about it, about what
my senses make me notice [because all the things contained in them had changed] …
however, the wax remains (Descartes, R., 1641).
45 See “Abbreviations” at the beginning of this dictionary.
P

Pairing basic assumption (Pba): It is based on the creation of a couple, whose union would
produce an idea or a messianic leader, who will finally put an end, in a future not too far off, to
all suffering produced by feelings of hopelessness, hate, and destruction. However, in order for
this to be feasible, there is the ineluctable paradox that the leader would never be born, that is,
the hope must stay in suspense, and it should always remain as such: “pure hope”. At the very
moment when it is felt that the idea or leader can become a reality, feelings of anger and
destruction will again predominate (1948b, pp. 151-152). Under the dominance of this kind of
ba, feelings of messianic hope will prevail. These feelings can also be observed outside the
therapeutic group, for example in religious beliefs or in the aristocracy, and in some sense,
assures Bion, in the analytic couple (ibid., p. 176). A good example is given by Bion in
presentation No. 4 of his Brazilian seminars (1987, pp. 19-24). See: Basic assumptions, Work
group (W), Dependent ba, Fight-flight ba, Group, Valence.

Palinurus, death of: Bion uses the death of Palinurus narrated by Virgil at the end of the
Aeneid’s 5th book, as a metaphor to explain the danger faced by the analyst when he is not
ready to give up memory, desire, and understanding during analytical listening.
After the storm, Aeneas had ordered all the sails to be raised and Palinurus to steer the pilot vessel ahead of the fleet.
The sailors exhausted lay on the benches to rest. As Palinurus sat watching the stars, Somnus (Hypnos or Dream)
sent by Neptune approached in the guise of Phorbas and said: “Palinurus, the breeze is fair, the water smooth and the
ship sails steadily on her course. Lie down awhile and take needful rest. I will stand at the helm in your place.”
Palinurus replied: “Tell me not of smooth seas or favouring winds, I who have seen so much of their treachery”. And
continues holding tied the helm and watching the stars. But Somnus waves over him a branch moistened with
Lethaean dew, and his eyes closed in spite of all his efforts. Then Somnus pushed him overboard and he fell. When
Aeneas discovered his loss he weeps with sorrow for the fate of his loved steersman.46

The metaphor is used to explain the danger of remaining stubbornly harnessed to memory and
desire as Palinurus did with the helm. Perhaps, argues Bion, this attitude might be contrary to
the
… conventions of ordinary medical practice to be unaware of so many and such apparently important items in the
family and individual history, and it would leave the psychoanalyst open to attack on the grounds of negligence
should something go wrong. [1977a, p. 15]

At another moment he stated:

I do not make notes in a session or afterwards so that it is open to anyone to object that the account cannot be true.
[ibid., p. 14]
He argues, however, that it would be even:
… less true if mechanisms had been devised which seemed to record and repeat whatever was to be thus preserved
(ibid. p. 14) … Naturally psychoanalytic colleagues would like to have evidence; naturally I would like to give
evidence. But with the passage of time I am convinced that there is no substitute for psychoanalysis. [ibid., p. 22]

More important than to provide evidence is to psychoanalyse without memory or desire,

an exercise that will leave no more evidence than what privately takes place between the analyst
and the patient. It is obvious that Bion is also referring to the mechanism of at-one-ment with
O, transformation of O into K and act of faith.

Paranoid-schizoid and depressive position: Bion refers to both of Klein’s positions very
similarly to the way she has described them. D is regarded as an integrated object or
“agglomeration produced by the convergence of elementary particles” (1963, pp. 42–43), on β-
elements, “or as a special instance of integrated objects” (ibid., p. 42) like either or . In this
form Bion connects Ps↔D with the theory of thinking, meaning a transformation from an
“uncertainty cloud”47 of primary particles representing the paranoid-schizoid position, to β-
elements, and then into or . The movement is also reversible and the object thus formed
could “become fragmented and disperse” (ibid.). Ps↔D could assume a form of operation
similar to and vice versa; while the former provides a “delineation” of the whole object, the
latter provides meaning (1963, p.90):
… I have tried to show that Ps↔D and are not to be regarded as representing a realization of two separate
activities but as mechanisms each of which can at need assume the characteristics of the other. [ibid., p. 44]

Such a correlation is easy to follow in relation to D, but if applied to PS, it would then present
a certain difficulty, because it would be hard to conceive PS as conforming either with or ,
something Bion attempts to convey by the use of an imaginary clinical description. An
incoherent discourse from a patient (= PS = ), states Bion, will induce a countertransference
response from the analyst as a container ( ); however, what is important in this
communication is not the patient’s incoherence, but the capacity of the analyst to be exposed to
such incoherence, meaning to take the place of the . The movement from PS to D is negotiated
during dreams48 (1992, p. 37) and will depend on the existence of a selected fact that may lead
the process of integration from one position to the other (ibid., p. 213).
Meltzer (1978) criticizes Bion for restricting the concept of positions Ps↔D to the status
of a mechanical condition related only to “disintegration-integration” interactions, rather than
providing them with an economic sense—as Klein did—related to value attitudes (p. 75). See:
Progression and regression, thoughts; verbal thoughts; thinking, apparatus for.

Parasitic relationship: A kind of interaction between “container” ( ) and “contained” ( ),

where one element depends on the other to produce a third one that will destroy the three of
them (1970, pp. 95-96). A man, for instance, wishes to communicate his anger, but ends up
feeling so overtaken by the emotion, that he begins stuttering and becomes incoherent. In this
case, the language will be the container, the anger the contained and the “incoherence”—which
destroys communication—the third (ibid., p. 104). The language, not being able to contain the
emotion he intended to express only with words, ends up dispersing and abandoning the attempt
to express what he originally wished to say. Or expressed in a different way, his attempt to use
his tongue to express himself verbally, fails to contain his wish and he ends up stammering as
an expression of masturbating inside his mouth (ibid., pp. 93-94). Envy, jealousy and induced
possession would be the mental equivalents of the toxic elements found in physical parasitism.
Within this kind of parasitic relationship, thoughts contained by a thinker would be false by
definition—for truth does not require a thinker—and would be used as a barrier against truth,
which in turn is experienced as dangerous and destructive of the container.

Part objects: A kind of object relation that according to Klein (1946) rules the paranoid-
schizoid position, and represents the form in which the mind arranges itself within this position,
the way it relates to the outside world and with itself. Following Bion, this form of relation or
link is established not so much on the corporeal aspect of things, but also in relation to the
functions, not so much on the anatomy of the breast, but on the physiology of nutrition, loving,
hating, poisoning, etc. (1967, p. 102). For a child, a word, for instance “dirty”, can mean
everything that he dislikes, or that bothers or threatens him. This helps us to understand what
takes place when a patient says, for instance: “it seems” instead of saying “I think” or “I
believe”. “It seems” corresponds to a feeling, “an ‘it seems’ feeling” and not to the quality of
“thinking” or “believing” as the expression of a “total object” capable of thinking or believing
(ibid., pp. 101-102). At this level of communication, to ask “why” makes no sense, for because
of to guilt, it has been split off and expelled. For instance, patients seldom question themselves,
for they have a tendency to believe that the analyst has created the problems they are dealing
with. They lack the conception of totality and therefore are not capable of thinking about
problems, not to mention solving them, when awareness of reality is needed. There is not, in
other words, a conception of totality and those problems depending on awareness of causality,
cannot be introduced and even less, resolved.
Another important aspect is related to the kind of link between part objects. Bion states
that relationship between part objects, such as the baby (mouth) and the breast, is established by
means of projective identifications and the capacity to introject them. A failure in this latter
capacity could induce in the baby the feeling that the object is hostile to curiosity and might
interfere with any disposition towards learning and growth (ibid., p. 108). “The result is an
object which, when installed in the patient, exercises the function of a severe and ego-
destructive superego” (ibid., p. 107). Bion states that this object is experienced as a total object
that will obstruct the movement from paranoid-schizoid or part object relationships to
depressive or total object relationships.

Passion: By passion or its absence, Bion describes an emotion experienced with intensity and
warmth though without any insinuation of violence, unless it is associated with greed. He
includes L, H and K as well as dimensions emanating from them. Although passion always
links two minds, it must be differentiated from counter-transference, because in this last case
it would mean repression of a latent content. Passion cannot be evidenced by the senses,
because often an emotion can really hide some other affect, as apparent hate can mask love or
vice versa, or elation might conceal depression (1963, pp. 12-13).
Meltzer (1986) states that passion can induce turbulence or a catastrophic change
because of the impact that novel emotions might have on already existing affects, such as the
passionate love observed in adolescents (pp. 187-190)

Patience: Term used by Bion to describe a state analogous to Klein’s notion of the paranoid-
schizoid position, although free from its pathological components but retaining “its association
with suffering and tolerance of frustration.” He immediately quotes Keats:49 “Patience should
be retained without ‘irritable reaching after fact and reason’ until a pattern evolves” (1970, p.
124). The “pattern” will evolve towards the depressive position, and for this state, says Bion, “I
use the term security. This I mean to leave with its associations of safety and diminished
anxiety.” (ibid.) The move between patience and security should be very brief, as in the final
stages of analysis, although it could also be very long. Bion does not believe it is possible for an
analyst to believe that he or she has done the necessary work to provide an interpretation,
unless he has passed through both phases. I think Bion is referring to the patience and capacity
to tolerate frustration, for an analyst must deal with uncertainties induced in analysis by object
relations of the kind experienced in the paranoid-schizoid position, in contrast with the feeling
of certitude, stimulated by the security provided by object relations that takes place during the
depressive position. See: Paranoid-schizoid position, Security.

Pba: see: Pairing (group) basic assumption.

Pellucidity: Represents an unsaturated mental state, which allows perception or intuition of

reality, for instance, during analytic listening. It is opposite to states of “opacity” that are
induced by memory, desire or understanding and are capable of inducing turbulence (1992,
pp. 315-316).
When the noumena, the things themselves, push forward so far that they meet an object [a realization] which we
can call a human mind [for instance] …The religious man would say, “There is, in reality, God”. What Freud and
psychoanalysts have investigated is phenomena. [1974, p. 41]

Through realization we meet the unknown, the thing-in-itself, representing what Bion, on the
other hand has referred to as turbulence, that is, the capacity to produce opacity in order to make
visible what has been so far invisible. See: Turbulence, Opacity, Memory, Desire, Thing-in-
itself, Noumena, Phenomena, Fraun-hofer lines.

Perception, apparatus of: Originally Bion identifies “apparatus of perception” with

“conscious awareness”. In 1956 he stated:
…attacks are directed against the apparatus of perception from the beginning of life. This part of his personality is
cut up, split into minute fragments, and then, using the projective identification, expelled from the personality.
Having thus rid himself of the apparatus of conscious awareness of internal and external reality, the patient achieves
a state which is felt to be neither alive nor dead. [1967, p. 38]

Freud had described the apparatus of perception as a set of activities produced by

demands from the reality principle. For Bion this apparatus is connected with verbal thoughts
and with whatever it might have produced since the time of its inchoation (1967, p. 38). In
psychotic patients, or in the psychotic part of the personality, there is an Id attack against
sense organs and against consciousness attached to them; there is also a great hatred towards
reality, something already pointed out by Freud (1924). In these patients, the reality principle is
never achieved, because all attempts towards the integration of the conception of a total object
cannot be reached because consciousness of reality induces guilt feelings and depression
associated to the process of reparation present in the depressive position (See: Verbal
thoughts). Psychotic patients directed their attacks against those ego aspects (apparatus of
perception) necessary to link internal and external realities. See: Link, attack on, and Cs.

Perception in reverse: Mechanism that, according to Bion, is used to perceive backwardly

from outside objects, whatever had already been projected into them that will come back by the
same path, but in the opposite direction. Bion has used this mechanism to explain the dynamic
present in hallucinations, delusions and the creation of bizarre objects. See: projective
identification in reverse.

Perception, organs of: Bion uses contributions from Adrian (1947), who states that the first
sensations perceived are from light rays and sound vibrations, both considered perception from
a distance and linked to development of intelligence. They differ from touch and other corporal
sensations, which are considered close- and middle-range receptors related to immediate
transformation into action. All of these perceptions operate automatically without any
intervention of consciousness. Receptors of distance, such as sight, sound, smell, intuition, etc,
are associated with the development of intelligence and wisdom, while middle-range receptors,
such as bowel and bladder senses, or immediate-range like touch or sex, are to do with action
(1992, pp. 321-322). Bion also considered the successive steps in which an original visual
perception changes into a sense of taste, for instance, or the way in which the vision of an object
is progressively transformed into a mental representation, like the visual perception of a horse,
which is primarily changed into an ideogram, then into a word, a thought or α-element until it
reaches the ineffable, the thing-in-itself and O (ibid., p. 325).

Personification:50 Concept originally used by Klein (1929) to describe a form of identification

observed in children, who provided objects of play with characteristics of real or imaginary
persons. “Personification, ubiquitous in all plays”, said Hinshelwood (1989) “led Klein to the
view that all mental activity is conceived with relationships between personified objects” (p.
389). Bion used the term in the “Imaginary twin” when he referred to “personification” given by
his patients to a split-off part of the personality conceived as a phantasied twin. He explains that
personification can be considered as an expression of improvement in the capacity to symbolize
(ibid., p. 20) and as a consequence, it represents “hopefulness about the outcome of the
analysis” (1967, p. 16). See: Imaginary twin, Splitting.

Phenomenon: Kant defines phenomenon as everything that presents itself to the senses; it
contains two aspects: (a) what belongs to the external object which he called “sensation”; and
(b) what belongs to our apparatus of perception capable of ordering whatever is perceived,
which he called “form”. Noumena, on the other hand, are objects of which we have no sensible
intuition and hence no knowledge at all, they are things-in-themselves, and in a positive sense,
can be conceived as objects of intellectual intuition, a mode of knowledge which man does not
possess. Platonic Ideas and Forms are “noumena”, while phenomena represent the result of an
aprioristic conception of the noumena, meaning the capacity to know about the unknown. For
Bion, the “phenomenon” is transformed into a representation such as Tβ, which could also be
conceived of as a representation of O in individual experience, or transformation of O into K
in psychoanalytic listening, or from noumenon to phenomenon by means of a realization, or
God into Godhead in mystical terms. Bion states:
As I understand the term, various phenomena, such as the appearance of a beautiful object, are significant not
because they are beautiful or good but because they serve to “remind” the beholder of the beauty or the good which
was once, but no longer is, known. This object, of which the phenomenon serves as a reminder, is a Form. [1965, p.
138]

The Form or the noumenon, says Bion, can also be presented in mystical terms like God
in the Godhead (or O in K), considered as a “spiritual substance, so elemental that we can say
nothing about it” (1965, p. 139). “In this view”, continues Bion, “God is regarded as a Person
independent of the human mind … the phenomenon does not ‘remind’ the individual of the
Form but enables the person to achieve union with an incarnation of the Godhead, or the thing-
in-it self.” Forms and Incarnation give the:
…suggestion that there is an ultimate reality with which it is possible to have direct contact although in both it
appears that each direct contact is possible only after submission to an exacting discipline of relationships with
phenomena, in one configuration, and incarnate Godhead in the other. (ibid.)

Bion presents a similar mechanism in relation to the concept of O. See: O, Form, Godhead,
Meister Eckhart, thing-in-itself.

Place where something was: see: Awareness; Space; Geometric space; Euclid, geometry of:
line, point, no-thing, no-breast.

Platonic forms: see: Forms, theory of.

Point (.): Euclid defined the point as something indivisible that contains no parts, while others
subsequently described it as “a place without extension”, “a geometric entity without
dimensions”, “a line‘s limit”, “infinite elements”, etc. The word OXITUTI (stigma) with which
Plato originally labelled it means “instant” or “point”.51 Bion used it to represent the “absence
of the breast”, perhaps because in its Greek conception the word “point” conjugates both
dimensions of time and space: instant, moment, stigma or trail (1965, p. 53). If the point
represents the absence of the object, “no-breast” or “no- penis”, etc., and if we were to use the
theory of thinking, then the point would represent a pre-conception related to K (row D in the
Grid) (ibid., p. 77). But if we regard the “point” as a spot, it can then be conceived of as a
conjunction of part objects representing an absence-presence, such as breast, penis, faeces or a
cruel and malignant persecutor (ibid., p. 78). It could mean “the place where”, “the time when”,
or a “stage of growth” (ibid., p. 119).
Words stand for thoughts, they are the void of the thing, or the “no-thing" and can be
represented by a (.), which can signify the place or trail where the breast used to be, or the “no-
breast” (ibid., p. 82). In relation to time, it could then mean “where the present was” (ibid., p.
86). In the Grid it would correspond to category A1. Similar to the “line”, the point represents a
visual image that remains invariable in spite of many situations. Minus point (-.) is equivalent to
the place where the object “that is not” (absent), is; which for not been, is; or the place where
“not being” would always be. It is exactly the situation that takes place in the transference.
See: Circle, Line, no-thing, no-breast.

Point of view: see: Vertex.

Point-pair: Would correspond to two different points located on a line in a system of

coordinates. Bion uses this concept in relation to the theory of transformation, together with
other mathematical concepts such as “number and “conjugate complex”, to establish a
“geometrical” relationship between points corresponding to internal and external realities, or
between unconscious and conscious contents or present and absent objects (1965, pp. 86, 103).
See: Complex conjugates, number, Circle.

Pons Asinorum: Name given to Euclid‘s theorem 1.5 depicting the demonstration of an
isosceles triangle, according to which the base angles are equal to each other because they are
congruent with their mirror image. Epicurus gave this theorem the name of “Pons Asinorum”,
which means “The Asses’ bridge”, because the complex picture drawn by Euclid during its
demonstration resembles a bridge, which contrasts with its simplicity, to the point that Epicurus
stated that anybody who tried to “cross it”, meaning to solve it, was an ass.
Bion attempts a relationship between the Oedipus myth and Pythagoras’ theorem as well
as Euclid’s geometry and paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions. These comparisons are
proposed in his book “Cogitations” in an extremely dense and cryptic style, as if he were
emulating the Sphinx itself. In relation to Pythagoras, for instance, he stated:
The side subtending the right angle: the sides containing the right angle. How much can be obtained by ignoring the
figure, the diagram, except in so far as it serves a function—like that of the material of a sculpture by Henry Moore
—in framing the place where there is no material? To act as a boundary to the open space, that is to say the part
where the figure is not. Then the squares on the sides containing, and the squares on the side subtending, the right
angle serve to enclose the triangle—the “three-kneed thing”, but also the right angle. The construction is a trap for
light. [1992, p. 206]

In this rather enigmatic communication, Bion invites us to ignore the diagram, that is, the
mathematical aspect of the theorem, and concentrate on what is enclosed, for instance, the
Oedipus myth: in a right-angled triangle there are the two sides forming the right angle, that
would represent both parents (e.g. vertical = father, and horizontal = mother), while the opposite
side or hypotenuse would represent the son. The “three-kneed thing” refers to the
interpretation apparently given by the Greeks to the triangle, when they considered that the
angles that put together all the sides, that is, father, mother, and son, were equivalent to the
genitals. Bion says something similar when he states that “Euclid 1.5 marks the point at which
the ‘elements’ of geometry are left behind when the student crosses the Pons” (ibid.). In other
words, in order to avoid being an ass, the content of the figure must be ignored and attention
must be directed to its meaning; only then would the trapped light escape, and thus the Pons
would finally be crossed—or the theorem properly understood—without having, as Epicurus
announced, to be an ass.
 Bion also refers to Pythagoras’ theorem known as the “Bride’s Chair”, because its
demonstration resembles, according to the Arabs, a horse riding chair used to carry the bride. It
has also been said that the French referred to this theorem by the name of Pons Asinorum,
something questioned by Bion who assures us that this last one corresponds to No. 5 of Book 1
and represents the theorem of the isosceles triangle, while the Bride’s theorem represents a
right-angled triangle, which corresponds to Book 13, No. 47 (ibid., p. 207).

Positions, the: Concept used by Bion to refer not to both positions as described by Klein:
PS↔D, (1992, p. 207), but to something in between:
For convenience I propose to call this state, which is neither the paranoid-schizoid position nor yet the depressive
position but something of each, the Positions. [ibid., p. 215]

Positive growth: see: Growth

Pre-conception: Bion discriminates between pre-conception and preconception. The former he

describes as part of the Grid‘s vertical axis, corresponding to row D, that is, to the existence of
a desire in demand of a realization. The latter, on the other hand, refers to premonition and
represents a theory belonging to Grid columns 3 and 4; for instance, when an analyst has the
presentiment that something is taking place in the session that he is not completely aware of
(1963, p. 75). Thoughts, says Bion, can be classified according to the nature of their
developmental history, as pre-conceptions, conceptions and concepts (1967, p. 111). Pre-
conception would be analogous to Kant’s notion of “empty thoughts”, a state of expectation
(1962, p. 91) comparable with the supposition that the baby has an innate or a priori
disposition towards the breast; in other words, when the baby (pre-concept) gets in touch with
the breast, a realization takes place, that is translated into a concept and represents for Bion a
kind of container-contained relationship. “Conceptions therefore will be expected to be
constantly conjoined with an emotional experience of satisfaction” (1967, p. 111) The classical
concept of “instinct” could be intuited behind Bion’s notion of preconception. See:
Conceptions, Concepts, Realization, Thoughts.

Precursors: Used by Bion to refer to feelings that can act as precursors of other emotions, like
for instance “if the hate that a patient is experiencing is a precursor of love its virtue as an
element resides in its quality as a precursor of love and not in its being hate. And so for all other
emotions” (1963, p. 74). See: “Premotions, Premonitions”.

Premonition: Represents an “emotional state rather than an ideational content”, because the
latter would be better characterized by a pre-conception. “I do not dissociate ‘pre-monition’”,
said Bion, “from its association with a sense of warning and anxiety"; meaning that
premonitions could be interpreted as precursors of the emotions. Directly observed, emotional
states are meaningful only if they can be conceived as premonitions; for instance
countertransference anxiety can be interpreted as a premonition capable of guiding the analyst
in his/her investigation and finally help to structure the interpretation: “If premonitions cannot
be experienced”, states Bion, “ correct interpretation becomes difficult for the analyst to give
and difficult for the analysand to grasp”. In this sense premonition appears to be related to other
important concepts such as O or hallucinosis. Bion also interchanges premonition with
“premotion”.
As a “psychoanalytic element” premonition could be represented as follows: (Anxiety
(ξ)), where t, stands for an unsaturated element.

