Bion, Intuition and the Expansion of Psychoanalytic Theory

Bion, Intuition and the Expansion of Psychoanalytic Theory
Author: Antònia Grimalt
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 191
Release: 2022-06-09
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1000598810

Bion, Intuition and the Expansion of Psychoanalytic Theory illuminates how Bion’s work on intuition has changed the landscape of contemporary psychoanalysis through his understanding of its supra-scientific and non-sub-scientific condition. Based on the work of the biannual Bion conference, this book includes contributions from the most eminent voices on Bion’s work. The global cohort of contributors in this volume examine topics such as dream work, the Infinite Unconscious, the Spectral model of the mind, the realm of the minus and observation and intuition. Each chapter explores different elements arising from Bion’s insistence on learning from experience and establishing the difference between knowing and becoming as an experiential process of the mind as a container in relation to its contents of sensations, feelings, dreams and thoughts. This book will be of key interest to analysts and analytic therapists of all schools and is an essential resource for those that follow the work of Bion.

Bion, Intuition and the Expansion of Psychoanalytic Theory

Bion, Intuition and the Expansion of Psychoanalytic Theory
Author: Antònia Grimalt
Publisher: Routledge Wilfred R. Bion Studies Book Series
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2022
Genre: Intuition
ISBN: 9781032269498

Bion, Intuition and the Expansion of Psychoanalytic Theory illuminates how Bion's work on intuition has changed the landscape of contemporary psychoanalysis through his understanding of its supra-scientific and non-sub-scientific condition. Based on the work of the biannual Bion conference, this book includes contributions from the most eminent voices on Bion's work. The global cohort of contributors in this volume examine topics such as dream work, the Infinite Unconscious, the Spectral model of the mind, the realm of the minus and observation and intuition. Each chapter explores different elements arising from Bion's insistence on learning from experience and establishing the difference between knowing and becoming as an experiential process of the mind as a container in relation to its contents of sensations, feelings, dreams and thoughts. This book will be of key interest to analysts and analytic therapists of all schools and is an essential resource for those that follow the work of Bion.

Time and the Unconscious

Time and the Unconscious
Author: Goriano Rugi
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 221
Release: 2024-08-06
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1040095127

Bion’s unfashionable thought is a challenge for our times in which anaesthesia and mass thinking prevail. The themes this book addresses are time and the unconscious. In the present/past, the here and now reveals its relationship with the unredeemable time, which conditions our behaviour and is at the root of a state of hallucinosis in the form of a short-sighted view that is distorted by deep-seated wounds. This book also highlights the resonances with contemporary epistemology and physics that underlie the new paradigm of psychoanalytic field theory. The topic of the unconscious raises questions about its origin and the difference between the Bionian and the Freudian unconscious. In Bion we see an evolutionary, process character emerge, with a double movement of repetition and expansion within a single system in unstable equilibrium, for which there is no conscious feeling that does not also carry with it the shadow of the unconscious. Drawing on psychoanalytic and philosophical concepts this book is essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, philosophers and anyone who wishes to understand more fully what it means to be human.

Sigmund Freud and Oskar Pfister on Religion

Sigmund Freud and Oskar Pfister on Religion
Author: Carlos Domínguez-Morano
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2023-07-24
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1000914631

Sigmund Freud and Oskar Pfister on Religion examines the dialogue between psychoanalysis and religion through the encounters of two men: the "unfaithful Jew" who founded psychoanalysis, and a pastor of profound religious faith and proven psychoanalytic conviction. Carlos Domínguez-Morano analyses the original encounters between Freud and Pfister and their respective positions, noting the incidences, impasses and progress of their discussions. The complex interactions between psychoanalysis and religion over time are considered, and Domínguez-Morano assesses the fundamental parameters of each perspective, with reference to Catholicism. The book explores the relationship between psychoanalysis and religion as a rich, ongoing, and unending dialogue and sheds new light on the origins of psychoanalysis. Sigmund Freud and Oskar Pfister on Religion will be of great interest to academics and scholars of psychoanalytic studies, religion, the history of psychology, and the history of ideas.