Premotion: Bion uses this word without giving any definition. He mentioned it twice in
Chapter Sixteen of Elements of Psycho-Analysis (1963, pp. 75-76), where he says: “… when a
patient comes for a first consultation his premotions (my italics) give information about him that
cannot be obtained from other factors” (ibid., p. 75). Perhaps he was referring to feelings that
can be intuitively grasped by the analyst. A few lines later, he says:
I do not dissociate “pre-monition” from its association with a sense of warning and anxiety. The feeling of anxiety is
of value in guiding the analyst to recognize the premotion in the material. The premonition can therefore be
represented by (Anxiety (ξ) where (ξ) is an unsaturated element. [1963, p. 76]

There are doubts whether “premotion” is a printing misspelling for “premonition” or a

neologism implying a condition previous to an emotional state. However, there still remains the
question of why he did not use something like “pre-emotions” instead. Bian-chedi (2001,
personal communication) has expressed a similar opinion. Meotti (2001, personal
communication), had called attention to the meaning given by followers of St Thomas Aquinas
(“Thomists”) who used the term “premotion” to refer to some kind of “motion” emanating from
God’s omniscience, as a form of causality and used upon people to move them through their
apparent freedom. They have referred to it as a “physical premotion” (proemotio physica).
Based on this definition, Gooch (2001) put forward an interesting hypothesis:
I think the premotion of the analysand stimulates the premotion of the analyst or parent. The premotion may be the
beta element and the premonition the dawning of the corresponding alphα-function or element that is required for
psychic awareness (secondary process, reality principle, signal affect, ego function) to develop, in contradistinction
to discharge (pleasure principle, primary process, evacuation, somatization, acting-out, symptom formation).
[Personal communication]

Primary and secondary splitting: Klein described as “primary splitting” a process present
during the paranoid-schizoid position. Bion on the other hand, refers to “secondary splitting”
as the one that takes place when psychotic patients, during analysis, regress to the paranoid-
schizoid position after having reached the depressive-position. When this happen, says Bion,
the patient turns with great anger and anxiety against those fragments that were capable of
fusing together to create total objects during the depressive position, and splits them again with
such strength and violence, that any possibilities of ego reparation become inaccessible and
therefore the prospect of recovering is impossible (1967, pp. 80-81). The consequence of this
condition is an attack against the pre-conceptions, or against the thinking apparatus that
would allow the conception of the relationship between both parents as well as the
understanding of the Oedipus complex (1965, p. 60).

Primary qualities: see: Qualities, primary and secondary.

Prisoner: Similarly to the way in which the baby feels he has sadistically attacked and
destroyed the breast, psychotic patients, or within the psychotic part of the personality, sense
impressions can also be attacked and mutilated. As a consequence, the person feels a “prisoner”
inside such a mental state and believes he is not able to free himself from it, because the mind,
which represents the means and ends of escape, has become impoverished and lacks the
capacity to be conscious of reality (1967, p. 51). The feeling of being a prisoner increases under
the threat from those projected elements, that are part of the constellation by which the patient
feels contained.
Some time later Bion (1970) stated that when analysts do not free themselves from
memory and desire, they face the danger of inducing in the patient the phantasy of being
prisoner inside the analyst’s desire, something that can be observed in patients in whom “false
self” pathology predominates, that is, when the other person’s wish is privileged over the
analysand’s own desire.

Progression and regression: Represents a form of oscillation between the paranoid-schizoid

and the depressive position and vice versa, which can be observed between the psychotic and
the

non-psychotic parts of the personality. Progression would face the danger of depression and
guilt from reparation of destroyed objects. Regression, on the other hand, can imply danger of
suicide, secondary fragmentation, and total deterioration (1967, p. 81).
The Positions are not to be regarded simply as features of infancy, and the transition from paranoid-schizoid to
depressive position as something that is achieved once for all during infancy, but as a continuously active process
once its mechanism has been successfully established in the early months. [1992, pp. 199-200]

When this movement between both directions is not established early, growth can be defective
and deprive individuals of the healthy capacity to have progressions and regressions at their
disposition (ibid., p. 200). This mechanism could also be considered to be related to formation
and use of thoughts, similar to the relationship between container-contained ( ) where their
functions can be interchanged (1963, p. 44). It could also be understood as an interaction
between a dispersion of particles with feelings of persecution (PS), on the one hand, and
integration of particles with feelings of depression (D) on the other (ibid., p. 52). Bion states
that Ps↔D organizes the object while provides meaning (ibid., p. 90). See: Depressive
position.

Projective identification: Bion used this concept following closely on from what Klein had
previously stated, adding that it could also have represented a very primitive form of thinking
and communication, phylogenetic as well as ontogenetic (1962, p. 37; 1963, p. 37). He
emphasizes the importance of this mechanism in psychotic patients and in the psychotic part
of the personality, where it is used to evacuate ego aspects, such as the apparatus of
perception or verbal thoughts. In these kind of patients, projective identification takes the
place of repression (1967, p. 52), because as we shall see next, these patients have the need to
split and evacuate the apparatus on which the psyche depends to carry out repression, and the
unconscious seems to be replaced by a world similar to dream furniture (ibid.). In his theory
of thinking, Bion established that thoughts result from the experience between the pre-
conception of the breast the baby brings with him at birth, and its realization after he begins to
feed. When the breast is available and the need satisfied, it will give place to a conception of
the present breast or “good breast”. But if there is the need and the breast is absent (no-breast) it
would give place to a “negative realization” and then two possibilities can follow: (a)
frustration is tolerated and will promote the commencement of thinking about the absent
breast; (b) frustration is not tolerated, inducing the need to expel to avoid frustration—which is
experienced as the presence of bad objects—by means of mechanisms of projective
identification. Such evacuation, proposes Bion, is experienced as the “substance of a good
object”, because it alleviates tension, something that will stimulate further evacuation with the
use of more projective identifications. At the end, concludes Bion, it is felt that:
the appropriate machinery is …not an apparatus for thinking the thoughts, but an apparatus for ridding the psyche of
accumulations of bad internal objects. The crux lies in the decision between modification or evasion of frustration.
[ibid., p. 112]

Bion believed that when Klein referred to “excessive projective identifications”, she was not
only talking about frequency, but also about an excess of omnipotence in its use (ibid., p. 114).

Projective identification in reverse: A mechanism described by Bion to explain how

psychotic patients are capable of introjecting or incorporating concepts or mental content
coming from outside, similar to the way in which interpretations attempt to help understand
the nature of their delusions, if they lack an apparatus for thinking thoughts. “These objects”,
he said, “are brought back by the same route as that by which they were expelled” (1967, p. 61).
Because the apparatus for thinking has been split, mutilated, and projected inside the external
objects, patients lack an apparatus for introjection, making them perceived interpretations given
equality with projective identifications that assault and split them, perhaps as revenge coming
from those objects where they feel they have placed their own projections. Also, because those
re-incorporated particles have the character of “things”, it makes it difficult for them to figure
them out (ibid., p. 62). Bion illustrates this mechanism with a patient who said that he used his
“intestine as a brain”, and when Bion told him that “he had swallowed something”, the patient
answered that “The intestine doesn’t swallow”. Because the patient cannot synthesize his
objects to re-introject them, he would have to agglomerate and compress them, and as a
consequence, perceive them as concrete things, as bizarre objects or ideograms, that he will
use in order to communicate with others (ibid., pp. 40–41, 61). See: Psychosis, Psychotic and
non-psychotic part of the personality, Ideogram.

Projective transformations: Concept borrowed from projective geometry and used by Bion to
describe a kind of transformation opposite to “transformations in rigid movement”, because
the deformations that result in the transformation (Ta) of the original object are so immense,
that it makes it difficult or impossible to recognize the original elements in the end results (Tβ).
In relation to the patient it would mean that the material presented is so distorted, that an
identification of the end products of projective identifications, present in the transference as
well as in Op (patient’s O), are almost impossible to recognize, and as a consequence, the
interpretation would be highly speculative (1965, p. 19). This kind of transformation is
observed in psychotic patients and corresponds to categories in file A of the Grid (ibid., pp. 36,
114). Meltzer (1978) associates this kind of transformation with Klein’s concepts about “early
transference”, based on part objects, internal objects, splitting, and projective identification (p.
73). See: Transformation in rigid movement, Transformations, Transformations in
hallucinosis, Projective identification.

Proto-mental system: Initially Bion used this concept in relation to group dynamics, in order
to describe the existence of “undifferentiated feelings” or a “potential state” preceding the
emergence of a basic assumption (ba) (1948b, pp. 101-102). It can be considered as the system
or matrix where differentiation of physical and mental states began. It contains precursors for
emotions present in all basic assumptions, including those that remain latent. When any of the
basic assumptions becomes manifest and its feelings predominate in the group, the others that
remain latent stay contained within the proto-mental system; for instance, if fight-flight is
manifest, dependent and pairing emotions will be latent (ibid., p. 105).
Bion attempts to explain, with the use of this system, the appearance of diseases,
regardless of their aetiology. Diseases are manifested in the individual depending on the group
to which they belong (city, family, work, etc); that is, they are the product of the relationship
between the proto-mental system, the dominating basic assumption and the latent basic
assumption. In all diseases there are three dimensions: (a) the “matrix”, corresponding to the
undifferentiated or proto-mental system, (b) a determined “affiliation” to the latent basic
assumption, and (c) a “cause” determined by the dominant basic assumption. Usually there will
be psychosomatic pathology, although they could be infectious too. Tuberculosis, for instance,
because of the need for the patient’s care, would be associated (matrix) with a dependent basic
assumption (baD), it will have an affiliation with a pairing basic assumption (baP) and will
have as a cause a flight-fight basic assumption (baF). Clinical experience has shown me that
exophthalmia present in hyperthyroidism, can be interpreted as the watchful monitoring
(dependency) of a projected “internal murderer” and thus correspond to a flight-fight ba where
baD and baA remain latent.
This evocation of primitive, perhaps tribal, life in the depths of the mind, which can surface as group behaviour or,
conversely, express itself through bodily processes, has a frightening, even haunting impact. [Meltzer, 1986, p. 38]

Meltzer (1978) has also established a parallel between the notion of a “proto-mental system”
and Freud’s concept of primary narcissism: “as a level at which object relation and
identification are undifferentiated and where the ego is still purely a body-ego” (p. 9). Some
time later Meltzer (1986) interpreted that the distinction made by Bion between the proto-
mental system, as an extreme representation of what is “non-symbolic, nominative, externally
factual, quantitative”; from what at the other extreme would be considered as “mental or
emotional, symbolic, internally oriented, qualitative and aesthetic”, would be extremely
clarifying. “At the boundary between the proto-mental and the mental”, continues Meltzer, “he
has placed a hypothetical, “empty” concept, alphα-function, the mysterious, perhaps essentially
mysterious, process of symbol formation” (p. 10). The Symingtons (1966) suggested that the
proto-mental system foreshadowed Bion’s more mature conceptualization of β-elements (pp.
xvi, 35).

Proto-real objects: According to Bion, they are primitive objects that surround the baby,
conforming a world dominated by reality and pleasure principles, where objects will be alive if
they satisfy or dead if they frustrate. Later Bion referred to them as a- and β-elements
respectively. If intolerance to frustration increases, either because the level of tolerance
decreases or because the aggression from the objects increases or both, the need to be free from
the displeasure induces the baby to attack the apparatus responsible for the transformation of
sense impressions into material used for the creation of dream-thoughts. As a consequence, if
there is no apparatus that can think or process thoughts, they might change into things. The
excess of these “dead proto-objects”, besides the call for placating them, induces the need to
idealize and to change them in the future into objects of adoration that possess super-human
attributes; a mechanism that according to Bion is implemented exactly because they are dead.
Contrary to common observation, the essential feature of the adored or worshipped object is that it should be dead so
that crime may be expiated by the patient’s dutiful adherence to animation of what is known to be inanimate and
impossible to animate. This attitude contributes to the complex of feelings associated with fetishism. [1992, p. 134]

In other words, the crime would be paid for by the useless dependency on those objects that
being inanimate (dead) are believed to be animate, but exactly because of this they are not
capable of providing anything; for example, the belief that statues can produce miracles.
Fetishism and religious faith could be explained with these mechanisms. See: Animate-
inanimate, difference between.

Proto-thoughts: Kind of primitive thoughts or ideograms, which appear when the ego has to
deal with the absence of the breast or no-breast, which is considered to be bad exactly because
it is needed. Such an absence would induce the formation of primitive forms of thinking or
proto-thoughts, that take the place of the absent or bad object. These “bad objects” are dealt
with in two possible ways: they can be evacuated through projective identification
mechanisms or the absence can be modified through the use of verbal thoughts and the
creation of an apparatus for thinking thoughts. See: Verbal thoughts; Thinking, apparatus
for.

PS↔D: see: Paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions:

Pseudo-causation: Cause-effect interaction related to -K. See: Causality, theory of and K.

Psi (Ψ): Bion used the Greek letter Ψ (psi) as an element or psychoanalytic object to represent
several concepts: the mind in general, like the mind of the patient or the analyst; column 2 in the
horizontal axis of the Grid. The use of Ψ to designate column 2 could be related to “proton
pseudos” 52, a concept Freud (1886) used, parodying Aristotle, to refer to the “first

lie” present in hysterical patients. There is a certain discrepancy in the use of Ψ, between such a
general representation of the patient or analyst’s mind, on the one hand, and the narrow
representation of lies in column 2 of the Grid, on the other. See: Function, horizontal, axis,
Grid.

Psi + ksï = Ψ (ζ): Equation representing the union of ζ as a constant meaning, for example, the
condition of the analyst or patient’s mind, with t, as an unsaturated element that determines
the value of the constant once it has been established (1962, pp. 69-70). In this case it would be
equated with the patient’s uncensored condition of free association, or the analyst’s mind
without memory or desire. The equation could be equivalent to a pre-conception waiting for a
realization that would produce a conception and then a concept in the form of an
interpretation (if it were the analyst) or an insight (if it were the patient). See: Psychoanalytic
element.

Psychic mathematics: In Cogitations, in a note without a date, Bion asks why mathematicians
do not “speak” mathematics:
Is it that a string of mathematical formulas cannot be made to say, “It’s a nice day”? Is the vocabulary not big
enough? No: it must obviously be that its primary purpose is not conversational, although it is clear that one of the
functions of mathematics is pub-lic-ation. [1992, p. 110]

In Learning from Experience (1962), Bion predicts that although there is no prospect yet for
psychoanalysts to use mathematical formulations, there are “suggestive possibilities” that
something like that might happen (p. 51). A first attempt to establish a relationship between
mathematics and psychology can be observed in “A theory of thinking” (1967, p. 113) where he
states that “mathematical elements, namely straight lines, points, circles and something
corresponding to what later becomes known by the names of numbers, derive from
realizations of two-ness as in breast and infant, two eyes, two feet and so on”, or in other
words, the empirical realization that there are things that come in pairs. On the other hand, he
also suggested that the development of mathematical elements or “mathematical objects” as
Aristotle calls them, is analogous to the development of conceptions; for instance, something
like a preconception of the breast mates with a realization (breast feeding) to produce a
conception or a two-ness, similar to 1+1=2. If a child, for example, has two marbles and later on
finds two more, it will not be long before he concludes that he has four. In this sense, Kant said
that all propositions of pure mathematics exist a priori, similar to Klein’s and Bion’s
affirmation that there is an aprioristic preconception of the breast, or the expression that
“integral numbers were created by God”.
The excess of projective identifications in psychotic patients or by the psychotic part
of the personality, implies an impossibility to distinguish self from the external object,
something that can be translated as a difficulty to distinguish differences or two-ness. Bion
seriously attempts to provide precision to the uncertain, as can be observed in his effort and
enthusiasm to square the mind with the use of his Grid. This reminds us of a similar enthusiasm
previously experienced by Descartes, although much less complex, when he used geometry to
square the abstract notion of mathematics.
Bion states that objects belonging to external reality (R) and feelings belonging to psychic
reality (Ψ), can be quantifiable, because they could increase or decrease. Numbers can be used
to evoke curiosity in the observer (category 4 of the Grid); for instance: “the majority of people
…”, “thousands (millions) all over the world …”, “the Trinity”, “Four out of five people …”,
etc.. Or expressions can be used to produce envy: “you are not the only one, thousands can do
it”, etc. He attempts to distinguish between relativity in Euclidian geometry and the precision
of axiomatic algebra; while the former represents approximations to space—because its
exactitude is variable depending on whether the space is flat or curved—the latter represents
absolute reality independent of the environment. Bion also used psychological meanings and
symbolisms to make a distinction between geometric and mathematical developments.
Geometry can be associated with presence-absence or existence-non-existence of an object,
whereas mathematical developments are associated with the conditions of the object, whether it
is whole or split, total or partial. Besides, while geometric space is associated with depression
(absence-presence, separation), mathematics would be associated with persecutions as observed
in the Kleinian paranoid-schizoid position. (1965, p. 151)
Meltzer (1978), making comparisons between Bion’s books Transformations and
Elements of Psycho-Analysis, relates the great difficulties the reader faces with mathematical
signs as used by Bion:
In the present work no such hope sustains us in the face of the proliferation of mathematics-like notations, pseudo-
equations, followed by arrows, dots, lines, arrows over (or should it be under?) words and not just Greek letters but
Greek words. How are we to bear such an assault on our mentality? Is Bion patient B in disguise? [p. 71]53

While Grotstein (1981) emphasizes the election of mathematical objects, because as he said,
they:
had the advantage of being a language of signs and/or symbols which could conveniently represent objects in their
absence and therefore facilitate a language useful for abstraction without the penumbra of associations typical of
words. [p. 12]

Bion also uses the term “emotional mathematics” or “mathematics of emotion”, to refer to
different combinations of numbers to represent situations. For example, number 1 could
represent:
“one is one and all alone and evermore shall be so”. [or] 1/1 = a relationship with “the whole of an object that is a
whole object, that is unrelated to any other objects and therefore has no properties; since properties are a dimension
of relationships . With religion as vertex this sign can represent the O represented by the term “Godhead”. [1965, p.
154]

Psychoanalysis: According to Bion psychoanalysis must be “regarded as a term binding a

constant conjunction. Years must pass before we understand what are conjoined and what the
conjunction means” (1970, p. 63). And later, in a rather pessimistic way, he states:
What makes the venture of analysis difficult is that one constantly changing personality talks to another. But the
personality does not seem to develop as it would if it were a piece of elastic being stretched out. It is as if it were
something which developed many different skins as an onion does … The patient has a breakup, or breakdown,
rather than a “breakthrough”. Many a façade has been saved by the misfortune that has made it a successful ruin.
[1977a, p. 47]

During his experience in groups Bion defined psychoanalysis as a “group work” (W)
that stimulates the pairing basic assumption (baP), and where sexuality occupies a central
position. Later on, in Transformations (1965) he states that the analyst’s work can be
interpreted “as transformation of a realization (the actual psychoanalytic experience) into an
interpretation or series of interpretations” (1965, p. 6). He also adds that we could not speak of
invariants in psychoanalysis because this is not a static condition:
Since psychoanalysis will continue to develop we cannot speak of invariants under psychoanalysis as if
psychoanalysis were a static condition. In practice it is undesirable to discard established theories because they seem
to be inadequate to particular contingencies, such a procedure would exacerbate a tendency to the facile elaboration
of ad hoc theories at times when it were better to adhere to established discipline. [ibid., p. 4]
He also emphasized the feeling of isolation within the atmosphere of intimacy that characterizes
psychoanalysis, a feeling that should always be present in the mind of the analyst when he
speaks with the patient’s family or other colleagues (1963, p. 15). In Attention and
Interpretation Bion investigates the relationship between psychoanalysis and other sciences. It is
not that the psychoanalytic method is unscientific, but that:
…the term “science”, as it has been commonly used hitherto to describe an attitude to objects of sense, is not
adequate to represent an approach to those realities with which “psychoanalytical science” has to deal. [1970, p. 88]

Nor can science represent the ineffable, the unknown, or in Bion’s terms, O. Such criticism can
also apply to other vertexes such as music, aesthetics, politics or religion. Science takes care of
the sensuous aspects of things, such as symptoms, but not of depression or anxiety, for instance,
that lack weight or colour. What is needed is a science that does not restrict knowledge (K),
some kind of mathematics of at-one-ment, of unification with the other. Bion attempts to
introduce the hypothesis of psychic mathematics, he attempts, for instance, a relationship
between O and mathematics based on the simple fact that the object being observed and the
feelings of those who observe, can increase (+) or decrease (-).
Bion distinguished between a “psychoanalytic theory” and a “theory of observation”. The
former corresponds to specific formulations and determinations of the theoretical body of
psychoanalysis that allows unification of criterion, corresponding to conception’s row F of the
Grid. An example is the theory implicit in the concept of projective identification. The
“theory of observation”, on the other hand, refers to the realization of theories in practice,
something Bion exemplifies through the concept of “hyperbole”, which corresponds to the
realization of the theory of projective identification. (1965, p. 160). See: Psychic mathematics,
Psychoanalytic elements.

Psychoanalytic elements: Initially, “psychoanalytic elements” and “psychoanalytic objects”

were used interchangeably; for instance, in Elements of Psycho-Analysis, when Bion, referring
to the relationship with emotional links (L, H, and K) (1963, p. 3), affirms that psychoanalytic
objects derive from psychoanalytic elements (ibid., p. 11). The opposite is said when referring
to “idea”: he states that psychoanalytical objects are made of elements, like α-elements (ibid.,
p. 4). Later on, when referring to passion, he makes no difference between them: “… one of the
dimensions of a psycho-analytic object and therefore of a psychoanalytic element …” (ibid., p.
13, my italics).
Meltzer (1978) referring to this confusion states:
It therefore becomes extremely confusing when he begins to describe as an element, along with Ps↔D, LHK, R
(reason) and I (idea, or psycho-analytic object) when he later calls them mechanisms ( ) and Pst↔D or earlier had
called them factors in a function (LKH). this is made even more confusing when he seems to discard as an
element in favour of a “central abstraction” which it must contain or imply, to which the term “element” should be
applied and reaches the conclusion that elements are essentially unobservable. [p. 56]

In the last chapter of Elements of Psycho-Analysis, however, Bion finally established a clear
difference between psychoanalytic objects and elements. He states that the psychoanalytic
object has three dimensions: analytic theory, mythology, and feeling.
An analytic object is not the same as an element but may be regarded as having a relationship with an element
 analogous to that of a molecule to an atom. the analytic object is not necessarily an interpretation though an
interpretation is an analytic object …[which] emerges as a result of the operation … of Ps↔D and . (1963, p.
101-102)

He concludes:
The elements of psychoanalysis are ideas and feelings as represented , by their setting in a single grid-category;
psychoanalytic ob ects are associations and interpretations with extensions in the domain of sense, myth and passion,
requiring three grid categories for their representation. [ibid., p. 103-104]

Referring to these dimensions, but before he made clear the difference between object and
psychoanalytic element, he had said:
Psychoanalytic elements and the objects derived from them have the following dimensions:
1. Extension in the domain of sense.
2. Extension in the domain of myth.
3. Extension in the domain of passion.
An interpretation cannot be regarded as satisfactory unless it illuminates a psychoanalytic object and that object must
at the time of interpretation possess these dimensions …Extension in the domain of sense …means that what is
interpreted must … be an object of sense. It must, for example, be visible or audible … [ibid., p. 11]

It must also have a common sense to allow a consensus.

The extension in the domain of myth refers to personal myths that the analyst can use at a
given moment in order to understand the patient’s latent content; to say for instance in the face
of the patient’s aggression that his anger is like that of a “child that wanted to hit his nanny
because he has been told he is naughty” (ibid., p. 12). These represent statements of the
analyst’s personal myths and not statements of observed fact, or formulations of a theory
intended to represent a realization. About the extension of passion, Bion says that it represents,
“an emotion experienced with intensity and warmth though without any suggestion of violence
… unless it is associated with the term ‘greed’”. Different from sense and myth, passion implies
the presence of two minds linked (ibid., pp. 12-13). It could correspond perhaps to what others
call “empathy”.
It is quite possible that the selection of the term “element” could have been encouraged
by the “Euclidian elements” as well as by the relevance that such a concept has in chemistry.
According to
Bion, “psychoanalytic elements” represent abstractions, similar to letters in the alphabet,
that if combined with each other form words; when combined they represent almost all the
necessary theories for the analytical work. All elements must be functions of personality
conceived as having dimensions which, in the analyst’s mind, represents sense impressions,
myths or passions. Bion says:
The combination in which certain elements are held is essential to the meaning to be conveyed by those elements. A
mechanism supposed to be typical of melancholia can only be typical of melancholia because it is held in a particular
combination. [1963, p. 2]

All elements must have the following characteristics: (a) they must be capable of representing
the same realization that they originally described; (b) they must be capable of articulating with
similar elements; and (c) when articulated they must form a scientific deductive system
capable of representing a realization if it happens to exist. Among these elements are: (i)
representing the dynamic relationship between container and contained, similar to Klein’s
notion of projective identification; (ii) Ps↔D, representing approximation to a combination
between Kleinian paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions with Poincaré’s selected fact;
(iii) L (Love); (iv) H (Hate); and (v) K (Knowledge), representing the last three links between
psychoanalytic objects. All elements without exception are considered functions.
Grotstein (1981) stated that the election of mathematical objects:
Had the advantage of being a language of signs and/or symbols which could conveniently represent objects in their
absence and therefore facilitate a language useful for abstraction without the penumbra of associations typical of
words. [p. 12]

Psychoanalytic listening: In a letter to Andreas-Salomé dated May 25, 1916, Freud suggested a
method to reach a mental state that would bestow him with advantages to compensate for the
“obscurity” that usually surrounded any object of investigation.54 The method consisted in
“blinding himself artificially”, or in his own words: “I know that I have artificially blinded
myself at my work in order to concentrate all the light on the one dark passage”. Bion implicitly
described “listening” as a situation in which the analyst should rid himself of any pre-
conception, approximating to a state of pure naivete, which if translated into words, would
mean: “not knowing [unsaturated] to make room for a pre-conception that will illuminate a
problem that excites my curiosity” (1965, p. 47). Later on Bion adds the concept of “patience”,
something similar to Klein’s paranoid-schizoid position, but free from any form of pathology,
and referring only to feelings of suffering and frustration tolerance (1970, p. 124). (See:
countertransference).
Listening should be accomplished free from any understanding, memory or desire, and
very often, especially with psychotic patients, in a state of hallucinosis. This preparation will
allow for O, as the ultimate truth, to “evolve”, a concept Bion described as “evolution” , which
in classical psychoanalysis might be equivalent to the notion of “unconscious phantasy”. Such
evolution to illumination will allow, with the help of an act of faith, the construction of the
interpretation (ibid., p. 43).
In a note written in October 1959 (1992, p. 82), Bion made the following confession
while listening to a patient:
Drowsiness is coming to me; it is part of the relaxation I have to achieve if my ideas are to be accessible. I must
dream along, but then I risk going fast asleep. I have had to shut my eyes because they sting. Then I nearly went to
sleep … I must not know anything about. A wrapping up and packing of the goods I wish to remove from the
environment. Does this mean that a is to hide things from the conscious? [ibid.]

And elsewhere:
Since it is essential that the creative worker should keep his a-function unimpaired, it is clear that the analyst must be
able to dream the session. But if he is to do this without sleeping, he must have plenty of sleep. [ibid., p. 120]

Bion also explains that the suppression of understanding, memory, and desire, can result
in the undesired complication of inducing in the analyst a state of stupor or sleepiness. Although
there is a difference between this last condition and a state of normal listening, the difference is
difficult to explain. The analyst could react against the sacrifice of his own desires (pain-
pleasure), because it is something difficult to tolerate for both, the patient and the analyst. Bion
gives certain rules:
1. Memory: Do not remember past sessions. The greater the impulse to remember what has been said or done, the
more the need to resist it. This impulse can present itself as a wish to remember something that has happened
because it appears to have precipitated an emotional crisis: no crisis should be allowed to breach this rule. The
supposed events must not be allowed to occupy the mind.

Otherwise the evolution of the session will not be observed at the only time when it can
be observed -while it is taking place. 2. Desires: The psychoanalyst can start by avoiding any
desires for the approaching end of the session (or week, or term). Desires for results, “cure” or
even understanding must not be allowed to proliferate. [ibid., pp. 381-382]

Psychoanalytic objects: Similar to how philosophers of science and psychotic patients (or the
psychotic part of the personality) attempt to change abstractions into concrete things (see:
symbolical equation), Bion tries, imitating Aristotle’s mathematical objects, to build
psychoanalytical objects in order to deal with spaces, such as those experienced between things
and no-things”. Bion states:
It is convenient to postulate the existence of a mind represented entirely by points, positions of objects, places where
something used to be, or would be at some future date. [1965, p. 106]

And later on:

In mathematics, calculations can be made without the presence of the objects about which calculation is necessary,
but in psychoanalytic practice it is essential for the psychoanalyst to be able to demonstrate as he formulates. [1970,
p. 1]

The notion of number can be the consequence of the realization of two-ness, like two
ears, two eyes, two hands, etc., or deci-mals (ten-ness): ten fingers, ten toes. The development
of mathematical objects can correspond to a conception: the mating of the a priori notion of
number with its realization.
The identification of such an object depends on (a) the possibility of finding a means by which the nature of the
object can be communicated. This involves the employment of the very methods that are the object of this
investigation, and (b) the mental equipment that the observer can bring to bear. [1962, p. 68]

Using an example from Bion we can presume that a constant ^ represents, for instance, a desire:
that a breast capable of satisfying its own incomplete nature, exists. The realization of this
desire, on the other hand, symbolized as (ξ), would provide an “emotional experience” of great
pleasure (conception). Such an experience is equivalent to the concept of phenomenon, as
explained by Kant, meaning the existence of an experimental or empirical object. The
representation of this realization using “mathematical objects” would correspond to Ψ(ξ), equal
to a conception. If an “inborn character” of personality, symbolized as σ μψβ ο λ, is added, we
will have the following formula: Ψ(ξ) (σ μψβ ο λ). Bion produced other examples related to
growth and knowledge or K (1962, pp. 69-70). A series of psychoanalytical objects could
acquire coherence with the presence of a selected fact and this would eventually allow the
formulation of a scientific deductive system (ibid., pp. 72-73). This process implicitly carries a
tendency towards concretization, something that brings it close to the thing-in-itself.
The notion of “psychoanalytic object” appears initially undistin-guishable from
“psychoanalytic elements”, an idea Bion broadens later on in his book Elements of Psycho-
Analysis (1963): for instance, when, referring to the relationship between emotional links (L,
H, and K) (1963, p. 3), he affirms that psychoanalytic objects derive from psychoanalytic
elements (ibid., p. 11). The opposite is said when referring to “idea”, when he states that
psychoanalytical objects are made of elements, like α-elements (ibid., p. 4). Later on, when
referring to passion, he makes no difference between them: “… one of the dimensions of a
psychoanalytic object and therefore of a psychoanalytic element …” (ibid., p. 13, my italics).
Meltzer (1978) referring to this confusion states:
It therefore becomes extremely confusing when he begins to describe as an element,
along with Ps↔D, LHK, R (reason) and I (idea, or psycho-analytic object) when he later calls
them mechanisms ( ) and Ps↔D or earlier had called them factors in a function (LKH). This
is made even more confusing when he seems to discard as an element in favour of a “central
abstraction” which it must contain or imply, to which the term “element” should be applied
and reaches the conclusion that elements are essentially unobservable. [p. 56]

In the last chapter of Elements of Psycho-Analysis Bion finally established a clear difference
between psychoanalytic objects and elements. He states that the psychoanalytic object has three
dimensions: analytic theory, mythology and feeling.
An analytic object is not the same as an element but may be regarded as having a relationship with an element
analogous to that of a molecule to an atom. The analytic object is not necessarily an interpretation though an
interpretation is an analytic object …[which] emerges as a result of the operation … of Ps↔D and . (1963, p.
101-102)

He concludes:
The elements of psychoanalysis are ideas and feelings as represented by their setting in a single grid-category;
psychoanalytic objects are associations and interpretations with extensions in the domain of sense, myth and passion
requiring three grid categories for their representation. [ibid., p. 103]

Meltzer (1978) also defined the psychoanalytic objects as tri-partite molecules

compounded of sensa, myth, and passion (p. 86). When he compares the books Transformations
with Elements of Psycho-Analysis, he alerts the readers about the difficulties they will have
with all the mathematical signs used by Bion:
In the present work no such hope sustains us in the face of the proliferation of mathematics-like notations, pseudo-
equations, followed by arrows, dots, lines, arrows over (or should it be under?) words and not just Greek letters but
Greek words. How are we to bear such an assault on our mentality? Is Bion patient B in disguise? [p. 71]

Grotstein (1981), on the other hand, states that the election of mathematical objects,
… had the advantage of being a language of signs and/or symbols which could conveniently represent objects in
their absence and therefore facilitate a language useful for abstraction without the penumbra of associations typical
of words. [p. 12]

Psychological (or mental) disaster: see: Arrogance, curiosity and stupidity.

Psychological turbulence: Bion defines it as a state of resistance or mental disturbance

associated with change, in relation to communication with others, and most of all, with what
might be considered as a psychological growth of great importance (1970, p. 34). It is similar to
the way in which a stream of transparent water remains unnoticed, until the moment it finds an
obstacle that generates turbulence. The noumenon or thing-in-itself remains invisible,
unknowable—like the transparent stream of water—that can only be intuited, although it could
be known through a realization—or turbulence—with an object, then giving place to a
phenomenon:
When the noumena, the things themselves, push forward so far that they meet an object [a realization] which we can
call [for instance] a human mind, there then comes into being the domain of phenomena … The religious man would
say, “There is, in reality, God”. What Freud and psychoanalysts have investigated is phenomena. [1974, p. 41]

Through realization we get to know the unknown, the thing-in-itself, that Bion has referred to as
turbulence, the capacity to produce a disturbance in something invisible to make it visible.
Leonardo da Vinci—an extraordinary mind—”drew pictures of turbulence reminiscent of hair
and water”. He could translate this “turbulence and transform it by making marks on paper and
canvas which are clearly visible to us.” Also, from a religious vertex, Bion quotes St John of the
Cross in “The Ascent of Mount Carmel”, when he states, in a rather exaggerated fashion, “…
the pain which is involved in achieving the state of naivety inseparable from binding”, with God
or the Godhead implying a state of deprivation from any desire of “worldly things which it
possessed, by denying them to itself; the which denial and deprivation are, as it were, night to
all the senses of man”, in order to achieve such state of “binding” with God (Bion, 1965, pp.
158-159). It would be this “denial” and “deprivation” in order to achieve a state of communion
with God, that represented a state of turbulence in St John’s life, which he expressed with an
exaggeration of his pain, similar to what, in a biological model, would be observed when a
tadpole becomes very upset because it is changing into a frog (1965, pp. 158-159; 1974a, pp.
14-15). The psychoanalytic consulting room might appear as a quiet and transparent stream,
however, said Bion, there is only turbulence there (1987, p. 308). Crossing a caesura, for
example, birth, adolescence, marriage, old age, death, etc., would always determine a state of
turbulence. When placing it on the Grid, it would correspond to column 1 or to a definitory
hypothesis (1965, pp. 158-159). See: Thing-in-itself, Noumenon, Phenomenon, Caesura,
Godhead and Realization.

Psycho-mechanics (of thinking): Bion uses this concept to explain some psychic mechanisms;
for instance, the way in which B-elements are capable of transformations, or opening towards
growth, necessary to understand progression and regression movements present in PS↔D in
relation to K, or the alternating of container-contained movements ( ). Bion states:
A solution may be approached through investigation clinically of the destructive splitting attacks that transform
into fragments which nevertheless retain in their fragmented form an association with each other sufficient to permit
penetration of a problem. Similar fragmentation of leaves an association of fragments that still perform the
function of ingesting or introjecting. [1963, p. 84]

This mechanism could explain the alternating movements of both PS↔D and 0"2, as well as the
change from B to a elements, meaning the growth of the genetic or vertical axis of the Grid.
See: Progression and regression, Vertical axis, Paranoid-schizoid posi-tion.

Psychosis: A great amount of Bion’s work has dealt with psychoses and psychotic ways of
thinking, distributed in several original publications, present in almost all of his contributions.
Asked, in 1973, about his analysis of psychotic patients, he answered:
I have only analysed schizophrenic patients who were able to come to my consulting room. Although 1 still think
that the best description of them was schizophrenic , I do not suggest they were com-parable to the kind of patients
who have to be hospitalized. … I am amazed how often an analyst seems to think that he can hardly claim his title
[of analyst] unless he has treated many schizophrenic patients … From the little I know I find it difficult to believe
that so many analysts are treating schizophrenics. Such a claim belongs to the domain not of the science of
psychoanalysis but of fashion. As it is sometimes the fashion to wear feathers in hats, so psychoanalysts wear
“psychotics in their hair”. [1974, pp. 92-93]

See: Schizophrenia, Hallucination, Attacks on linking, Splitting, Bizarre object, β-element,

α-function, α-element, Psychotic and non-psychotic personalities. …

Psychosis, splitting in: see: Splitting in psychosis.

Psycho-sphere: see: Noösphere.

Psychotic and Non-psychotic Personalities, differentiation between:55 This article depicts

the difference between psychotic and non-psychotic parts of the personality within the same
person. A duality perhaps deduced by Bion from the fact that contacts with reality established
behind a psychotic patient’s ego, must be a consequence of the presence of a non-psychotic part
that remains hidden by the psychotic part. The interplay and control between both parts,
summons up the relationship Bion had previously established between the work group (W) and
the basic assumptions (ba). The major difference between psychotic and non-psychotic parts
would originate from the use of splitting and projective identification, aimed to unload ego
aspects, such as the perceptual apparatus (consciousness) and verbal thought, which have
been split very early in life. This division of both personality aspects progressively increases
over time up to the point where any connection between them becomes impossible. Just as the
baby feels he has attacked and sadistically destroyed the breast, psychotic patients attack and
mutilate their sense impressions, feeling themselves to be prisoners inside such a mental state,
from which there is no way out. Unloading the perceptual apparatus leaves the mind
impoverished and incapable of being aware of reality, which would have represented the means
and the end of any possible “escape”. However, at the same time that they feel prisoners, they
also experience that the expelled fragments, projected inside the external objects—that
“contain” or are “contained”—have a “life” of their own, becoming what Bion calls “bizarre
objects.
The introjective processes are also seriously obstructed, therefore, in order to understand
an interpretation or to reincorporate projected elements; the only possible way is to use what
Bion has called a reverse projective identification (1967, pp. 40–41). There also exists a
difference in the defence format: while the non-psychotic part of the personality uses repression,
the psychotic one uses projective identifications. Because there is no repression the unconscious
is replaced by a world made of objects similar to dream furniture, in which these patients
move around. Extension of mechanisms of splitting and projective identification, increments the
breach between both parts of the personality to such a point, that any attempt to reunite them
becomes impossible.
In Transformations, Bion says that one of the difficulties of psy-chotics has to do with
their incapability to transform O into T, besides the fact that they are not able to work
analytically without the presence of the real objects with which the work has to be done. Such a
limitation, he continues, goes as far as making them unable to “think” about anything unless
whatever it is in their mind also appears in their external reality (see: sign-objects). Since
psychotics are able to express words and phrases, it is logical to suppose that they are able to
think; however, to think in the sense of manipulat-ing words and thoughts to work with the
object’s absence is exactly what they cannot do (see: symbolic equation). Psychotics have no
memory, instead they have undigested facts (1965, pp. 40–41). Bion also points out that, due to
transformations in hallucinosis, these patients use magic omnipotent aspects of hallucinations
capable of satisfying any desire. They do so in order to compete with inter-
pretations by making them useless like mental faeces , feeling at the same time, that the
analyst is trying to steal their sanity or the power implicit in their hallucinations (ibid., p. 132).
Meltzer (1978) points out that Bion does not discriminate between the psychotic part of personality and clinical
psychoses such as schizophrenia, which could be due to Klein’s influence in conceiving the paranoid-schizoid
position as representing the fixation point for the latter. He also adds that it is not clear whether Bion “thinks that
this part of the personality is ubiquitous or only present in the person who actually presents a schizophrenic disorder”
(p. 26).

Psychotic panic: see: Nameless terror.

Psychotic transference: Transference in psychotic patients “is premature, ephemeral,

precipitated and intensely dependent” (1967, p. 37). The pressure induced by both life and death
instincts has three main consequences: (a) a state of confusion with the analyst because of
massive projective identifications; (b) mutual mutilations between both instincts; (c) in trying
to escape from the anxiety resulting from extreme confusion and harassed by painful
mutilations, the patient attempts to restore a “restricted relationship.” Bion characterized this
restricted relationship as “featureless”, although it can alternate with a more expansive form of
interaction. It can be deduced that the term “strict” might be similar with what others have
described as schizoid or autistic (ibid.).

Public-ation:56 Within the mind, it represents the way in which thinking functions, in that it is
capable of making sense impressions available to consciousness, and can communicate to the
group what was private to the person. Similar to the mechanism displayed in the horizontal
axis of the Grid, information that has been changed into action could be communicated or
publicized by means of common sense (column 6 like G6 or H6 in the Grid). The conflict, said
Bion, could be technical and emotional:
The emotional problems are associated with the fact that the human individual is a political animal and cannot find
fulfilment outside a group and cannot satisfy any emotional drive without expression of its social component. His
impulses, and I mean all impulses and not merely his sexual ones, are at the same time narcissistic. The problem is
the resolution of the conflict between narcissism and social-ism. The technical problem is that concerned with
expression of thought or conception in language, or its counterpart in signs. [1967, p. 118]
For Bion, this course of public-ation is not different from the process used by the individual to
translate a preverbal thought into a verbal one, or to make explicit what is implicit, or to make
conscious what is unconscious. Abstraction could also be thought of as a necessary step
towards publication, as well as the interpretation, which represents a form of publication in the
analyst’s attempt to make conscious what has been unconscious. See: Growth, Correlation,
Social-ism, Common sense, Narcissism, Horizontal axis.

Pure and absolute interpretation: A form of interpretation Bion considers as “free from
contaminations or countertransference noise” or absolute “on the analogy of absolute zero or
absolute cold”. He said:
There are certain patients who can recognize that any interpretation I give is not absolute. I can describe it in terms of
an actual experi-ence in this way: The patient cannot listen to what I am saying because of the noise. Sometimes the
noise is the way I speak, sometimes it is the distraction produced by a fly in the room, but in a sense all the noises
that he can hear appear to have an equal value. He can say, “I know you are angry”, and if I am honest about it, I
realize that he is right. But he may not differentiate between whether I am annoyed by the buzzing of a fly, or by the
noise of the traffic, or by what he is saying and doing. All these facts are of equal value. [1974, p. 77]

Pythagoras, theorem of: According to this theorem, the square of the hypotenuse of a right-
angled triangle is equal to the square of the sum of the opposite sides. Bion attempts to establish
a relationship between the Oedipus myth and this theorem on one hand, and Euclidian
geometry and Klein’s paranoid-schizoid and depressive position, on the other (1992, p. 207).
He made these statements in his book Cogitations, in such an enigmatic style, that it could be
assumed that perhaps he was emulating the sphinx itself. In relation to Pythagoras’ theorem he
had this to say:
The side subtending the right angle: the sides containing the right angle. How much can be obtained by ignoring the
figure, the diagram, except in so far as it serves a function—like that of the material of a sculpture by Henry Moore
—in framing the place where there is no material? To act as a boundary to the open space, that is to say the part
where the figure is not. Then the squares on the sides containing, and the squares on the side subtending, the right
angle serve to enclose the triangle—the “three-kneed thing”, but also the right angle. The construction is a trap for
light. [ibid., p. 206]

In this rather enigmatic communication, Bion invites us to ignore the diagram, that is, the
mathematical aspect of the theorem, and concentrate on what is enclosed, for instance, the
Oedipus myth: in a right-angled triangle there are the two sides forming the right angle, that
would represent both parents (vertical = father and horizontal = mother), while the opposite side
or hypotenuse would represent the son. The “three-kneed thing” refers to the interpretation
apparently given by the Greeks to the triangle, when they considered that the angles that put
together all the sides, that is, father, mother and son, were equivalent to the genitals. Bion says
something similar when he states immediately after that “Euclid 1.5 marks the point at which
the ‘elements’ of geometry are left behind when the student crosses the Pons” (ibid.). In other
words, in order to avoid being an ass, the figure must be ignored for its content and attention be
placed on its meaning, only then would the trapped light escape, meaning that the Pons would
be finally crossed—or the theorem properly understood—without having, as Epicurus
announced, to be an ass.
Bion also refers to Pythagoras’ theorem, known as the “Bride’s Chair”, because its
demonstration resembles, according to the Arabs, a horse riding chair used to carry the bride. It
has also been said that the French referred to this theorem with the name of Pons Asinorum,
something questioned by Bion who assures that this last one corresponds to No. 5 of book 1 and
represents the theorem of the isosceles triangle, while the Bride’s theorem represents a right
angle triangle which corresponds to Book 13, No. 47 (ibid., p. 207) See: Euclidian geometry,
Theorem of the Bride’s chair, Pons Asinorum.

Note
46 Publius Vergilius Maro, The Aeneid, Book V, pp. 826-871.
47It is quite possible that with the expression of “uncertainty cloud”, Bion is borrowing
from quantum theory, from Heisenberg’s “uncertainty principle”.
48 See: López-Corvo, 1987.
49 The fragment of Keats’ letter from which Bion has quoted, can be found in the
description of “Negative Capability”, in the last chapter of Bion’s book, Attention and
Interpretation (1970).
50I am grateful to Dr Paolo Polito (2001) for his suggestions in relation to the concept of
“personification”.
51In English both meanings are condensed in the word “period”, besides “dot” and “spot”
(Bion, 1965, p. 78).
52(jtprotov (proton) = first, and eψε νσ ο ς (pseudos) = false, to lie). The expression is from
Aristotle’s First analytics (book II, Chapter 18, 66a); possibly taken from Aristotle’s Prior
Analytics (Book II, Chapter 18, 66a) which deals with false premises and false conclusions,
asserting that a false statement is the result of a proceeding falsity (“proton pseudos”) (Freud,
1886, p. 400).
53 About patient “B”, see Transformations pp. 19-23.
54In his obituary of Charcot, Freud (1893) mentioned having heard about this method from
his French teacher (SE 3, p. 12; also in SE 14, p. 22).
55This article, read to the British Psychoanalytical Society in October 1955 and published
in 1957, (International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 38, parts 3-4), shows the best
systematization of Bion’s discoveries about psychosis up to that moment.
56 Bion breaks the word perhaps to emphasize its content of “public action.”
Q

Qualities, primary and secondary: From Latin qualitas, qualis, meaning which? what? Of
what nature? Represents the properties that determine the nature of both primary and secondary.
Primary qualities are those represented by: (1) what is essential to all material objects and
consequently present in all; and (2) what are represented by perceptual experiences and
independent of the subject who perceives them. Secondary qualities, on the other hand, like
colour, taste, sound, etc.: (1) are not essential to material objects and do not participate in the
correct explanation of such experiences; (2) are not in all objects and depend more on the
subject who perceives them—they are subjective. Primary qualities are more related to the
object, whereas secondary qualities are related to the subject. However, for Berkeley and later
for Kant, all qualities are subjective, because regardless of what they might be, either primary or
secondary, they are all perceived by the senses.

Quality of contact: According to Lipgar (1998), J. D. Sutherland, who had worked with Bion
during the World War II on the task of selecting candidates for officer training, stated that he
often commented about the “need to judge the ‘quality contact’ the candidate had with others”
(p. 30). Lipgar continues:
They felt that many different personalities could make good officers, but Bion sought that “crucial quality which (is)
‘a man’s capacity for maintaining personal relationships in a situation of strain that tempted him to disregard the
interest of his fellows for the sake of his own. [ibid.]

Quantum theory: Discussing what Heisenberg (1958) said, Bion wonders if the hypothesis on
the dual demeanour of light, some-times behaving as elementary particles and other times as a
wave , could be matched with primitive phantasies parallel to the Ps↔D theory, in the sense
that the particle would correspond to Ps and the wave to D. He argues:
Is it possible that the explanation fundamentally has to be in terms of primitive phantasies?—e.g. elementary
particles (paranoid-schizoid), or wave theory (depressive)—because these are limitations in the human mind which
cannot be transcended? [1992, p. 60]

Heisenberg’s theory of the “uncertainty principle”, which determines that a subatomic

(photons) particle’s momentum or location, can be measured only at the particular and specific
moment when it is found, because the conditions needed for accuracy in observation of the
particles, are in direct conflict with those needed for the observation of its position. A certain
resemblance between this hypothesis and Bion’s conception of O, could be considered.
R

R (=Reason): A function that serves passions, whichever they might be, and dominates them
within the world of reality. By passions Bion understands all emotions located between L
(love), H (hate) and K (knowledge). R is associated with idea (I) in as much as the latter is used
to fill in the fault between an impulse and its satisfaction (1963, p. 4). “Reason” says Bion, “is
emotion’s slave and exists to rationalize emotional experience” (1970, p. 1). See: I (Idea), K, L,
H.

Reality principle: Bion uses in detail what Freud originally described in 1911, about psychic
reality and its relation to the interaction between consciousness and the external world, in order
to build his theory of thinking, to understand the relationship between the psychotic and non-
psychotic parts of the personality, as well as to structure the horizontal axis of his Grid.
Psychotic patients make destructive attacks on those ego aspects necessary to establish a link
between consciousness and external reality. Following Freud these aspects are: (i) attention:
consciousness ascribed to sense organs and used to search the external world; (ii) notation: as
part of memory; (iii) judgement: an impartial view developed to take the place of repression;
(iv) action: a new function destined to induce motor discharges; and (v) thought: a process
from where ideation developed. In 1911, Freud stated:
Thinking was endowed with characteristics which made it possible for the mental apparatus to tolerate an increased
tension of stimulilus while the process of discharge was postponed. It is essentially an experimental kind of acting,
accompanied by displacement of relatively small quantities of cathexis together with less expenditure (discharge) of
them. [p. 221]

For Bion all of these adaptations were also related to the establishment of verbal thought and
with the emergence of the depressive position. See: Horizontal axis, Attention, Notation,
Judgement, Action, Verbal thoughts, Thoughts.

Realization: It can be interpreted as an action to bring something into real or concrete

existence. In his “theory of thinking” Bion refers to the “realization of pre-conceptions”
(1967, pp. 111-119); in other words, when the baby sucks the breast, a realization takes place
between the innate preconception of the breast and the breast as a real object, a situation that
will generate a conception, that is, the satisfaction of a wish. When the need for the breast
meets an absence of the breast or “no-breast”, the realization of this absence, of this
frustration, if well tolerated, will be translated into thoughts, as well as into an apparatus to
think thoughts and into a capacity for abstract thinking. Later on Bion states that the theory of
functions “makes it easier to match the realization with the scientific deductive system that
represents it” (1962, p. 2), in a sense similar to the way in which three dimensional “Euclidian
geometry has the structure of ordinary space as one of its realizations” (ibid., p. 99). In other
words, the theory of functions facilitates the knowledge of the exact purpose a given scientific
deductive system might have, similar to the way in which Euclidian geometry has as its
purpose, dimensioning the ordinary space. Writing a book would be, for instance, a realization
of K. Following the theory of transformations, an artist can transform a landscape (realization)
into a picture (representation), something he achieves by means of a series of invariants which
make his work something intelligible. Through the use of a realization we might be able to
know about the unknown, the thing-in-itself, which represents what Bion referred to as
turbulence, or the capacity to rouse a disturbance that will make the invisible visible, like
introducing a stick in a clear and smooth stream of water. Realizations allow us to know about
the ineffable, the noumenon, by changing it into a phenomenon. From a religious vertex, for
instance, we could intuit the existence of the Godhead, which would correspond to the thing-in-
itself, or to that of which we know nothing; however, when we believe we know something
about God through a realization, for example a miracle, then a turbulence will appear and it will
introduce us to the world of phenomena. Exactly this same mechanism is used by Bion to
explain the enlightenment of O as a thing-in-itself, its change from the unknown or the
noumenon, into the world of phenomenon (O→K), which will allow the construction of
interpretations and the possible realization of the patient’s unconscious meaning during the
analytic session. See: Pre-conception, Theory of functions, Euclidian geometry, Thing-in-
itself, Turbulence, Noumenon, Phenomenon, O, Godhead.

Receptors: see: Perception, organs of.

Regression: In 1976, during a conference in Los Angeles, Bion said:

We talk about “getting back” to childhood or infancy. It is a useful phrase, but I think it is meaningless. Do any of us
“get back” to infancy or childhood, or even tomorrow? It is clear that we don’t. Why do we bother to talk about these
things which, supposedly, have their origin very early in one’s life? What if we do develop a character in infancy or
childhood? What does it matter … We could say that these characteristics which are supposedly split off, or got rid
of in some way, are forgotten—and after all, we do not continue to behave like infants; apparently these things are
got rid of. Do you remember when you were at the breast? No, it’s forgotten or got rid of. But having been forgotten
these things persist in some archaic way in one’s mind, so that they still continue to operate, to make themselves felt
… Since they operate in this archaic way they go on affecting one’s work. [1994, p. 244]

Regression and progression: see: Progression and regression.

Reparation: Bion did not use this concept often, but when he did, he generally followed the
description used by Klein. In Cogitations, at a time when he referred to α-function as simply a,
he stated that attempts at reparation exercised by a, “were destroyed by sadistic attacks made by
psychotic superego” using minute split and projective identifications. Attempts to recover and
reunite fragments were continuously “hampered by coincidental destructive procedures” (1992,
p. 97).
He describes assimilation as the aptitude to incorporate sense impressions capable of
enhancing the self. In psychotic patients this possibility is destroyed due to the domination of
the death instinct as well as to the increment of the superego’s sadism. Destruction of
assimilation does not encumber incorporation of sense impressions and their subsequent
storage, it would just hamper its integration within the self, remaining inlaid as foreign objects
or things-in-themselves, useful only to be discharged by means of projective identification.
Fear of annihilation can increase dominance of live instincts, something that would revert the
process and introduce reparation of the capacity to assimilate (ibid., p. 164). According to Bion
this process can be observed during analysis, in the patient’s use of certain words which
evidence the production of material suitable to be used in the formation of dream thoughts in
dreams, which the patient can associate and communicate. Such verbal statements are then
capable of articulating with each other to form complete wholes and subsequently are not
suitable for projective identification. They are also transformations in process of further
transformations according with future assimilations of sensory impressions (ibid., pp. 157-165).
See: Assimilation, Progression and regression.

Reproductive system: see: Internal reproductive system.

Resistance: It represents the inaccessibility of O, the struggle to maintain thoughts always

unconscious, the fear of truth and of the object becoming real, “resistance operates because it is
feared that reality of the object is imminent” (1965, p.147). It would never represent fear of
falseness, perhaps because it is felt that instead of dealing with reality inaccessibility, it is better
to ignore it: “There are occasions … when it is felt to be wise, not pathological, to turn a ‘blind
eye’ “ (ibid., p. 149). It is difficult to know reality, to grasp the truth, “it is impossible to know
reality for the same reason that makes it impossible to sing potatoes”, you can plant them, peel
them or eat them, but never sing them (ibid., pp. 147-148). Resistance is closely related to
transformations of K in O (TK→ O) and linked to column 2 of the Grid.
Bion also suggests that resistance in dream work, would also result—besides what is
known from classical theory—from the patient’s “felt need” to convert his/her conscious
rational experience into a dream, and not the other way around, to convert a dream into a
conscious rational experience, which usually represents the desire or “felt need” of the analyst.
Bion concludes:
The “felt need” is very important; if it is not given due significance and weight, the true dis-ease of the patient is
being neglected; it is obscured by the analyst’s insistence on interpretation of the dream. [1992, p. 184]

See: “Felt need”, Truth, False, Horizontal axis.

Reversal of α-function: Represents a condition where α-elements function in reverse, self-

digesting themselves and resulting as a consequence in the formation of β-elements, as well as
bizarre objects and a dispersion of the “contact barrier”. Such reversal characterizes a
mechanism Bion has used to explain the formation of the “β screen": Instead of sense
impressions being changed into α-elements to be used in dream and conscious thoughts, as
observed in the non-psychotic part of the personality, the development of the contact barrier
is hindered and destroyed. The contact barrier loses its texture, α-elements are denuded from the
characteristics that separate them from betα-elements and then projected to form the β screen
(1962, p. 25).
Meltzer (1978, pp. 119-126) has used a clinical presentation to explain in detail what
Bion had elucidated theoretically. Its reading is recommended. See: α-function, α-element, β-
element, Contact barrier, β screen.

Reversible perspective: Represents a form of splitting of time and space, which Bion
illustrates with the use of the well-known Wecker’s cube and Rubin’s vase. Both pictures show
changes of perspective depending on which aspect of the diagram is seen as “figure” and what
is seen as “ground”. In the cube, for instance, it depends on which side—either AB or CD—is
seen as closer; whereas in the vase, it depends on whether the shape of a vase or two profiles
looking at each other were chosen. With such double perspective, Bion attempts to illustrate,
during his work with groups, the concept of duality observed between the work group (W)
and one of the latent basic assumption groups. Then he stated:

Figure 2. Reversible perspective.

In the group the psychiatrist should consider from time to time what is the “dual” of any given emotional situation
that he has observed. He should consider also whether the “dual” of the situation he has just described has not
already been experienced and described at some previous sessions. [1948b, pp. 87-88]

Subsequently, Bion used a similar dynamic to explain the possible agreement or disagreement
that might take place between the analyst and his/her patient, or within the patient himself, as a
defence to deal with the pain of growth. He refers to a condition where the patient can use his
own “scientific deductive system” to oppose and compete against the “scientific deductive
system” provided by the interpretation. It can be summarized by the old maxim: “Sometimes
the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing”, or the Spanish one: “One thing thinks the
mule and something else who is riding it.”
The agreement can be quite obtrusive, like the patient who openly opposes the content of
an interpretation. At other times it might not be so obvious, as in the case of reversible
perspective. Seen from the particular vertex of psychoanalytic elements, such discrepancy
takes place between K and -K (minus K), that is, between the analyst’s knowledge and the
patient’s void of knowledge. The agreement implies how to change a dynamic condition that
produces growth and advancement, for another one that is repetitious and static. As the analysis
elapses in a “reversible” condition, an unconscious agreement between both analyst and patient
might take place. Sometimes it is based on almost imperceptible sense impressions, such as
gestures, attitudes, silences, etc., but giving the impression that the analysis is really “working”,
as Bion states, structured on a “contact barrier” between patient and analyst, when in reality
this is not the case. This divergence is usually never talked about; it elapses between silences
and agreements, although Bion strongly believes that if exposed to the Grid, it might be
revealed (1963, p. 54n). Sometimes it might become evident, when the patient is caught
unguarded; however, reversible perspective would be re-established immediately. Deep down,
concludes Bion, this mechanism really represents a defence against mental pain induced by
growth (ibid., p. 63).
A young patient, who used phobic and avoidant defence mechanisms, after one month of
initiating her analysis and almost at the end of the session, said that she “continuously repeated
my interpretations in her mind in order not to forget them”. I then told her that perhaps we could
consider the opposite, that she repeated them to be certain she could free herself from them and
leave nothing inside. After a long silence, she stood up looking in the opposite direction from
where I was, something rather unusual, and I had the impression that, similar to Bion’s patient
(1965, p. 131), she was expelling my words through her eyes. Moreover, I thought that if I had
accepted her hypothesis about “remembering my words”, I would have initiated a reversible
perspective. What is behind this mechanism of reversible perspective is a defence against the
pain of growing in relation to the Oedipus myth (ibid., p. 63).
Using reversible perspective, a patient can avoid getting into a direct confrontation with
the analyst, like experimenting with the anxiety of an Oedipus situation; instead he would only
go his/her way using a mechanism Bion referred to as “static splitting”, representing a failure
in the capacity to allow the mating of a pre-conception with a realization in order to give place
to a conception. Sometimes, says Bion, when reversion is not possible, the patient might revert
to small distortions of communication, in the way of listening to the interpretations, giving
some twists or mis-hearings and misunderstanding, or in more serious pathology, making use of
delusions and hallucinations (ibid., p. 60). Although not completely explicit, Bion also
associates reversion of perspective with the concept of “binocular vision”, either as a substitute
when reversion does not exist, or as interference if it does exist, something questioned by other
analysts (Meltzer, 1978, p. 6). From the point of view of Grid categories, in the reversible
perspective, what the analyst might say could correspond to F5, G5 and G6, while what the
patient says could be placed on F1, G1 and G2. See: Duality, Point of view, Vertex, Static
splitting, Altered focus, Binocular vision.

Ritual: see: Magic.

Rivalry, acting (acting-out) of: Considered as a feeling or rather a constant conjunction that
can dominate during transformation in hallucinosis (referring to psychotic patients or to the
psychotic part of the personality), because the patient, enthralled by his feelings of rivalry
tries to “occupy” the analyst’s place and deprive him of his analytical vertex, inducing a sort of
dilemma in the analyst, between surrendering his techniques or maintaining the analysis. This
condition can sometimes induce in the patient the feeling that the analyst considers himself, as
well as his acts and techniques, to be much superior to the patient’s hallucinatory magic. In
such cases rivalry could be acted out (1965, p. 136). Bion states that the patient presents
himself as “a person anxious to demonstrate his independence of anything other than his own
creations”, which are the product of his alleged ability to use his senses as organs of
evacuation. Whatever is projected represents a universe that surrounds the patient in the form
of bizarre objects. The purpose of this function of the senses and their mental counterpart is to
create a “perfect world” (ibid., p. 137), where any sense of imperfection is ipso facto
experienced as the product of hostile forces intervening from the outside. Thanks to this
capacity, the patient is completely independent of the whole world, except from his own
products, and therefore he feels beyond any experience of rivalry, envy, greed, threats, love or
hate; however, since all defences fail, he is continuously facing the anxiety produced by the
presence of dependency and imperfection. See: Transformation in hallucinosis,
Hallucinations, Magic, Animate-inanimate, Bizarre objects, Envy.

Roman à clef: French expression used to describe novels written about dramas of real people
that were disguised to avoid recognition. Freud (1905) had used the phrase in the introduction to
Dora’s case, where he criticized the confusion of many medical doctors who were trying to
uncover the true identity of Freud’s patients for their own lascivious desires. Bion used this
concept to illustrate invariants present during different forms of transformation. For instance,
invariants present in photographs are not the same as invariants present in impressionist
paintings, and invariants in pornographic literature such as a roman à clef (or the capacity to
recognize the character in spite of his/her camouflage) are not the same as invariants observed
in psychoanalytical treatments. See: Invariants, Transformation, Transformation in rigid
movement, Projective transformations.

Rudimentary conscious: Bion uses this name as well as “rudimentary mental apparatus” to
describe the child’s undeveloped mind that requires maternal reverie in order to elaborate
his/her sense impressions into α-elements. A rudimentary conscious cannot deal with those
tasks that would ordinarily be considered as affairs suitable for an adult’s mind, which can
contain them. When the relationship between this primitive mind and maternal reverie is
broken, such rudimentary conscious cannot deal with the burden that must now support, then
giving place to the establishment of an internal object (“projective-identification-rejecting-
object means”), which, instead of providing the infant with an understanding, such an object
provides a wilful misunderstanding with which the infant is now identified (1967, pp. 116-117).
Bion describes four aspects to define the mental structure this rudimentary psyche has: (1)
Thinking, associated with modification or evasion (see: frustration, thoughts); (2) projective
identification, associated with evasion through evacuation, which should not be confused with
ordinary projective identification; (3) Omniscience; and (4) Communication.
This kind of primitive mind can be observed in borderline patients, who often display
evasion as a form of deafness or lack of attention. See: Maternal reverie, Alphα-elements,
Alphα-function, Projective identification, Frustration, Apparatus of thinking, Thoughts.
S

Saturated-unsaturated elements: Concept borrowed from chemistry in order to explain when

a given situation or state is maintained in maximum impregnation (saturated) of something, or
on the contrary, completely free or empty (unsaturated). Bion frequently uses the Greek letter ζ
(ksi = x) to depict the presence of a saturated or unsaturated element. For instance, β-elements
are described as well categorized objects, equal to things-in-themselves and completely
saturated. On the other hand, Bion insists that the mind of the analyst, during the session, should
always remain free from any memory or desire, like a blank sheet of paper, in other words be
completely unsaturated, just like a pre-conception (1963, p. 70).
Psychotic patients can be afraid of projected elements that show a strong need for
saturation, because they often confuse them with their own feelings of greed. For instance, they
could experience the analyst’s interest in recollecting information as an attempt to rob them of
their sanity (1965, p. 122)
Grotstein (1981, p. 14) has argued that the apparent obscurity observed in Bion’s form of
expression, could be a consequence of the careful selection of words to avoid the penumbra of
associations present in some expressions, which might have interfered with the specific
meanings he wished to convey. For instance, if we were to say “othered” instead of “altered”
(alter = other), etymologically they could both mean the same; however, the latter carries such a
penumbra of saturation because it has been used for so many years, that it will not be able to
convey the same exact meaning of “being interfered by the other”, that the former does. See:
Psi, ζ, Preconception, β-elements.

Schism: Bion described it as a form of resistance that can take place in groups that feel forced
to “evolve”. This form of resistance does not operate in work groups (W) because its
“scientific” orientation allows them to face frustration and thus function in a similar way as
would a healthy ego. But if this is not possible, the group might then resort either towards
oscillations of the Dependent group (baD) or towards “schism”, meaning a splitting of the
group into two sub-groups. (a) One opposed to further advance, maintaining itself dependent to
the group’s bible or to a pleasing leader who gives in to any demand and is ruled by tradition,
like the “word of God”; this kind of leader is made god in order to resist change. Members of
this sub-group manipulate the leader to support any new adherence without great demands,
making the subgroup very popular. (b) The other sub-group, on the contrary, becomes
extremely exacting in their demands, rapidly reducing the number of new recruits, avoiding in
this manner the painful confrontation between old sophisticated and new inexperienced
members.
One sub-group has large numbers of primitive unsophisticated individuals who constantly add to their number, but
who do not develop; the other sub-group develops, but on such a narrow front and with such few recruits that it also
avoids the painful bringing together of the new idea and the primitive state. [1948a p. 128]

Bion concludes:
I am reminded of allegations that a society breeds copiously from its less cultured or less educated members, while
the “best” people remain obstinately sterile. [ibid.]

Schizophrenia: According to Bion, schizophrenic pathology originates from disturbances in the

integration between environment and personality, although later on he established that it might
correspond to a “physical disorder originated in pathological physical states” (1965, p. 144).
However, leaving out the importance of the external environment, says Bion, there are some
important characteristics found in all schizophrenic personalities: (a) a never-decided conflict
between life and death instincts; (b) an ascendancy of destructive over life impulses, which
could be so destructive that even feelings of love are drowned and changed into sadism; (c)
hatred of internal and external realities and of every aspect of the mind (apparatus of
perception) that might help make it conscious, destroying them with the use of minute splitting
and massive projective identifications, which result in a mental state that is neither alive nor
dead; (d) as a consequence, there is a constant terror of imminent annihilation; (e) a premature
and hasty form of object relations of the kind observed in psychotic transference, where
frailness contrasts with the tenacity that remains, representing in these clinical features a
pathognomonic characteristic of schizophrenia (1967, p. 38). Much of what has been said by
Bion about psychoses in general, as well as the psychotic part of the personality, are in close
relationship to schizophrenia.
Asked in 1973 in Rio de Janeiro about the analysis of psychotic patients, Bion answered:
I have only analysed schizophrenic patients who were able to come to my consulting room. Although I still think the
best description of them was “schizophrenic”, I do not suggest they were comparable to the kind of patients who
have to be hospitalized. I must add that in the psycho-analytic world with which I am familiar crazes appear to be
frequent. I am amazed how often an analyst seems to think that he can hardly claim his title unless he has treated
many schizophrenic patients. I would almost wonder how mental hospitals manage to make a living. From the little I
know I find it difficult to believe that so many analysts are treating schizophrenics. Such a claim belongs to the
domain not of the science of psychoanalysis but of fashion. As it is sometimes the fashion to wear feathers in hats, so
psycho-analysts wear “psychotics in their hair”. [1974, pp. 92-94]

Schizophrenic language: Schizophrenic patients use language in three ways: (a) as a form of
action; (b) as a form of communication; (c) as a form of thought.
(a) Language can take the place of action, for example the patient who wishes to “take the movement out of the
piano” to understand why someone is playing it, or the opposite when the patient tries to use omnipotence of thought
to solve the impotence of finding himself in a place when he feels he should be somewhere else.
(b) Language can also be at the service of projective identification and used to parasitize an object in order to
control it, and avoid the pain of separation anxiety. It can also be used to split the object, like for instance, to split the
analyst or his speech.
(c) In view that processes of incorporation are obstructed, due to paranoid anxieties from the fear of continuous
attacks from his projective identifications on the parasite object, identifications are now experienced as projective
identifications in reverse, a mechanism Bion has described as responsible for the agglomeration and compression
of ideas that lead in these patients, to “highly compact speech”; a construction more “appropriate to music than the
 articulation of words as used for non-psychotic communication” (1967, p. 41).

Scientific deductive system (s.d.s. or “system axiomatic deductive”): Throughout most of his
work, Bion seriously attempts to provide psychoanalysis with the precision of a system based
on mathematics and constructs taken from Euclidian geometry:
I wish to introduce as a step towards formulations that are precise, communicable without distortions and more
nearly adequate to cover all situations that are basically the same. [1965, p. 125]

Bion attempts to define the substance behind his system, using a quote from Braithwaite (1955):
… consists of a set of hypotheses which form a deductive system, that is, which is arranged in such a way that from
some of the hypotheses as premises, all the other hypotheses logically follow. [1992, pp. 2-3]

Concluding that a
…peculiarity of psychoanalysis is that the scientific deductive system is a series of hypotheses about hypotheses
about hypotheses …[ibid., p. 46]

And later on:

[it is] … any system of hypotheses in which certain hypotheses occupy a high level in the particular system, and are
used as premises from which lower-level hypotheses are deduced. [ibid., p. 156]

This particular deductive system must be preceded by the structuring of a set of organized
ideas accomplished by the use of symbols, requiring also the capacity to tolerate frustration
and depression, similar to Klein’s description of the process of “synthesis in the depressive
position.” According to Bion, the problem consists in how a primitive system of ideation
reaches the level of sophistication present in a scientific deductive system, related to the
formation of permanent knowledge.
From a genetic point of view, or simply from the vertex of psychoanalytic listening,
there would be:
(1) Awareness of external facts, or “actual elements”, through the use of sense organs, equivalent to what scientists refer to as
“observable facts”. Bion gathers them into three groups: (i) touch and smell; (ii) sound and (iii) sight. The first one is non-
verbal and related to sex, the second is verbal and musical and the last one, verbal and pictorial.
(2) The possibility of an individual to translate an “actual element” into an idea and then create symbols, would depend on the
individual’s capacity to tolerate frustration produced by the absence of the object as well as to tolerate the depression from
the depressive position. This operation is absent in psychotics, because for them words are things.

A mental development associated with the “ability to see facts as they really are,
[producing] … internally a sense of well-being that has an instantaneous and ephemeral effect
and a lasting sense of permanently increased mental stability” (ibid., p. 6). In other words,
scientific knowledge is the consequence of growth of common sense knowledge (ibid., p. 26).
Most of these conceptualizations correspond to the role Bion gave to alphα-function, as
capable of translating sense impressions or betα-elements into more sophisticated elements,
useful in the process of thinking, or creating alphα-elements.
The interpretation could act as a selected fact capable of providing order to the initial
chaos of observations (ibid., pp. 6; 7). In order for a scientific deductive system to be achieved,
says Bion, it is necessary that selected facts that organize the system, be elaborated by means of
a conscious rational process and not by emotional experiences; besides, hypotheses in the
system should be grouped with the help of logical rules, different from those mechanisms that
organize elements following a selected fact (1962, p. 73). A scientific hypothesis should contain
three functions: (a) a private event should be made public (the interpretation); (b) it should
consent to reality testing, be remembered, proved and predicted; and (c) arranged in such a way
for it to make sense (1992, p. 14) Let us take for instance the proverb “action without thought is
like shooting without aim”, which is publicly known, it can predict a fact and organize a sense.
“Common sense” is an important aspect in scientific deductive systems; the interpretation, for
instance, requires that at least both analyst and patient share a consensus:
The analyst, however, is also able to claim that his interpretation is based on common sense; but it is common only to
some psychoanalysts who may be presumed to witness the same events and make the same deductions. [ibid., p. 10]

In relation to the Grid, Bion places the scientific deductive system as part of the
horizontal axis, or axis of the uses. However, it could also have been located also on the
vertical axis, because of its tendency towards a successive complexity of thinking, or in row G,
or be represented by mathematical calculus and correspond to row H.
See: Symbolic equation, α-function, β-elements, α-elements, Apparatus for thinking,
Grid, the, Vertical axis, Horizontal axis.

Screen of β-elements: It represents a construct in the phenomenology of the apparatus to

think thoughts, structured as an agglomeration of β-elements placed between the unconscious
and consciousness within the mind of psychotic patients or the psychotic part of the
personality. It is responsible for a state of confusion similar to dreams, as well as the
possibility of massive projections of β-elements. These elements might induce emotional
changes in the analyst that could determine the profile of the countertransference and the
architecture of the interpretation.
Bion explains how the screen of β-elements is created as a consequence of a process he
refers to as the “reversal of α-function”, according to which:
Instead of sense impressions being changed into alphα-elements for use in dream thoughts and unconscious
waking thinking, the development of the contact-barrier is replaced by its destruction. This is effected by the
reversal of alphα-function so that the contact-barrier and the dream thoughts and unconscious waking thinking
which are the texture of the contact-barrier are turned into alphα-elements, divested of all characteristics that separate
them from betα-elements and are then projected thus forming the beta-screen. [1962, p. 25]

Meltzer (1986) referred to β-screen as a “pseudo communication of non-sense”, he also

suggested a relationship between the concept of β-screen and “Esther Bick’s delineation of the
‘gift of the gab’ method of ‘second skin’ formation” (p. 35).

Secondary qualities: see: Qualities, primary and secondary

Security: Bion refers to patience as a feeling that should prevail when analytic listening is
dominated by those mechanisms present in the depressive position, as described by Klein,
different from the emotions that might prevail when a session is dominated by mechanisms
present in the paranoid-schizoid position. I think Bion is referring to the patience and capacity
to tolerate frustration with which an analyst must deal when faced with the uncertainties
induced in the analysis by object relations of the kind experienced in the paranoid-schizoid
position, in contrast to the feeling of certitude stimulated by the security provided by object
relations that take place during the depressive position (1970, p. 124).

Segal, Hanna: see: Symbolic equation

Selected fact: Concept originally used by Henri Poincaré in his book Science and Method
(1908) to explain the process of creation of a mathematical formulation. Bion reproduces the
text in Learning from Experience.
“If a new result is to have any value, it must unite elements long since known, but till then scattered and seemingly
foreign to each other, and suddenly introduce order where the appearance of dis-order reigned. Then it enables us to
see at a glance each of these elements in the place it occupies in the whole. Not only is the new fact valuable on its
own account, but it alone gives a value to the old facts it unites. Our mind is frail as our senses are; it would lose
itself in the complexity of the world if that complexity were not harmonious; like the short-sighted, it would only see
the details, and would be obliged to forget each of these details before examining the next, because it would be
incapable of taking in the whole. The only facts worthy of our attention are those which introduce order into this
complexity and so make it accessible to us.” [1962, p. 72]

In his “commentaries” about the “Imaginary twin”, although by then he had not yet
mentioned Poincaré, it is obvious that Bion is referring to the “selected fact”, when he said:
[It is] what I now call an “evolution”, namely, the coming together, by a sudden precipitating intuition, of a mass of
apparently unrelated incoherent phenomena which are thereby given coherence and meaning not previously
possessed. [1967, p. 127]

And:
From the material the patient produces, there emerges, like the pat-tern from a kaleidoscope, a configuration which
seems to belong not only to the situation unfolding, but to a number of others not previously seen to be connected
and which it has not been designed to connect. [ibtd.\

In Cogitations, in an undated note, probably written some time before the previous
quotation, Bion correlates selected facts and common sense, stating that the former would
provide sense to an idea which, once proven to be true and communicated to others, would
integrate, like a selected fact, a great amount of people, societies or groups, according to the
sense such an idea has made common to all. At first it would be a private fact, and later on,
after it is believed to be true because it fits into a scientific deductive system, it will become
public through communication and common sense, and will be able to integrate a large group
of minds (1992, p. 193).
A “cause” and a selected fact are very much alike, because they can both be associated
with an emotional experience capable of providing, at a given moment, a sense of synthesis or
creative association. At the same time it will also bring knowledge of the existence of discrete,
not yet connected objects. A selected fact is associated with the synthesis of objects in a
synchronic manner where time is excluded, while cause relates in a diachronic way following
time as a narrative (ibid., p. 275). For instance, an interpretation could act, at a particular
instant (timeless), as a selected fact that triggers a series of associations that have unconsciously
remained in constant conjunction, while leaving out other “discrete” objects not bound to this
chain of associations. On the other hand, we know because of the Oedipus myth narrative,
what exactly—emotionally—follows in time after Oedipus’ arrival at the crossroads.
 Further on Bion explains that the selected fact describes the synthesis processes
experienced by the psychoanalyst, similar to the way in which paranoid-schizoid objects
become coherent and initiate the depressive positions, as adumbrated by Klein (1962, pp. 72,
87; 1992, p. 213). The selected fact corresponds to an emotional experience that appears due to
feelings of coherence and discovery, which does not necessarily have to be logical, but does
require a relaxed attitude on behalf of the analyst in order to provide a matrix of abstraction
from where the interpretation can spring. If this process is obstructed, on the other hand, it will
be accompanied by an emotion similar to the one experienced during a reversible perspective
(1962, p. 87).
A young married childless woman stated that not long ago one of her sisters, whom she
felt had always been preferred by her father, had moved with her husband back to their parents’
house. She complained that her father’s preference was terribly unfair and very painful. Her
mother, described as “an older sister”, she felt might have suffered a lot because of her father’s
alcohol abuse and unfaithfulness. She cries as she speaks. She refers to having difficulties with
her own husband, mostly in relation to sex, for he wants her but she usually refuses to be
touched by him, although she might give in and have sex, but does not wish to be caressed.
“Perhaps I feel angry because he is too selfish”. There is the countertransference feeling of
two children playing. She recalls seeing a whale at the Miami aquarium, purposely splashing
some children that were watching it just beside her, and this made her cry; and as she speaks
about it, she cries again. She also recalls when she was a little girl and a whale also splattered
her intentionally, and then she also wept.
We could deduce that the “splash from the whale” represented a selected fact, because it
clarifies and gives a sense to the whole content of the session. The fact that the whale had
deliberately splattered a child, meant that the child was preferred by the whale, and this was
what made her cry, then and now, because it reminded her of the times—in contrast to her sister
—when she was not chosen. Her parents were not good “splashing whales” for her, and she had
chosen to marry a man who was not either; this is the reason for her ambivalence towards him,
because she wished that he could have such a fantastic capacity to “splash”, in order for her to
use him to get revenge on those who, like her sister, have been well “splattered”. After this is
interpreted, she produces a short dream: the image of a pregnant woman who walks holding a
little girl by the hand. She said she could be the little girl and that the woman “was really
pregnant” because she looked immense. The analyst then asked: “Like a whale?” In tears she
smiled. It appears as if there is a narcissistic conglomerate where the patient represents all the
characters: “she is pregnant of herself, as a self-splashing whale”, representing a manic
mechanism to deny the pain of exclusion, for after all, she is continuously “dousing” herself
with tears.
Britton and Steiner (1994) emphasized the risk that could be faced when an interpretation
is based on an “overvalued idea” instead of a selected fact.

Sense organs: see: Perception, organs of

Sensuous reality: It corresponds to the reality that can be discerned by means of the sense
organs, indispensable to conceive the phenomenon, but useless to perceive the ineffable, the
noumenon or the thing-in-itself. Bion states that we are forced to
… talk about things which could be described as phenomenal, while having to use that same language for things
which are noumenous. This is a serious problem. If we invent words nobody will understand what those words mean.
If we do not, their sensuous history is evoked. As with a “dead” metaphor carelessly used, its ghost begins to walk.
Neologisms are the privilege of the mentally ill. They are not available for use by the psychoanalyst. [1974a, p. 34]

And further on:

… we know so little about the mind, or psyche, or spirit— whichever term we borrow to talk about this thing which
is not sensuously apprehensible, which does not fall within the spectrum of the sensuous range. [ibid., p. 42]

Bion states that the difference can be observed when we listen to someone and we say, “I see
what you mean”; in contrast to the analyst who listens to his patient and thinks “I don’t know
what he is talking about”, something that can change during the session and we might then say
“now I know what he is talking about”. “This”, says Bion, “… that would be known in the
future but is not yet known is the noumena or the thing-in-itself; later on, when it is understood
it would change into a phenomena.”
…The immediate interpretation, now, goes backward and it goes forward. “I think I see what you mean.” Or to put
it in other terms, “I think I remember something like what you are saying”… It glances back; it intuits “the shape of
things to come” … A “present” experience is past, is present and is future; it is timeless— unless someone can invent
space-time, psychoanalytic time and space. [ibid., p. 36]

See: O, phenomena, noumena, Thing-in-itself, Truth.

Sigma (=Σ): Greek letter (= S) used in mathematics to denote a total sum. Bion uses it to
represent the totality of the mind, both in a nation as well as in a person. He prefers to use this
sign instead of a concept like noösphere introduced by Teilhard de Chardin (1947) to describe
the collective unconscious. Σ would be equivalent to VOVG (noos) of the Greeks (1992, p. 313)
(meaning: “intelligence, spirit, mind, thought, memory”), and different from small sigma: σ (=
s), which Bion uses to represent the soma (ibid., p. 314). He insists on the need to investigate
the relationship between Σ and σ, which have been considered equivalent in classical
psychoanalysis: “The object of my proposal is to do away with such a limitation and to regard
the relationship between body and mind (or personality, or psyche) as one that is subject to
investigation” (ibid.). Σ and σ should not be confused, notwithstanding the attraction σ could
exercise in some individuals: “But psychoanalytic scrutiny convinces one that Σ is the
significant fact, and CT important only in so far as it is receptive or emitter57 of 2” (ibid., p.
316). In Σ can be found what we call “psychotic thinking”, an area Bion referred to as of “short
wave”, that lacks the capacity to discriminate, something musicians refer to as “incapacity to
listen”. The analyst must adjust his/her aptitude to listen in order to penetrate the isolation of
the psychotic patient, who will then welcome the attention provided by the analyst, feeling that
he has finally become comprehensible to somebody. See: Medical model.

Significant dreams: Bion alludes to several dreams, many in presentations of clinical cases, for
example the “imaginary twin” (1967), as well as other dreams he uses to explain theories, like
for instance the dream of the “tiger and the bear” (1965, pp. 15-16), or “the arm that fell off”
(1992, p. 231). He refers only once to a dream of his own: “the dream of the Negro” (ibid., pp.
51-52). During the weekend a patient dreams of a tiger and a bear fighting, and wakes up with
his own scream, dreadfully frightened, feeling that during their wild tussle they would stumble
and kill him. The bear managed to stop the tiger but its nose was bitten off, an image that made
the patient shudder when he thought about it (1965, pp. 15-16).
Bion produces no patient history or associations to the dream about “the arm falling off”,
he only uses it as an example to explain that similar to myths, dreams can show how α-
elements are assembled in a constant conjunction. He assures us that dreams and myths,
although he gives no explanation, can be reduced to an algebraic calculus and
…therefore as capable of yielding, after scrutiny, the tools that can interpret, through their suitability to represent a
problem, the problem itself, and so open the way to its solution. [1992, p. 230]

In the dream the patient was seated:

… in a railway train and gave the signal usually given to indicate an intention to stop when driving a car, and that his
arm fell of, it must be assumed that certain elements are conjoined. [ibid., p. 231].

The third one is Bion’s dream that took place on the night of the 3–4 of August 1959, after
dozing while reading a passage on Quine’s Mathematical Logic (p. 31) about “dealing with
negative”.
The dream, I thought as I wakened, was associated with “neg” being both negro and negative. But why did I not
write it down then? And now I think of negative and native: “natives” is associated with memories of India, my
mother, and natives as being coloured people like Indians who were “inferior”. Also “dative” as being a present, and
dates which I liked. “Ablative”, to lift off or take away. Negro, as he appeared in the dream, now seems to me not to
be a real person but an ideogram. My theory is that this ideogram has enabled me to store all these ideas, which I am
now producing—maybe because I am a dreamer. Perhaps there is a class of persons, or class of dreamers, to which it
might be useful to say some people belong. [ibid., pp. 51-52]

Bléandonu (1994) using Bion’s association with the word “date”, has the following to say:
Bion does not consider the overdetermination of “date” through its meaning or “rendezvous”: with whom? … Unlike
a Kleinian or a Freudian, Bion abandons this associative richness to consider the “negro”—not as a real person but as
an ideogram … What did Bion mean by proposing that the “negro” was not a real person? Simply that it was a
person from a dream. He differentiated between the status of a representation during sleep—where the “negro” had
appeared to be “real”, and had represented an “undigested” fact— and the status of the “negro” in the interpretation
given to the reader. By making the “negro” into an ideogram, Bion had partly “digested” the fact. The visual image
of the “negro” evoked by the writing is part of the process of mental digestion. [pp. 174–175]

Sign Objects: Objects used to represent signs, different from symbols, which make possible
thinking about objects that are not present. They stand for primitive forms of thinking, before
proper tools appear. For instance, if someone wished to know how many apples there were if
four men carried three each, it would not be necessary to have the four men and apples present
in the room, it would be enough to employ mathematical notations to solve the problem
“without having to rely on the physical presence of the objects.” If objects were present they
would be signs and not abstract representations or symbols. The “object-sign” corresponds to
the thing-in-itself or β-elements (1963, pp. 38-39).

Silence: Bion referred to silence during psychoanalytic sessions throughout many of his
publications. As a paradigm of these contributions it would be useful to reproduce a statement
made by Bion in one of his conferences in 1974 in Rio de Janeiro:
… a patient comes into the consulting room and does not say a word; perhaps he keeps on coming for six days, or six
weeks, or six months without saying anything. If one can stand it, then after six months one might begin to think, “I
have an idea about the pattern of this silence. I wouldn’t like to say at any given moment why his silence today is not
the same as his silence on Friday, and it won’t be the same tomorrow. But I think that if I can go on listening to him
being silent”—in the way that Freud talks about the importance of going on being present in the consulting room
with the patient for long enough—”I begin to be aware of a pattern”. Although we cannot say whether we have heard
anything we could say, “It has an effect upon me—not on my countertransference— and I think I have had a
respect for the silence of the session . If we cannot respect the silence—”I can t be bothered with this person; I can’t
come here day after day and have him lying on the couch, saying nothing”—then there is no chance of making any
further progress. It is difficult to explain to someone not present why we think that we could hear the difference
between one silence and another. The patient, however is present. [1974a, p.94]

Francesca Bion (1995), on the other hand, repeats comments made by Bion about the
patient who is silent all the time, as follows:
…restricting ourselves to verbal intercourse won’t get us far with this kind of patient. What kind of psychoanalysis
is needed to interpret the silence? The analyst may think there is a pattern to the silence. If they cannot respect the
silence, there is no chance of making any further progress. The analyst can be silent and listen— stop talking so that
he can have a chance to hear what is going on. [p. 20]

And on another occasion:

Some silences are nothing, they are 0, zero. But sometimes that silence becomes a pregnant one; it turns into 101—
the preceding and succeeding sounds turn it into valuable communication, as with rests and pauses in music, holes
and gaps in sculpture. [ibid.]

Social-ism (Vs narcissism): It seems that Bion, at a given moment, used the concepts of
socialism and narcissism to explain the polarization between both instincts, life or sexual and
death or ego-instincts, as they were originally explained by Freud (1967, p. 118). It would not
be difficult to speculate that such a different vertex would be the product of Bion’s experience
in group dynamics. He said:
This bi-polarity of the instincts refers to their operations as elements in the fulfilment of the individual’s life as an
individual, and as elements in his life as a social or, as Aristotle would describe it, as a “political” animal. [1992, p.
105]

It is preferable, says Bion, to establish a polarization between “group” and “individual” and not
between ego and sexuality as Freud did. At some other point, however, he emphasizes the
narcissistic schism between projected elements and their introjected mirror counterpart.
These two terms [social-ism and narcissism] might be employed to describe tendencies, one ego-centric and another
socio-centric … They are equal in amount and opposite in sign. Thus, if the love impulses are narcissistic at any
time, then the hate impulses are social-istic, i.e. directed towards the group, and, vice versa: if the hate is directed
against an individual as a part of narcissistic tendency, then the group will be loved socialistically. [ibid., p. 122]

The increase of narcissistic intensity would be accompanied by narrowing of the emotions, up

to the point in which only one emotion, such as love or hate, can be experienced. Similarly, an
increase of social-ism intensity is accompanied by a widening of the emotional spectrum. Bion
also admits that the conflict between both extremes, group and individual, should be solved
within the ego; but if this fails, that is, when extreme pathologies obstruct such a solution, the
conflict might be translated into ego weakness and even its destruction, making it impossible
ever to achieve satisfaction. Such a circumstance can determine intense hate towards reality, as
is commonly observed in psychosis (ibid., p. 106).
Pathology, says Bion, from a psychoanalytical point of view, always has an emotional
character. Furthermore, this source can be regarded as lying in the individual’s (a) narcissism
and (b) socialism. Emotions can be understood as a disturbance of ideation, similar to the way
in which the reflection on the water surface can be disturbed by the breeze (1965, p. 80). See:
Meaning, Turbulence. Sophisticated group: see: Work group

Space: Bion states that the “no-breast” is at variance with the breast and it can be represented
using geometric similes, like for instance the image of a point (.), as something ephemeral
resembling a staccato mark in a musical score. It could correspond to a breast that has been
reduced to a simple position, the place where the breast was; the breast has disappeared
consumed by greed or destroyed by splitting maintaining only its position. In this sense, and
following the analogy of the breast-no-breast, Bion considers space as pure emotional violence
dominated by greed and by the “no-space”, represented by the place where the space was. On
the Grid, he uses ←↑as “the ultimate non-existent ‘object’, the ‘space’ and ‘time’ annihilated
object and its all-consuming greed for, and envy of, anything that exists …” (1965, p. 104).

Frustration tolerance implies awareness of the amount of time there is between the presence
and absence of objects, “and of what a developing personality later comes to know as ‘time’
…”. In a similar trend, the position where the breast was that now is experienced as the “no-
breast”, will later on correspond to the notion of “space” (ibid., p. 54). See: no-breast, point,
time.

Splitting in psychosis: Bion discriminates between splitting and dissociation. Splitting

represents a process that takes place in psychosis as well as in the psychotic part of the
personality, while dissociation is present in more benign pathology, such as neuroses like
hysteria. Bion describes splitting as the main mechanism used in massive and sadistic attacks
against some aspects of the ego, such as the apparatus of perception, verbal thinking, and
against the thinking process matrix, which had already been split from the very beginning of the
subject’s life. An important aspect is the splitting directed towards the link that brings together
reality sense impressions and their awareness, something that makes symbol formation
impossible. In subsequent stages, splitting also affects word combination, like the use of
substantives or verbs, hindering the possibility of articulated language. Splitting is followed by
massive projective identifications towards internal and external objects, something responsible
not only for the creation of bizarre objects, but for the impoverishment of the internal world as
well.

Splitting, static: see: Static splitting.

Stammer: Bion describes a patient with a serious form of stammer which brought him to the
point where he became completely silent. He tries to understand the dynamic of this patient with
the help of the container-contained model: “a man speaking of an emotional experience in
which he was closely involved began to stammer badly as the memory became increasingly
vivid to him” (1970, pp. 93-94). Bion interprets that this man was attempting to contain his
experience within the words of his narrative, like someone who is about to lose control uses
language to avoid it; however, the words he uses to contain his feelings are destroyed by them,
and therefore such feelings get dispersed “as enemy forces might break through the forces that
strove to contain them” (ibid., p. 94). The meaning this man was trying to express itself became
denuded, “his attempt to use his tongue for verbal expression failed to ‘contain’ his wish to use
his tongue for masturbatory movement in his mouth” (ibid.). From the point of view of a
container-contained interaction ( ), this condition represents a “parasitic” relationship
where on element (emotion = ) depends on another one (word = ) to produce a third one
(incoherent communication) that will destroy all three of them (ibid., pp. 95-96). See:
Parasitic, Commensal, Symbiotic, Palinurus, death of, Container-contained.

Statements: Bion defined “statements” as synonymous with “formulation” (1997, p. 15). He

established that the statement could be,
… anything from an inarticulate grunt to quite elaborate constructions … A single word is
a statement, a gesture or grimace is a statement; in short it is any event that is part of
communication between analyst and analysand, or any personality and itself. [ibid., p. 8]
Later on he assures us that all psychoanalytic statements are trans-

formations and also theories (ibid., p. 15). For instance, a statement that declares that a phobic
patient is terrorized by a hidden internal murderer, represents a theory, which also demonstrates
in the patient the existence of a transformation in rigid movement (meaning that in spite of
the changes suffered by the internal object, her criminal part can still be recognized). At a given
moment the patient refers to her difficulty travelling by plane, something that might represent a
corroboration of the statement-theory, because she might fear that the aeroplane could crash as a
retaliation for her criminal part.

Static splitting: Bion considers that the condition he described as reversible perspective is
ruled by a passive form of splitting, different from the more dynamic one described by Klein in
the paranoid-schizoid position.
In the situation I describe there appears to be no dynamic splitting. It is as if the splitting was arrested in a static pose
action being no more necessary than it is when hallucination is substituted for reality. [1963, p. 58]

When static splitting takes place, the patient would not have to get into a disagreement about
Oedipal situations within him/herself, or anything like that, which have been considered
“dynamic” by Bion. He just reverses the perspective, that is, changes a dynamic situation into
something very “passive” and different from intrusive projective and introjective
identifications of β-elements. In other words, the patient will go “his own way” expecting the
analyst to go “his own”, but creating the feeling that they are going together.

Subsidiary basic assumption: Other forms of basic assumptions (ba), for instance, to consider
that the well-being of individuals is secondary to the survival of the group. See: Basic
assumption, Dependent ba, Fight-flight ba, Pairing ba, Group
Symbiotic relation: Bion described three different kind of links between container ( ) and
contained ( ): commensal, symbiotic, and parasitic. The symbiotic represents a confrontation
where one element depends on another for the benefit of both. In this kind of relationship the
result can be translated into growth, although it might not be easily discerned. In a relationship
like the one that takes place between the establishment and the mystic, for instance, the former
can express a sort of benevolent hostility towards the latter, who can in turn be under careful
scrutiny; however, “from this scrutiny the group grows in stature and the mystic likewise”. On
the other hand, in the parasitic association even friendliness is deadly (1970, p. 78).

Symbolic equation: Segal (1957) refers to the “equation” between the original object and its
symbol in the inner as well as in the outer world, as representing the basis for concrete thinking
in psychotic patients, where substitutes do not differ from the original objects, and both are
treated as if they were one and the same thing. “Symbolic equation”, means a lack of
differentiation between object and symbol: “penis = violin”. Segal says:
The symbolic equation between the original object and the symbol in the internal and the external world is, I think,
the basis of the schizophrenic’s concrete thinking where substitutes for the original objects, or parts of the self, can
be used quite freely, but, as in the … examples of schizophrenic patients which I quoted, they are hardly different
from the original object: they are felt and treated as though they were identical with it. This non-differentiation
between the thing symbolized and the symbol is part of a disturbance in the relation between the ego and the object.
Parts of the ego and internal objects are projected into an object and identified with it. The differentiation between
the self and the object is obscured. Then, since a part of the ego is confused with the object, the symbol—which is a
creation and a function of the ego—becomes, in turn, confused with the object which is symbolized. [ibid., p. 41]

Bion adds that a difficulty in the treatment of psychotic patients is their impossibility to work
without the presence of the real objects the analysis is dealing with. Using his theory of
transformations, Bion states that these patients are unable to transform O into K (see Symbol
formation).

Symbol formation: For Bion it represents the capacity to place together two objects in such a
way that whatever is common between them, makes itself obvious, while their unaltered
differences, are avoided (1967, p. 50); for example, the fox and astuteness. The faculty to create
symbols depends on: (a) the capacity to conceive whole objects; (b) the ability to overcome the
use of splitting present in the paranoid-schizoid position; and (c) bringing together split parts
and initiating the depressive position (ibid., p. 26).
Bion published the above comments in 1953; however, 13 years later, he seemed to have
disagreed with his previous ideas of the need of a complete prevalence of the depressive
position in order for symbolic formations to take place. At that point he questioned Klein’s
assumption about the fact that disarray of symbol formation could give rise to serious
pathologies such as psychosis.58 “The psychotic patient”, says Bion, “does not always behave
as if he is incapable of symbol formation” (1970, p. 65). The difficulty consists in the privacy of
his symbolic formulation, which often cannot be publicly recognized as such, like a “private
communication made by God (or Devil or Fate)”, for instance. He continues:
The symbol, as it is usually understood, represents a conjunction, which is recognized by a group to be constant; as
encountered in psychosis it represents a conjunction between a patient and his deity which the patient feels to be
constant. [ibid.]
 See: Symbolic equation.

Synthesis: In a strict sense it means to produce something out of its own elements, like creating
water from the union of oxygen and hydrogen; in a wider sense, it signifies the production of
something new out of previously existing things, which might also have been produced from a
previous synthesis. Kant has distinguished between synthetic and analytic prepositions. The
former, different from the latter, can be recognized only through experience; for instance, to say
that the “Angel Fall is the tallest fall in the world”, would imply having previously measured it.
In the analytic preposition, the predicate is part of the subject: “a fat man is a man”, “a right-
angled triangle is a triangle”. Other philosophers deny any difference between them.

Note
57 Bion uses the word “emittive” that was changed to “emitter’, because it did not appear in
the dictionary (Webster Collegiate Dictionary)
58 According to Meltzer (1978), Bion’s creativity increased highly after Klein’s death in
1960, meaning that perhaps he was submitting his originality to the ideas of his analyst and
teacher.
T

Thalamic or sub-thalamic terror: Word created by Bion to name the kind of dread that would
be experienced if there were no higher mental regulation for such a fear (1987, p. 319). It would
be a social and individual fear, to the point that attempts would often be made not to experience
this fear but to ignore it: “there are situations in which a patient shows great signs of fear; that
patient may also have learnt not to show them” (ibid., 253). There are these peculiar zones of
the body, which do behave as if they had a brain or mind of their own; “… we would have to
say, has the parasympathetic got a brain? Does the thalamus do a parasympathetic sort of
thinking?” (ibid., pp. 253-254; 1974, p. 99). See: Nameless fear.

Theorem of Pythagoras: see: Pythagoras, theorem of.

Theorem of the Bride’s Chair: Also known as “theorem of the Bride”, because the
demonstration of Pythagoras‘ theorem, according to the Arabs, resembles the saddle used by a
bride. Apparently the French had confused this name with another theorem, that of Pons
Asinorum, something questioned by Bion who assures us that the latter corresponds to No. 5 of
Book No. 1 and it represents an isosceles triangle, while the Bride’s Chair represents a right-
angled triangle which corresponds to Book 13, No. 47 (1992, p. 207).

Theory of function: see: Function, theory of.

Theory of observation: see: Psychoanalysis.

Theory of psychoanalysis: see: Psychoanalysis.

Theory of thinking: see: Thinking, theory of.

Thing-in-itself :59 Term taken by Kant from the Greek noumenon, the past participle of voeiv,
meaning to think, to conceive; used to describe what the mind conceives beyond the
phenomenon, but cannot be perceived, that is, the thing in itself, the absolute reality of which
there is no empirical or sensible knowledge, but can be known through intellectual intuition.
Russell (1945) explains the “thing-themselves” as
… the causes of our sensations, are unknowable; they are not in space or time, they are not substances, nor can they
 be described by any of those other general concepts which Kant calls categories. [p. 707]

Bion correlates the thing-in-itself with two completely different aspects: (a) with O or the
ultimate unthinkable truth; (b) with material that cannot be changed into thoughts or β-
elements, and can only be used for evacuation through projective identifications. “It is as if in
one view man can never know the thing-in-itself, but only secondary and primary qualities
[he is referring to the analyst listening during the analytical session]; whereas in the other view
he can never “know” anything but the thing-in-itself [now referring to the psychotic patient]”
(1965, p. 40).
Bion differentiates between noumena and phenomena:
When the noumena, the things themselves, push forward so far that they meet an object [a realization] which we can
call a human mind, there then comes into being the domain of phenomena. We can guess, therefore, that
corresponding to these phenomena, which are something that we know about because they are us, is the thing itself,
the noumenon. The religious man would say, “there is, in reality, God . What Freud and psychoanalysis have
investigated is phenomena. (1974, p. 41)

The mind, says Bion, is an obstacle to appreciate the unknown, the noumenon, which cannot be
grasped unless it is exposed. He continues:
I would not be able to see a stream which was flowing smoothly without any obstacle to disturb it because it could be
so transparent. But if I create a turbulence by putting in a stick, then I can see a stream which was flowing smoothly
without any obstacle to disturb it because it would be so transparent. [ibid.]

In 1962, when describing his theory of thinking, Bion said that, “What should be a
thought, a product of the juxtaposition of preconception and negative realization becomes a
bad object, indistinguishable from a thing-in-itself, fit only for evacuation” (1967, p. 112). And
later on, in the same article:
If intolerance of frustration is dominant, steps are taken to evade perception of the realization by destructive attacks.
In so far as preconception and realization are mated mathematical conceptions [see: psychic mathematics] are
formed … as if indistinguishable from things-in-themselves and are evacuated at high speed as missiles to annihilate
space. [ibid., p. 113]

In other words, both O as the ineffable, and beta elements as products of sense
information, represent things-in-themselves; the difference between them, however, is related to
hope and to the outcome that can be expected from each of them, while O can be grasped
(O→K) and because of enlightening, β-elements are only good for evacuation through
projective identifications. The concept of the thing-in-itself is similar to the Platonic notion of
idea (see: Platonic forms). For instance, the idea of a book does not have sensory form,
however it is a possibility present in all books, but only one book in particular, let us say book
X, can change into a “phenomenon” and be recognized by the senses as book X, which will
represent a realization. In the same way, O can be conceived by the senses as a possibility
within an individual, but can only be formulated once it is touched by a special event, a
realization. See: β-space, noösphere.

Thinking, apparatus for: Bion considers that thinking depends on the success of two mental
developments: the development of thoughts and the development of an apparatus he will
provisionally call “thinking” which is forced to exist in order to deal with thoughts, and not the
other way around. “This” says Bion “differs from any [other] theory of thought” (1967, pp. 110-
111). He presents two phases of increasing complexity in the setting up of the apparatus for
thinking: in the first part he assures us that thinking is forced into an apparatus, which is not
prepared to do this, that develops as a result of external demands and must suffer changes in
order to adapt. The situation results in a need to change a non-existing object or “no-breast”
into a representation. Bion states:
As a “model” of thought I take a sensation of hunger that is associated with a visual image of a breast that does not
satisfy but is of a kind that is needed. This needed object is a bad object. All objects that are needed are bad objects
because they tantalize. [1962, pp. 83-84]

If the capacity to tolerate frustration is adequate the internal “no-breast” will transform
into a thought and an apparatus for thinking will be developed, which will make frustration
more bearable. But, if the capacity to deal with frustration is inadequate the internal bad “no-
breast” will pressure the mind towards evasion of frustration and, instead of forming a thought,
the no-breast will transform into a bad object or a β-element, indistinguishable from the thing-
in-itself, which will serve only to be evacuated. In this case, instead of having an apparatus for
thinking, the mind will be dominated by mechanisms of projective identification, used to
discharge the accumulation of bad objects (1967, pp. 111-112) (or for acting-out). According to
Bion, the apparatus for thinking and the digestive apparatus have common origins, for it is the
same one that has originally dealt with sense impressions related to the alimentary canal: milk
and affect or the “good breast” arrive at the same time (1962, p. 57).
The baby is conscious of the existence inside of him of a very bad breast, that is, a non-
existent breast which, because it is needed and not present, produces painful feelings dealt with
by evacuation through the respiratory apparatus or through “swallowing” a satisfying breast.
This breast is then indistinguishable from a “thought” or even better, from a primitive thought
or proto-thoughts (ibid., p. 84). On the other hand, the “swallowed” thought is independent of
the existence of an object that has really been put inside the mouth; in this way, the breast or the
“thing-in-itself” is equivalent to the idea in the mind and reciprocally indistinguishable from the
“thing-in-itself” in the mouth.
(A) In the second part of the systematization of the apparatus for thinking, Bion adds the
concepts of container ( ) and contained ( ) and does so by taking advantage of the
“integrating reticules”, a notion introduced by Elliot Jaques (1960), understood as a “complex
mental scheme” that enables the mind to achieve the notion of a total object (1962, pp. 92-93).
Bion uses this concept in order to explain the complexity of successive growth that takes place
between container ( ) and contained ( ) in the achievement of higher levels of abstraction that
will allow one to learn from experience. This development is typical of what Bion calls a
commensal relationship between ( ) and ( ). Theoretically this process will begin at a moment
when these elements ( ) are organized in a form previous to what Poincaré (1908) has called
the selected fact. The containers ( ) represent doubts, questions or variables joined by
emotional experiences that successively add up inside the contents ( ) in a continuous series
that can be represented as: n + n; a process that at the end guarantees the successive growth of
the apparatus and the possibility of learning from experience. This learning will depend on the
capacity of n to integrate and to keep open at the same time, free of rigidity and ready for
further assimilations. An individual in whom this mechanism operates will be capable of
preserving knowledge and experience, and capable of using his past experiences as well as
being receptive to new ones (1962, pp.92-93). Therefore, the level of K will depend on this kind
of “commensal” relationship, for instance, the successive complexity of new hypotheses that
will form systems and later on deductive scientific systems. Bion also relates the apparatus for
thinking to I (Idea), assuring us that the material out of which the apparatus is formed and has to
deal with is I (1963, p.31). See: Thinking, theory of, Thoughts, Verbal thoughts.

Thinking, theory of: Bion published a paper with this title in 1962, where he depicted a theory
about thinking, similar, according to him, to a philosophical theory, because philosophers are
also concerned with the same matters, and yet different in that his theory was created to be used
in everyday practice, and its hypotheses to be empirically validated by psychoanalysts.
However, it can be related to some philosophical theories in the same way that there is a
relationship between applied and pure mathematics. He believes his theory has no diagnostic
importance, although it can be helpful when some psychological disturbance is suspected (1967,
p. 110). Thinking depends on the significant development of two significant constructions: (a)
thoughts; and (b) an apparatus for thinking, absolutely necessary for the development of
thoughts. This theory would differ from others, because it defines thinking as a development
forced on the psyche by the pressure of thoughts and not the other way around (ibid., p. 111).
Thought disturbances might be associated with breakdown of thoughts, the apparatus for
thinking, or both.
Following Freud (1911), the thoughts originated from ideation and acquired special
quality of action, something that provided the apparatus for thinking with a capacity to
discharge the mind from accretion of stimuli, thorough the use of projective identifications.
Generally, this theory of thinking introduces the existence of an omnipotent phantasy: that it is
possible temporarily to split undesirable aspects of the personality—sometimes valuable aspects
—to place them inside an object and force this object to experience those emotions of which
they wanted to free themselves. See: Thinking, apparatus for, Thoughts, Verbal thoughts.

Thoughts: They could be conceived as space occupied by nothings, marked by signs and
words, and used to solve problems in the absence of the object (1965, p. 106). Different from
conceptions, which result from the mating of pre-conceptions with realizations, thoughts, on
the other hand, also represent the mating of pre-conceptions, but with frustrations (1967, p.
111). In other words, the realization of a wish will give place to a conception, but frustration
will produce thoughts. The model suggested by Bion is based on the baby whose expectation of
feeding is confronted with the realization of an absent breast or no-breast. The next step will
depend on how the baby reacts, either to avoid frustration or to modify it. If frustration tolerance
is satisfactory, the internal no-breast will be changed into thoughts, primitive thoughts or proto-
thoughts (1962, p. 84) and an apparatus for thinking that will allow the frustration to be more
tolerable. But if the capacity to deal with frustration is insufficient, the internal no-breast will
press the mind towards evasion of frustration and instead of a thought being created, the no-
breast will become a bad object indistinguishable from a thing-in-itself, good only to be
evacuated by mechanisms of projective identification. Thoughts could be classified according
to their historical development: (a) pre-conceptions; (b) conceptions; and (c) concepts (1967, p.
111). Interchanges between paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions are also related to the
development of thoughts and thinking. See: Thinking, apparatus for, Thinking, theory of,
Verbal thoughts.
Thoughts without a thinker: see: wild-thoughts

Three-kneed thing: Following Plutarch, Bion associates the Oedipus myth with a triangle
rectangle, where the sides of the right angle represent both parents and the hypotenuse the child.
But Bion adds that
The Greek term [triangle] could be translated as, “a three-kneed thing with equal legs”. R. B. Onians [1951] has
shown—and he cannot be accused of any tenderness to Freud’s theories of sexuality—that the knees, in early Greek
literature, are very frequently associated with the genitalia. This has made me look at Euclid’s Fifth Proposition in a
new light. It also makes one inclined to attempt a revaluation of the question traditionally attributed to the Sphinx.
[1992, pp. 201-202]

See: Pythagoras, theorem of, Euclid, geometry of.

Tiger and the bear, dream of: see: Significant dreams.

Time: When satisfaction is not possible (no-breast), the future will depend on how the ego
tolerates frustration. According to Bion the ego responds in different ways: (a) it could evade
the situation with the use of evacuatory thoughts or β-elements, which are projected inside
internal or, more often, external objects; (b) it could modify the situation; (c) it could establish a
splitting between inanimate (material) and animate (mental) objects; or (d) it could produce a
thought by mating a pre-conception with a negative realization of an absent object.
Frustration tolerance implies consciousness of the period elapsed between the presence
and the absence of objects, that is, what a developing personality would then recognize as
“time”. It is similar to the place where the object was, experienced as a “no-breast” and
analogous to the notion of space. The factors that reduce the breast to a point, said Bion, also
reduce time to “now”:
Time is denuded of past and future. The “now” is subjected to attacks [extremely envious] similar to those delivered
against space, or more precisely, the point. [1965, p. 55]

If we say, for instance, “where the past used to be and is now a not-present”, or in another form:
“where the future used to be there is now a not-present” (ibid., p. 100) we are referring to
transference and it represents an attack and a splitting of the present reduced to a not-present.
The no-thing is related to space in the same manner that no-present is related to time. Such
incapacity to discriminate past from present and future is responsible for feelings of boredom,
of unending tautology or sameness frequently found in borderline pathologies. See: Space, No-
breast, Point, No-thing.

Tolerance or intolerance of frustration: see: Frustration, tolerance and intolerance of.

Touch: The sense of touch is used as an “antidote” for the confusion that might take place in a
container-contained interaction, something like to “touch” in order to distinguish, to
differentiate between the container and its content (1963, p. 95). Could also be used to calm
down, in that the skin can be used as barrier between two objects, something like a “distant
closeness” (see: Distance). It would be different from other models using sense organs like
sight, hearing or smell, because all these, different from touch, can be experienced from a
distance; however, touch produces “the paradoxical effect that the topographically closer
relationship implied by tactile contact is less intimate, i.e. confused, than the more distant
relationship implied by the …” other models (ibid., p. 96).

Tower of Babel, myth of the: This is a myth that, according to Bion, combines:
…the following components: a universal language; the building by the group of a tower which is felt by the Deity to
be a menace to his position; a confounding of the universal language and a scattering abroad of the people on the
face of the earth. [1948b, pp. 186-187]

The idea that the tower will reach the sky introduces an element of messianic hope, present in
the “pairing group"; however, the possibility that such a hope might become true, violates an
important canon of this basic assumption (ba): the norm that such a hope could never be
achieved; such a possibility, could make “the group dissolve in schisms” (ibid., pp. 185-187).
In his autobiography, perhaps imitating Descartes, Bion states:
I am: therefore I question. It is the answer—the “yes, I know”—that is the disease which kills;60 it is the Tree of
Knowledge which kills. Conversely, it is not the successful building of the Tower of Babel, but the failure that gives
life, initiates and nourishes the energy to live, to grow, to flourish. The song the sirens sing, and always have sung, is
that the arrival at the inn—not the journey—is the reward, the prize, the haven, the cure. [1985, p. 52]

The Tower of Babel can also be seen as God’s punishment (superego) for men daring to
reach his level, his knowledge; in this sense Bion considers this myth similar to the Garden of
Eden (to eat from the “Tree of Wisdom”), and to the sphinx in Oedipus (that destroys the one
who knows). This interpretation, on the other hand, seems to contradict his statement about
Oedipus’ episte-mophilic instinct, on how Oedipus is dominated by his desire to know the truth
regardless of its consequences, controlled by strong feelings of omnipotent curiosity and
arrogance, which change into stupidity and tragedy. The myth in summary represents an attack
on the desire to reach heaven as a symbolism for knowledge, wisdom, α-function, links and
language that makes co-operation possible (1992, p. 241).
Following the Grid, it could be understood as follows: a group of people express the
definitory hypothesis of building a tower to reach the sky (C1), looking for knowledge and
integration (E3, E4), a message received by a deity who feels threatened (D2) and ends up
punishing them all (A6). See: Basic assumption, Pairing group (Pba), Myth, Oedipus myth,
Arrogance, curiosity and stupidity.

Transference: About this concept Bion said:

The elements of the transference are to be found in that aspect of the patient’s behaviour
that betrays his awareness of the presence of an object that is not himself. No aspect of his
behaviour can be disregarded … His greeting, or neglect of it, references to couch, or furniture,
or weather, all must be seen in that aspect of them that relates to the presence of an object not
himself. [1963, p. 69]
Applying psychic mathematics Bion represents the mind with the equation Ψ(ξ), where ξ
would indicate the non-saturated aspect that must be examined during each session to
determine the degree of saturation produced by the transference. From the vertex of
transformation theory, Bion represents transferential neurosis as: T (patient) β (1965, p. 18):
This transformation involves little deformation: the term “transference”, as Freud used it, implies a model of
movement of feelings and ideas from one sphere of applicability to another. I propose therefore to describe this set
of transformations as “rigid motions”. The invariance of rigid motion must be contrasted with invariance peculiar to
projective transformation. [ibid., p. 19]

Bion states that the presence of the patient in the session shows that he knows about the
analyst’s existence, but such a fact is used, conformably with column 2 of the Grid, to deny the
absence. “He reacts in the session as if I were absent … this behaviour is intended to deny my
presence”:
The model by which I represent his “vision” of me is that of an absent breast, the place or position, that I, the breast,
ought to occupy but do not. The “ought” expresses moral violence and omnipotence. The visual image of me can be
represented by what a geometer might call a point, a musician the staccato mark in a musical score. [ibid., p. 53]

Transference has a strong and a weak point, which require distinction in order to avoid
confusion. Its strength consists in that “two people have a ‘fact’ available to both and therefore
open for discussion by both”; the weakness, on the other hand, lies in the fact that the
transference “is ineffable and cannot be discussed by anyone else. The failure to recognize this
simple fact has led to confusion” (1992, p. 353). See: Transformations, Rigid motion trans-
formations, Projective transformations, Countertransference, No-breast, Point, Line.

Transference interpretation: Bion explains that during the treatment of patients presenting
serious thought disorders, “opportunities for orthodox transference interpretation occurred and
were taken, but the patient often learned nothing from them. The stream of disjointed
associations continued” (1962, p. 20). Only after he realised that the patient projected into the
analyst his own sanity or the “non-psychotic part of his personality” or α-function, did the
situation change. He states:
The theory of functions offered a prospect of solving this problem by assuming that I contained unknown functions
of his personality and from this to scrutinize the sessional experience for clues of what these might be. I assumed that
I was “consciousness”. [ibid., p. 21]

Bion concludes that only after he stopped using mechanisms oriented towards the understanding
of the transference, did he become aware that the patient was dreaming awake with the
immediate events in the session, or in other words, translating sense impressions into α-
elements but in a wrong way: “I was witnessing an inability to dream through lack of alphα-
elements and therefore an inability to sleep or wake, to be either conscious or unconscious”
(ibid.). See: Transference, Countertransference, Rigid motion transformations.

Transformation of the analysis: Bion used this expression to refer to the successive changes of
“uses” in the elements that set out the horizontal axis of the Grid. See: Grid, the, Horizontal
axis, Transformation, Psychoanalysis.

Transformations: From a general perspective Bion defines this concept as the series of
changes experienced by a group of elements that vary from a previous to a subsequent stage,
where the recognition of the identity of these elements that have changed, would depend on the
existing invariants. Transformation seems to be related to topology and to the classical concept
of “psychoanalytic process.”
The total development experienced in any transformation is represented with T, which
covers two aspects: (a) the process of transformation = Tα; (b) the final product of the
transformation Bion represents as Tβ (1965, p. 10). For instance, the transformation (T)
experienced by a landscape (Tα), when it is painted on a canvas (T(β) by an artist. Another
example would be the transformation (T) experienced by a patient’s hypochondriacal symptoms
(Tα), when they change into violence (T(β), after the patient has gone through a psychotic crisis
and the family, which has remained apparently neutral, threatens to prosecute the analyst, who
develops, because of the situation, a state of anxiety. The whole catastrophic change, now
experienced by the group, can be equivalent to the hypochondriacal symptoms (invariants) the
patient had suffered (Tα) before the crisis. T (patient), in this case, would represent the whole
process of changes met by the patient, including T(patient) α and T(patient) β; while the
transformation suffered by the analyst can be represented: T(analyst), from T(analyst)a to
T(analyst) β (ibid., pp. 7-11). Or: (a) in relation to the patient: T, Tpα and Tpβ; (b) in relation to
the analyst: Ta, Taa and Tap (ibid., p. 24). From the point of view of O, Bion states that
transformation represents the “phenomenal counterpart of O” (1965, p. 40), that allows acting
as a constant conjunction to recognize a fact, an emotional state or a representation (ibid., p.
68). The landscape, as well as the patient and the analyst, for instance, represent a
transformation that moved from the unknown or the thing-in-itself to K, or knowledge of O
(O→K). O should be available to the analyst (Taα) as well as to the patient (Tpα). All these
transformations, depending on the assessment of the associations, can have a place on the Grid,
for instance A1 or C2 among many others (ibid., p. 13). Truth is another important element
Bion has considered:
If truth is not essential to all values of Taβ, Taβ must be regarded as expressed in and by manipulations of the
emotions of patient or public and not in or by the interpretation; truth is essential for any value of Taβ in art or
science. [ibid., p. 37]

Transformations in the patient as well as in the analyst (Tpα and Taα) are influenced by
emotional links (L, H and K), although it is expected that Taα and Taβ should always be free
from such influences, at least in an ideal analyst who never acts out his/her
countertransference. Obviously, the opposite can be expected from the patient.
A model of transformation: In Chapters Ten and Twelve of his book Transformations
(1965), Bion used the word “cycle” to designate a “model of transformation”, which appears
rather complicated on first reading. He uses a series of trays filled with marbles of assorted sizes
and colours to represent different variables. The trays correspond to successive time-space
lapses of transformations designed as “cycle 1, cycle 2 … cycle n”; while the marbles signify
dimensions or elements experimenting transformations. If we apply this model to a
psychoanalytic session, it becomes more comprehensible and easier to follow. In an “ideal”
session we will have, in the first place, the patient’s free association manifest discourse, and at
the same time, the analyst’s attentive listening without memory, desire or understanding
(corresponding to the trays in Bion’s model). This situation, at the beginning of the session,
which undergoes a continuous process of transformation in both minds (corresponding to
marbles in Bion’s model), would be represented as “cycle 1”; the process of transformation
would be characterized as Tα, and the end of the process, as Tβ, or Tpα and Tpβ if effected by
the patient, or Taa and Tap if related to the analyst (see: Transformations). In the mind of the
analyst the transformation is towards emergence of O, or “becoming or being O or being
‘become’ by O” (1965, p. 163). Tpβ would be equal to O (Tpα = O, cycle 1). Transformation
in O is followed by transformation of K in the analyst’s mind, in order to start shaping the
interpretation: TaO→K or TβO = TKα, cycle 2; once the interpretation is formed (TK(β) and
phrased, cycle 2 is completed and cycle 3 starts as a transformation taking place in the patient’s
mind. And so on.
There is a further complication because, at the same time, Bion attempts to place the
results of different transformations on the categories of the Grid; for instance, the interpretation
represented as TKb (cycle 1) could correspond to a definitory hypothesis such as B1, or the
patient’s association to the interpretation might be a denial or resistance that could correspond
to “Tpβ (cycle 2) in row A2” of the Grid. See: Projective transformations, Transformations
in rigid movement, Invariants, Transformations of K, Transformations of O,
Transformations in O, Transformations in hallucinosis, Catastrophic change, Thing-in-
itself, O, Grid, the.

Transformations in hallucinosis: Some psychotic patients (or the psychotic part of the
personality in borderline patients) experience the omnipotence implicit in hallucinations—
they are able to hallucinate anything they might desire—as a method to reach independence, a
system they consider superior to psychoanalysis. In states of hallucinosis, “circularity” and
perpetuity is established as a need to compensate for frustrations, but since hallucinations are
destined to fail, greed increments and the need for further hallucinations increment as well
(1970, p. 37). On the other hand, if there is the feeling that the “magic” of hallucination is
failing, the patient could suspect that the analyst’s “envy” and “rivalry” are responsible for it.
There is the belief that there are “superior” objects related to independence and self-sufficiency,
which are more efficient than any other object, and are responsible for all actions, possibly
occupying the place of the father, mother, analyst, purpose, ambition, interpretation or ideas.
The relationship among these objects is based only on a “superior-inferior” dimension, where it
is better to receive than to give. The patient, dominated by important feelings of rivalry, tries to
take over “the place” of the analyst and to divert him from his analytical vertex, creating a
dilemma in the analyst: either to give up his technique, or to maintain the analysis and
demonstrate to the patient that he considers his acts and methods superior. Any of these
possibilities would probably give place to rivalrous acting-out (1965, p. 136). The problem can
be summarized as the struggle between the virtues of either a transformation by hallucinosis or
a transformation by psychoanalysis. When this dilemma is interpreted it can turn into an
intrapsychic conflict between different parts of the mind. From the point of view of container-
contained theory, Bion suggested the existence of a tendency to “exaggerate”, that is, a
condition characterized by a progressive increment of a need for affection from the contained,
and an increment of an evacuatory rejection from the container, a mechanism Bion referred to
as “hyperbole.”
The patient’s attitude would correspond to A6 and the analyst’s to F1, F3 or F4, avoiding
column 2. The analyst’s link with the patient would correspond to K, but not to L or H. From
the point of view of the patient, the interpretation could be experienced as A6, or elements to be
evacuated, representing arguments used by the analyst to prove the superiority of
psychoanalysis (ibid., p. 143).
The general picture presented by these patients “is that of a person anxious to demonstrate
his independence of anything other than his own creations” (ibid., p. 137), which are a product
of their supposed ability to use their senses as evacuatory organs to build a background that
encircles them. The main purpose of their senses is to construct a perfect world, where any
evidence of imperfection is ipso facto experienced as a consequence of external hostile forces
that require evacuation. Thanks to this capacity, the patient feels completely independent from
everything except for his own products, feeling beyond any feelings of rivalry, envy, greed,
threat, love or hate; but just as any other psychotic defence, this mechanism fails and threats of
imperfection and dependency set in. Rivalry with the analyst is an attempt to prove the
superiority of the methods used by the patient for whom the word “cure” is an expression of
victory (ibid., pp. 137-143).
Bion proposes the possibility of using mathematical elements to represent the conflicts
present in hallucinosis and he distinguishes several formulae. In the first place, he tries to
represent the normal situation where the absence of the breast and a high frustration tolerance
allows thoughts or K links to take place, an operation that could correspond to transformation
in rigid movement (ibid., pp. 133-136). He represents this normal condition as follows:
a1 The infant feels it is being satisfied by the breast: the breast disappears and the satisfaction with it.
a2 1 breast + 0 breast = 0 breast
a3 1 + 0 = 0. [1965, p. 133]

But if frustration cannot be tolerated, as observed in psychotic patients, we have to deal with a
situation where absence of the breast is experienced as a presence, the word becomes a thing
and the memory of satisfaction is used to deny the absence of satisfaction; it corresponds to the
mathematics of transformation in hallucinosis:
(using b instead of a)
b2 1 breast + 0 breast = 1 breast
b3 1 + 0 = 1.

Furthermore, says Bion, under the dominion of hallucinosis, the equation 0 - 0 = 1 is also
possible: 0 + 0 = 00, “That is to say that if noughtness is added to noughtness the noughtness is
multiplied by itself” (ibid., p. 134).
The ability of 0 to increase thus by parthenogenesis corresponds to the characteristics of greed which is also able to
grow and nourish exceedingly by supplying itself with unrestricted supplies of nothing … In hallucinosis nought
denuded of its noughtness is hostile envious and greedy and does not even exist as it is denuded of its existence
[ibid.]

Previously, Bion had represented this concept using arrows that move in the opposite direction
to the axes of the Grid and adding a negative sign: -←↑See: Transformations, Projective
transformations, Transformations in rigid movement, Invariants, Transformations of K,
Transformations of O, Transformations in O, Hallucinosis, Conscious awareness.
Transformations in K are related to “knowing about” something, whereas transformation in O
is related to becoming or being O “or to being “become” by O”. O evolves in different ways: (a)
becoming manifest or knowable; (b) becoming a “remainder” an “incarnation or embodiment or
an incorporation” (here Bion is possibly referring to the kind or relationship he described in the
“Godhead"); (c) becoming TbO or, at-one-ment, as is expected to take place during analytic
listening (1965, p. 163).
There is a great difference between “being” O and having rivalries with O, because this
last condition implies the presence of important feelings of envy, hate, love, megalomania, and
acting-out; for instance the case of a thinker who is contained by an idea, as observed in
religious fanatics or paranoid dictators who become megalomanic. Acting-out should be
differentiated from action, as considered in the horizontal axis of the Grid, because action
helps being O, but acting-out opposes it.
Although O is related to growth, their relationship is different from other
transformations, such as K, because K induces growth, but O means “knowing about growth”.
Religious or philosophical transformations are closer to transformations in O than mathematical
transformations (ibid., p. 156). There is an important aspect in the relation of O with K, Bion
has described as some kind of perverse defence, when a patient induces growth towards K in
order to obstruct transformations in O, as a sort of reversible perspective. Bion said:
By agreeing with the interpretation it is hoped that the analyst will be inveigled into a collusive relationship to
preserve K without being aware that he is doing so. If the manoeuvre is successful transformations in K fulfil an F2
role preventing the inception of Tα→ Tβ = K→O (1965, p.160).

Transformations of the type TK→ TO, could induce resistances manifested as fear or
hatred, because of the emphasis placed on “knowing” something instead of “becoming”
something. It can be observed in persons who try to find answers for their suffering in popular
self-taught books, or who identify analysis with a university subject, or who idealize
transference and expect to be “cured” by the analyst (ibid., p. 163). The opposite
transformation: TO→TK depends on the capacity of the analyst to listen free from memory and
desire (1970, p. 30).

Transformations in O: Because O is the unknowable, the ineffable, and is always transcending

and becoming, all qualities attributed to O as well as links established with O are really
transformations of O. L, H and K are links and because of that, they are substitutes for the
ultimate relationship with O. They cannot reach O, but they are appropriate for transformation
in O; for instance, a feeling experienced in the countertransference can help us to know about
the patient’s O, but such a feeling could also become a “counteracting”, a discrimination that
according to Bion would demand a good analytical training in the analyst.

Transformations in rigid movements: Concept borrowed from projective geometry and used
by Bion to describe a form of transformations (T) that show little deformation between the
original object or thing-in-itself (Tα) and the end product of the transformation (Tβ).
Transference is a good example of this form of transformation, where the past is transferred to
the analyst without any deformation, something that gives this mechanism great credibility as a
reliable exponent of the truth (1965, p. 19). The rigidity of the invariants in this form of
transformation, different from projective transformation, eases the relationship between O
and the patient (Op) (ibid., p. 31) and facilitates understanding of the session as well as the
creation of the interpretation. A good example of this kind of transformation can be seen in
Bion’s case of the weekend dream of the “tiger and the bear” (ibid., pp. 15-16). There are,
however, other cases where Op (the patient’s O) is so elusive and opaque that the interpretation
results are highly speculative, corresponding then to “projective transformations.” See:
Transformations, Projective transformations, Transformation in hallucinosis, Invariants,
Transformations of K, Transformations of O, Transformations in O, Significant dreams,
Transference, O.

Transformations of K: Taken from the first letter of knowledge, K represents one of the links,
together with L (love) and H (hate). Transformation of K is related to transformations towards
growth in the analyst, and eventually, in the patient too. Growth would not correspond to L and
H. Bion refers to a form of perverse defence, where the patient might induce transformation
towards K in order to avoid transformation in O, similar to the concept of rationalization.
Transformation from O to K can only be established when the analyst is free from memory and
desire. Bion said:
By agreeing with the interpretation it is hoped that the analyst will be inveigled into a collusive relationship to
preserve K without being aware that he is doing so. If the manoeuvre is successful transformations in K fulfil an F2
role preventing the inception of Tα→Tβ = K→O. [1965, p.160]

See: Transformation, Transformation of O, Transformation in O, Memory, Desire, Links.

Transformations of O: These describe the series of transformations experienced by O. Such

transformations take place because O is not static, O is a truth and is continuously changing or
becoming; in other words, O is seriously affected by time as well as space. What is true for this
culture might not be true for a different one, what is true today might not be true tomorrow; O
from today’s session will never be the same O in tomorrow’s session; this is why it is so
dangerous to remember. See: O, Transformations, Transformation in O, Transformation of
K, Truth, Memory, Desire, Godhead.

Trays: see: Transformations.

Tropism: Bion uses the term to describe an inclination towards certain kinds of object relation
observed in psychotic patients or related to the psychotic part of the personality, which makes
use of “intrusive” forms of projective identifications. It can be associated, although with
certain cautiousness, with the classical notion of instincts. The concept is portrayed in
Cogitations (1992, pp. 34-36) and although it is not dated, it probably coincided with Bion’s
work on “attack on links” and “maternal reverie”, described in relation to his theory of
thinking and written during the fifties. Bion said:
Thus, considered individually, the tropisms are seen to issue in seeking (1) an object to murder or be murdered by,
(2) a parasite or a host, (3) an object to create or by which to be created. But taken as a whole, and not individually,
the action appropriate to the tropisms in the patient who comes for treatment is a seeking for an object with which
projective identification is possible. [ibid., pp. 34-35]
On the other hand, an object, for example a breast (the mother), can refuse to be used as a
depository for a projective identification; something Bion considers to be due to both
persecutory anxiety and hate, or to apathy. These two types of response (opposite to a reverie
condition) contribute to the environmental components that are r responsible for the
development of the psychotic part of the personality. The object’s refusal to accept projective
identifications brings about a re-introjection of these tropisms, now more virulent, together with
a primitive form of superego, hostile towards projective identifications, as a form of
communication. According to Bion, the tropism, not introjected by the refusing breast, or re-
introjected by the immature psyche, remains in between, enclosed within the vehicle of
communication itself, be that sound, sight or touch. “Thus enclosed, the tropism and its
envelope become persecuted and persecuting” (ibid., p. 35). See: Linking, attacks on,
Maternal reverie, Psychotic and non-psychotic parts of the personality, Projective
identification, Communication, Bizarre objects, Hallucinations, Delusions.

Truth: Bion stated:

… healthy mental growth seems to depend on truth as the living organism depends on food. If it is lacking or
deficient the personality deteriorates. [1965, p. 38] There is a natural hunger for truth; perhaps because there is the
empirical knowledge that lies induce suffering (1992 p. 99). 61 Originally Bion defined truth as opposed to falsehood
and related to transformations in K:
Thus “truth” is the name I give to the quality that I attribute to any statement that is a hypothesis relating to
phenomena with which I have an “I know …” relationship. [ibid., p. 270]

Afterwards Bion related truth with transformations in O:

All thinking and all thoughts are true when there is no thinker. In contrast to this, for lies and falsities a thinker is
absolutely necessary. In any situation where a thinker is present the thoughts when formulated are expressions of
falsities and lies. The only true thought is one that has never found an individual to contain it. [1970, p. 117]

To say that the “sky is blue”, does not need a thinker, although it can be described. On the other
hand, O represents the absolute truth, which at a given moment is intercepted by a thinker, such
as the analyst, a mystic, or an artist; although the thinker and O exist independently. The
classical resistance of a patient in analysis can be the expression of a thought in search of a
thinker; usually this could be his own, although this is not necessarily so. A transfor-mation of
O in K (O→K), for example, when an interpretation is formulated, can be intuited and
translated but not thought, and the capacity to grasp it is achieved by means of an act of faith.
Following the container-contained theory, the relationship between a thought and a thinker
who contains it (or vice versa) can be commensal, symbiotic or parasitic. In a commensal
relationship all elements involved benefit from each other and grow with the relation, like a
thinker who invents something useful. However, in the parasitic relationship, the idea resulting
is false and it will proliferate until it becomes a lie.
In schizoid personalities, said Bion, the superego is formed before the ego and it will
assume its role generating not only an imperfect development of the reality principle, but also
an exaltation of morals as well as little respect for the truth. What the analyst expresses should
always be structured with truthful verbal thoughts belonging to rows E and F, possibly D and
G and always within columns 1, 3 and 5 of the Grid. What the patient says, on the other hand,
can belong to any category because he does not have a compromise with the truth, and can fall
anywhere on the Grid.
There is a natural need to be aware of emotional experiences, similar to the need to be
aware of concrete objects through the use of sense impressions, because absence of such
consciousness implies a deprivation of truth, which is essential for mental health, “its
deprivation is analogous to the effect that physical hunger has on the mind” (1962, p. 56).
The truth, similar to the Oedipus myth, has two faces, a private one depending on a
cause-effect relationship and organized according to a constant conjunction, and another one,
universal and narrative related to common sense. See: Lies, O, Transformation of O,
Transformation in O, K, Transformation of K, Container-contained, Commensal,
Symbiotic and Parasitic.

Two-ness: It refers to the natural presence of pair elements: two eyes, two hands, two ears, etc.;
exactly as “decimal” originated from ten-ness (Latin decem), like ten fingers or ten toes. Bion
suggests that the development of mathematical elements, as Aristotle called them, is analogous
to the development of conceptions, in the sense that they are the result of mating a pre-
conception (of the breast, for instance) with a realization (sucking) for the creation of a
conception, or two-ness, like 1+1 = 2 (1967, p. 113). If a child, for instance, has two marbles
and later on finds two more, it will not take long for him to figure out that now he has four. In
this sense, says Kant, all pure mathematical propositions exist a priori, similar to Bion’s
conception of the breast, or the statement that “God created natural numbers”.
Tustin (1981) has stated that two-ness could represent an important concept related to
stages of early separation between the baby and the breast:
… precocious awareness of bodily separateness and “two-ness” brings the knowledge that the nipple is not part of
his mouth and that his movements do not always make for completeness and do not produce benign hallucinations.
[p. 192]

See: Intuition, noumenon, phenomenon, pre-conception, realization and Psychological

turbulence.

Note
59 Green (2000) quotes Shakespeare’s King Lear, the moment when Edgar, disguised as a
madman who has escaped from Bedlam, initiates a conversation between the King, the Fool
and Tom. The latter, so much impoverished, is addressed by the King: “…Thou owest the
worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! Here’s three on’s
are sophisticated! Thou are the thing itself” (King Lear, 3, 4, 106; my italics). Green
concludes: “This was long before Kant dreamt of these words” (p. 121).
60 Possibly Bion is referring to Maurice Blanchot’s expression: “La réponse est le malheur
de la question”, something he frequently quoted.
61 In Latin, mind (mentis) and lie (mentior) have the same root. Perhaps it might be this
hunger for truth that motivates patients to attend psychoanalytical treatment for years
continuously.
U

Ultimate reality: see: O, phenomena, noumena, Thing-in-itself, Truth.

Unconscious phantasy: Bion does not speak spontaneously about the classical concept of
“unconscious phantasy”, neither does he attempt to discriminate, as Klein did, between
“fantasy” and “phantasy”. During one conference, given in 1973 on his first visit to São Paulo,
when asked about including unconscious phantasy on the Grid, he answered in a way rather
elusive and difficult to grasp:
Suppose I played a game like “fathers and mothers”. That could be described as a “conscious fantasy” at some stage.
Then suppose I became so frustrated because I could not be father or mother, that I forgot it. I could say that the
fantasy which was once conscious had become unconscious. Today, when I am one of the parents, I may again be
unwilling to know anything about this unconscious fantasy, for what is the use of knowing about “fathers and
mothers” when I am either too young to be one or too old to be able to do anything about it now. I may say, “I don’t
want to have anything to do with these psycho-analysts. I do not want to be reminded of these fantasies. The best
place for them is the unconscious.” The answer to that might be “I don’t object to that, except that that ‘unconscious
fantasy’ of yours, as you call it, is horribly alive; it may be obscured but active and powerful, though beyond the
reach of my ability unless psychoanalysis (or something better) can bring it again within my scope.” [1974, pp. 55-
56]

It seems that Bion disagreed with the concept of an unconscious phantasy signifying the
existence of a feeling that remains restless and lying in continuous ambush waiting for any
opportunity to make itself present. However, unconscious phantasy can also be understood as
representing the actual state of the unconscious at a given moment, like a cross section of its
content, regardless of what it might be, but different from an unconscious phantasy that
continuously presses to make itself conscious.
Meltzer (1978) associated the concept of contact-barrier with Klein’s concept of
“unconscious phantasy” (pp. 41–42), although the former also resembles the notion of
“defence” in classical theory, while unconscious phantasy, on the other hand, can be related to
the concept of O as introduced by Bion.

Unconscious thoughts: In 1911 Freud established that

It is probable that thinking was originally unconscious, in so far as it went beyond mere ideational presentations and
was directed to the relations between impressions of objects, and that it did not acquire further qualities, perceptible
to consciousness, until it became connected with verbal residues. [p. 221]

Based on such an hypothesis Bion established that, at the beginning, there was some kind of
thinking, perhaps in the form of visual ideograms instead of words or phonemes, which depend
at intro-jection or projection on the object’s representations and afterwards became conscious.
Bion has referred to the product of these primitive forms of thinking as proto-thoughts. This
mechanism, present in the non psychotic part of the personality, would allow, as Freud stated,
that introjected objects could progressively outline unconscious thinking, something that would
explain its association with sensory impressions.

Universe of discourse: It refers to a specific entity the dictionary (Webster’s New Collegiate)
defines as “an inclusive call of entities that is tacitly implied or explicitly delineated as the
subject of a statement, discourse, or theory”, or—according to The American Heritage,
Dictionary of the English Language (Fourth Edition)—”a class containing all the entities
referred to in a discourse or an argument.” Bion used it in his book Transformations when
emphasizing the importance of the Grid in relation to the invariants, variables, and parameters
contained within the concept of “psychoanalysis”, or universe of discourse, which, in order to
reach meaning, should be defined in such a way that could correspond to a category in the Grid.
He said:
There is opportunity for ambiguity if this is not recognized, the term “variable” may describe something which, in a
particular universe of discourse, is given a constant value and so qualifies for description as a parameter (as in a
mathematical formulation …). [1965, p. 45]

Unsaturated-saturated elements: see: Saturated-unsaturated elements.

Ur, burial in: Attempting to compare differences between row A of the Grid containing β-
elements and row B corresponding to α-elements, Bion uses as a paradigm the history of the
death of Ur’s king, possibly in the year 3500 BC, as well as his funeral accompanied by all the
court including the queen. They were all forced under the effect of hashish to be buried alive
with the king’s body. Bion compares this scene with another one that took place 500 years later,
when robbers plunder the tomb. Bion asks if “ignorance”, as a “drug” similar to hashish, could
have dominated the mind of those who accompanied the king to a certain death, contrasting
with the feeling that might have dominated the robbers who, fearless of possible revenge from
the spirits, were completely subjugated by curiosity and greed. They might have represented the
first scientists who set off an investigation encouraged by curiosity; after all, said Bion,
archaeologists are also often dominated by cupidity.
How did the robbers come by the knowledge which enabled them, five hundred years after the event, to sink the
shafts into the earth with such accuracy as to find the Queen’s Tomb? Was it luck? Should we regard our religious
hierarchy as spiritual descendants of the priests of Ur? Should we erect monuments to the plunderers of the Royal
Tombs as Pioneers of Science, as scientific as our scientists? [1977a, p. 10]

While the mind of those who accompanied the king’s burial were dominated by B-elements
placed in category A6, those who later robbed the Royal Tomb could have represented a C6
category. Bion insists on the systematic attack made on curiosity by many myths, like the
Garden of Eden, the Tower of Babel or the sphinx in Oedipus.

Use axis: see: Grid, horizontal axis of the.

V

Valence: Concept borrowed from chemistry which Bion used to represent the capacity for
spontaneous and instinctive emotional combination, between two individuals, or with the total
group, depending on the dominant basic assumption (ba) (1948a, pp. 153, 175). It might
represent the expression of a “gregarious quality” present in human beings. The capacity for
combination could be great or small, to which Bion referred as “high or low valence”,
respectively. This condition corresponds to the opposite of what Bion has described as “co-
operation”, present in the work group (W). See Basic assumptions (ba), Work group (W),
Pairing group (Pba), Flight-fight group (Fba), Oscillations and Groups.

Verbal thoughts: Much of what will be expressed here has been extracted from Bion’s article
“Notes on the Theory of Schizophrenia” (1967, pp. 26-35), which deals with the capacity to
think, synthesize and articulate sense impressions with words (ibid., p. 60). Since this condition
depends on a disposition to integrate, it coincides with the depressive position and the
appearance of consciousness of inner and outer realities. In 1957 Bion stated that normally,
initial structuring of verbal thoughts would be established at very early stages during the
paranoid-schizoid position; however, psychotic patients as well as the psychotic part of the
personality, would continuously destroy thoughts with the use of splitting and mechanisms of
projective identification (ibid., pp. 48-49, 60). This condition obstructed any possibility of
peaceful projections and introjections of sense impressions, necessary to build a strong basis for
the configuration of verbal thoughts. In these patients, the depressive position can be
experienced as something catastrophic, because painful depressive feelings can induce the
patient’s mind to defend by increasing splitting and projection of verbal thoughts inside the
external objects, for example the analyst. Due to retaliatory anxiety, introjection (see projective
identification in reverse) and as a consequence, incorporation of the necessary basis to build
the good object where verbal thoughts are formed, is also altered. Bion mentioned a psychotic
patient who said that “tears were coming out from his ears”, something Bion inferred
represented an incapacity to associate words properly. Parodying Freud (1915), he interpreted
that tears were bad objects that, when coming out from his ears, would be similar to sweat
coming out from the holes left by the blackheads pulled out of his skin, or to the urine that came
out from the hole left by the penis once it was torn out. When the patient said he couldn’t listen
very well and afterwards, that he couldn’t speak either, Bion interpreted the need to drown his
interpretations with bad tears that came out from his ears and that perhaps he had also torn out
his tongue. Such delusional thought signified an attack on any form of communication,
because splitting had destroyed his ability to think, something the patient experienced as an
expression of insanity (see madness, realization of; perception, apparatus of). At the end, the
dilemma was represented as a trap:
psychoanalysis was demanding that he should use thinking and a verbal logic, something that terrified him because it
was pushing him to a condition of fear, depression and hopelessness, repre-sented by the depressive position, which
made the patient experience psychoanalysis as a true “prison”, as one of his patients expressed it. [ibid., pp. 29-32]

Later on, in his book Transformations (1965), Bion said that because psychoanalysts
work with sophisticated verbal-thoughts, what they express can be located on the Grid on rows
E and F, possibly D and G, on columns 1, 2 and 5; while what patients express, since it has no
compromise with the truth, can fall anywhere on the Grid.

Vertex: From a mathematical perspective, this represents a point where one or more lines,
planes or angles coincide. Bion uses it as a point of view, or a projection from a vertex, but with
a mathematical association instead of just a simple expression:
You cannot use terms like “from the point of view of smell” because the patient will say “I don’t view things with
my nose.” It sounds as if the patient was trying to be difficult, but he is in fact being extremely accurate; he cannot
understand a phrase which is conversational language. It is, therefore, better to borrow a term from mathematics like
“vertex”. [1974, pp. 88-89]

Transformations depend on a change of vertex; the vertex held by someone sleeping and
dreaming is never the same as when awake, or the vertex of the artist will diverge from that of
the critic of his work, or the multiple vertexes an analyst could use from one moment to the
other during the analytical session. A shift from a vertex of one sense or system to another
might prove to be useful in order to improve understanding or explanation of something. A
vertex should not be too close or too far, for instance, a man and a woman might not be
compatible because they are either too alike or too different: a similar situation could take place
between a patient and an analyst (1970, p. 93). In relation to different types of vertexes, Bion
suggests that the visual ones are capable of a greater degree of freedom (they could
“illuminate”), when compared with others such as “digestive, respiratory, olfactory, auditory,
etc. (1965, pp. 90-92). He makes special mention of an “internal vertex” he refers to as the
“inner reproductory system”, described as a counterpart of the “mental reproductory system”,
equal to an “inward eye” or mental counterpart of the visual system (ibid., p. 91). This internal
vertex might be related to concepts such as intuition, the thing-in-itself, O and an act of faith.
An individual makes a trip to city X, for example, as a mechanism to placate an
imaginary “castrator” who he thinks had expected him to make such a trip. He could also make
the trip of his own accord, without feeling impelled by the need to please the “castrator”. The
city and the trip might have been the same in both cases, but the “inner” vertexes were different:
one vertex authentic, and the other inauthentic. See: Intuition, O, act of faith, Inner
reproductory system and Thing-in-itself.

View-point: see: Vertex.

Violence: Bion did not try to understand violence from the vertex of instinct theory or from
the relationship with the environment. He considers: (a) in the first place the dependency of the
psychic apparatus on action as an important means for discharge; and (b) the inability to
discriminate between falsehood and truth and between alive and inanimate things. It can be
summarized in the following expression: “if the tiger were to know about the suffering of the
gazelle, it could starve to death”. See: Frustration, tolerance or intolerance, Animated and
inanimate, Truth and Lie.
W

Wild thoughts: Bion established a difference between “stray thoughts” and “wild thoughts”.
The stray ones refer to thoughts that can be found by someone who might try to domesticate
them if it is found that they have no owner, or that there is an owner but they can be purloined,
or could be so old that there is no proprietor. For instance, Bion had said that truth, different
from a lie, does not need a thinker to contain it; however, much earlier than Bion, Latin had
provided the same basic root to mind (mentis) as well as lying (mentior), perhaps meaning that
“the mind lies”, similar to Bion’s expression that “lies need a thinker”.
“Wild thoughts”, on the other hand, represent thoughts to which “there is no possibility of
being able to trace immediately any kind of ownership or even any sort of way of being aware
of the genealogy of that particular thought” (1997, p. 27).62 A good example could be dream-
thoughts, or “intrauterine thoughts”, perhaps linked to the Kantian concept of the thing-in-
itself or noumenon.
If a thought without a thinker comes along, it may be what is a “stray thought”, or it could be a thought with the
owner’s name and address upon it, or it could be a “wild thought”. The problem, should such a thought come along,
is what to do with it … if it is wild, you might try to domesticate it … [ibid.]

See: Truth, Lie, Thing-in-itself, Intrauterine life.

Wish: see: Desire.

Without-ness: Bion uses this expression to describe a container-contained ( ) relationship

controlled by envy, which as a result would produce -K. In such a condition the baby splits and
projects his fears inside the breast, together with feelings of envy and hatred that preclude a
commensal relationship. The breast is also felt enviously to remove the good or valuable ele-
ments that could be used to neutralize the baby’s fear of dying and in its place forces back into
the infant worthless residues that will change the fear of dying into a nameless dread or terror,
which
Bion represents as -K. Bion considers this as a very serious condi-
tion, because the breast not only does not neutralize the fear of dying, but might also
remove the wish to live. This is also repre-
sented as -(Vcf), something Bion qualifies as without-ness , and later on in his book
Transformations represents as -←↑, meaning:
 … an internal object without an exterior. It is an alimentary canal without a body. It is a super-ego that has hardly
any of the characteristics of the super-ego as understood in psychoanalysis: it is “super” ego. It is an envious
assertion of moral superiority without any morals … The process of denudation continues till - V - Cf represent
hardly more than an empty superiority-inferiority that it in turn degenerates to nullity. [1962, p. 97]

See: Minus K (-K), Container-contained interaction, Commensal, Conscious awareness.

Work group: Also called “sophisticated group”. It represents the moment when a group is
capable of establishing contact with reality and recognizes the need to evolve, and to work
together towards a common aim away from the control of the basic assumptions. It is
dominated by the tendency to deal with conflicts in a rather “scientific” manner (1948b, p. 99),
and it is equivalent to the ego according with Freud’s postulates (1911) (ibid., p. 143).
Organization, structure, co-operation, and verbal communication are its greatest weapons
(ibid., p. 185). It represents the direction a group would follow if it were not dominated by a
basic assumption; this is why, in order for any group to remain on a sophisticated level (W) it
has to deal with the emotions of the predominating ba (ibid., p. 135). This group can last hours
or months, depending on the capacity of the group to solve the pressure of the emotions from
the latent ba that continuously attempts to dominate the group. The leader of this kind of group
has access to the external reality of the group, different from the leader of the ba group who
only has contact with the internal reality of the specific ba (ibid., pp. 144-145). Later on, in
Attention and Interpretation (1970), Bion states that this form of group, under a religious
vertex, has to discriminate and to maintain such discrimination between God and man, between
idealized superego and man himself, similar to the idealization placed on Freud by the
psychoanalytic group who followed him, who made any criticism about his work something
absolutely unsustainable (p. 75). See: Group, Basic assumption, baD, baP, baF, Valence,
Duality.

Note
62 This note is dated May 28, 1977.
X

Xi = ζ: Greek letter which corresponds to “small x”. It is used by Bion to represent a

“mathematical object” (1970, p. 90), equivalent to a non-saturated element or factor, similar
to a pre-conception that is open to any realization that comes near and saturates it. Bion also
used it to symbolize the mathematical aspect of an emotion, and also as a factor that is part of a
function, like: (Ψ) ζ or K(ζ).
Z

Zen Buddhism: Concepts such as O (Origin), transformation in O, truth, act of faith and
hallucinosis, among others, remind us of some Zen conceptions, a Japanese sect of Mahayana
Buddhism that aims at enlightenment by direct intuition through meditation. “[Men] is best
awakened not by the study of scriptures, the practice of good deeds, rites and ceremonies, or
worship of images but by sudden breaking through of the boundaries of common, everyday,
logical thought”.63 Although Bion never mentioned any form of Buddhism, we should not
forget that he was born, in a British family, in India’s Punjab. Referring to O, Bion establishes:
Some consciously believe the curtain of illusion to be a protection against truth which is essential to the survival of
humanity … Even those who consider such a view mistaken and truth essential consider that the gap cannot be
bridged because the nature of the human being precludes knowledge of anything beyond phenomena save conjecture.
From this conviction of the inaccessibility of absolute reality the mystics must be exempted … The belief that reality
is or could be known is mistaken because reality is not something which lends itself to being known. It is impossible
to know reality for the same reason that makes it impossible to sing potatoes; they may be grown, or pulled, or eaten,
but not sung. Reality has to be “been”: there should be a transitive verb “to be” expressly for use with the term
“reality”. [1965, pp. 147-148]

According to the Symingtons (1966), many British psychoanalysts considered that Bion
had mentally deteriorated after leaving England for Los Angeles, and they believed everything
he wrote afterwards, was “to be dismissed as the rambling of a senile man”, and that some
Kleinians, “were quick to dissociate themselves from his thinking from that time onwards” (p.
10). The Symingtons believed that Bion’s concept of O is “essentially a religious and
metaphysical concept” (ibid.), understanding for religious “… a model of the human being as a
creature with intentionality that transcends immediate physical needs” (ibid., p 10n).
But interpreting O as a religious concept places serious doubt on the understanding of its
true nature and about what Bion had attempted to express. I am unable to find any religious
position in any of his contributions; his understanding is always above the human phenomenon,
and even when he seems to defend the position of the mystic, he is just appreciating the attitude
behind the human act, but not his beliefs. The sudden understanding of the unconscious
phantasy during the analytical session, or the swift and religious illuminations of Meister
Eckhart or Saint John of the Cross, have, for Bion, a human correspondence in the act of at-
one-ment with their particular truth, or with O, as he had decided to name it. Although, in Bion,
both situations are the same from the point of view of O, they diverge exactly on the
“intentionality of transcending immediate physical needs”: it might have been present in
Eckhart, but in the analyst, says Bion, if he wants to “listen”, “memory, desire and
understanding,” must be avoided.
 About Zen, on the other hand, we can read directly from one of its masters:
Every Master who practices an art molded by Zen is like a flash of lightning from the cloud of all-encompassing
Truth. This Truth is present in “It,” as his own original and nameless essence. He meets this essence over and over
again as his own being’s utmost possibilities, so that the Truth assumes for him—and for others through him—a
thousand shapes and forms ..64

And further on,

He must dare to leap into the Origin, so as to live by the Truth, like one who has become one with it. He must
become a pupil again, a beginner; conquer the last and steepest stretch of the way, undergo new transformations. If
he survives its perils, then is his destiny fulfilled; face to face he beholds the unbroken Truth, the Truth beyond all
truths, the formless Origin of origins, the Void which is the All; is absorbed into it and from it emerges reborn.
[Herrigel 1953, pp. 80-81]

See: O, Act of faith, At-one-ment, Meister Eckhart, Godhead.

Note
62 This note is dated May 28, 1977.
63 The New Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 12, p. 905.
64 Taken from the Hagakure, written circa 1600, and quoted by Herrigel (1953, pp. 80-81).
REFERENCES

Articles by Wilfred Bion:

1940 The war of nerves. In: The Neurosis in War. E. Miller & H. Crichton-Miller (Eds.), London: Macmillan.
1943 Intra-group tensions in therapy: their study as the task of the group. The Lancet, 27th November.
1946 The leaderless group project. In: Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic. May 10, pp. 77-81.
1948a Psychiatry at a time of crisis. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 21, pp. 81-89..
1948b Experiences in Groups. London: Tavistock, 1961.
1950 The imaginary twin. In: Second Thoughts. London, Karnac Books, 1993.
1952Group dynamics: A re-view. In: M. Klein, P. Heimann & R. Money-Kyrle (Eds.), New Directions in Psycho-Analysis.
London: Karnac Books, 1985.
1953Notes on the theory of schizophrenia, in Second Thoughts. London: Karnac Books, 1993.
1955Language and the schizophrenic. In: M. Klein, P. Heimann & R. Money-Kyrle (Eds.), New Directions in Psycho-Analysis.
London: Karnac Books, 1985.
1956Development of schizophrenic thought. In: Second Thoughts. London: Karnac Books, 1993.
1957Differentiation of the psychotic from the non-psychotic personalities. In: Second Thoughts. London: Karnac Books, 1993.
1957a On arrogance. In: Second Thoughts. London: Karnac Books, 1993.
1958On hallucination. In: Second Thoughts. London: Karnac Books, 1993.
1959Attacks on linking. In: Second Thoughts. London: Karnac Books, 1993.
1962 Learning from Experience. London: Karnac Books, 1984.
1962a A theory of thinking. In: Second Thoughts. London: Karnac Books, 1993.
1963 Elements of Psycho-Analysis. London: Karnac Books, 1984.
1965Transformations. London: Karnac Books, 1984.
1966Catastrophic change. In: Attention and Interpretation (Chapter 12). London: Karnac Books 1970.
1967Second Thoughts: Selected Papers on Psycho-Analysis. London: Karnac Books, 1993.
1967a Notes on memory and desire. In: Cogitations. London:
Karnac Books, 1992. 1970 Attention and Interpretation. London: Karnac Books, 1984.
1974 Brazilian Lectures. São Paulo No 1. Río de Janeiro: Imago Editora.
1974a Brazilian Lectures. Rio/São Paulo No 2. Río de Janeiro: Imago Editora.
1975A Memoir of the Future, Book One: The Dream. London: Karnac Books, 1990 [reprinted as trilogy, London: Karnac
Books, 1991].
1976Emotional turbulence. In: Clinical Seminars and Other Works. London: Karnac Books, 2000.
1976a On a quotation from Freud. In: Clinical Seminars and Four
Papers. Oxford: Fleetwood Press, 1987.
1976b Interview with Anthony G. Banet. The International Journal for Group Facilitators: Group and Organization Studies 1 (3).
1977 Seven Servants, New York: Jason Aronson, 1977.
1977a Two papers: the Grid and Caesura. London: Karnac Books, 1989.
1977b A Memoir of the Future, Book Two: The Past Presented. Rio de Janeiro: Imago Editora [reprinted as trilogy, London:
Karnac Books, 1991].
1978Four discussions with W. R. Bion, Clinical Seminars and Other Works. London: Karnac Books, 2000.
1979A Memoir of the Future, Book Three: The Dawn of Oblivion. London: Karnac Books, 1990 [reprinted as a trilogy, London:
Karnac Books, 1991].
1979a Making the best of a bad job. In: Clinical Seminars and Other Works. London: Karnac Books.
1980 Bion in New York and São Paulo. London: Karnac Books.
1981A Key to A Memoir of the Future. [Reprinted in A Memoir of the Future, London: Karnac Books, 1990.
1982The Long Week-End 1897-1919. London: Karnac Books, 1991.
1985All My Sins Remembered and The Other Side Of Genius. London: Karnac Books, 1991.
1986Seminari Italiani. Rome: Borla [published in Italian only].
1987 Clinical Seminars and Four Papers. Oxford: Fleetwood Press. 1990 Brazilian Lectures. London: Karnac Books.
1990a A Memoir of the Future. London: Karnac Books.
1992 Cogitations. London: Karnac Books.
1994 Clinical Seminars and Other Works. London: Karnac Books, 2000.
1997 Taming Wild Thoughts. London: Karnac Books.
1997a War Memoirs 1917-19. London: Karnac Books.

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