Bion's Sources

Bion's Sources
Author: Nuno Torres
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2013-03-12
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1136772561

There are an increasing number of publications concerned with the work of Wilfred Bion (1897-1979). Many have sought new ideas from his writing however, little attention has been paid to the intellectual context in which Bion wrote. Bion’s Sources traces where Bion’s new ideas came from, what job he required of them, how successfully he used his context and how that has fertilised psychoanalysis. Expert contributors provide chapters on areas of the intellectual context separate from or adjacent to clinical psychoanalysis in Britain which have clearly influenced the texts Bion left (those published in his life time, or subsequently). Chapters explore the influences deriving from Wilfred Trotter, Henri Bergson and process philosophy, Kurt Lewin and group dynamics, Immanuel Kant, R. B. Braithwaite and the philosophy of science, the mathematics of notation and transformation, as well as the work of psychoanalysts who have applied their theories to social science, psychosomatics, and literature and the humanities. By contextualising Bion in the wider culture of ideas, and removing him from the exclusive world of Psychoanalysis, Bion’s Sources aims to moderate his ‘genius’ by showing how it was shaped by very wide influences. This book will be of interest to psychoanalysts, clinicians and those interested in the history of psychoanalytic ideas.

Affect, Representation and Language

Affect, Representation and Language
Author: Howard B. Levine
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2021-11-17
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1000471667

This book presents and elaborates on the rationale and implications of the transformational dimension of psychoanalysis. In so doing, it attempts to extend psychoanalytic theory and practice beyond neurosis and beyond what were formerly thought to be the limits of analytic understanding. Its theoretical vision sits at the crossroads of the thinking of Freud, Bion, Winnicott, Green and the Paris Psycho-Somatic School. Other sources include the contributions of contemporary French psychoanalysts such as Laplanche, Donnet, L. Kahn, P. Miller and the Botellas, along with the work of Alvarez, Scarfone, Ferro, Ogden, and more. In re-examining the very epistemological foundations of psychoanalysis and their implications for a theory of psychic functioning, it follows upon and extends the radical implications of Freud’s 1937 Constructions paper, the thoughts of Bion on intuition and Winnicott’s understanding of the working through of the consequences of early pre-verbal environmental failure. In so doing, it makes a case for psychoanalysis as a powerful treatment for borderline, primitive narcissistic, post-traumatic and other character disorders and conditions – including perversions, addictions, psychosomatic, autistic and panic disorders. By presenting a revised metapsychology that is Freudian, contemporary and clinically near, Affect, Representation and Language. Between the Silence and the Cry offers practitioners at all levels of analytic experience a way of understanding and treating the expanding range of patients and disorders that present for treatment in our modern era.

On Mental Growth

On Mental Growth
Author: Lia Pistiner de Cortinas
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 168
Release: 2018-06-13
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 042991699X

This book represents some of Wilfred Bion's basic concepts, which are reconsidered from the perspective of mental growth. It elucidates Bion's significant legacy of the differentiation between the psychotic and non-psychotic parts of the personality and its evolution in his writings.

Explorations in Bion's 'O'

Explorations in Bion's 'O'
Author: Afsaneh Alisobhani
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2019-01-25
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0429814852

Wilfred Bion described "O" as "the unknowable and the unreachable ultimate truth". In this fascinating collection, a range of authors offer their own theoretical, clinical and artistic approaches to exploring this enduring but mysterious idea. Drawn from contributions from the 8th International Bion Conference in 2014, the book examines how "O" can be experienced in all aspects of internal and external reality and within all relationships, from an individual relating to the mother to their emotional relationship with their self. It features insights into "O" drawn from the area of faith as well as its manifestations in clinical practice, while also included is a chapter exploring the links between Bion’s ideas and those of Winnicott, Lacan, Green and Freud. Featuring contributions from some of the world’s leading Bion scholars, this will be essential reading for any psychoanalyst interested in exploring the concept of "O", as well as scholars in philosophy and theology.

The Courage of Simplicity

The Courage of Simplicity
Author: Hanni Biran
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2018-05-15
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0429920385

Relying on and developing the ideas of W.R. Bion, this book observes psychoanalytic thinking through three prisms: person, group and society. The book is divided into four sections. The first revolves around the individual. Clinical in its emphasis, it discusses Bion's theory of thinking, his reading of the Oedipus myth and his notion of the "selected fact". These are illustrated by vignettes highlighting the emotional aspect of thinking. The second discusses the small group and its unconscious processes. Although Bion's paradigms have greatly influenced psychoanalytic conceptions of small group processes, this section integrates the thinking of Bion with that of Klein, Foulkes, Turquet, Lawrence and Hopper. The third, focusing on the feelings of despair and helplessness in the face of repetitive, unending war, is inspired by the author's life in Israel. It relates to society at large and the traumatic history of the Jewish people: the Holocaust is still inscribed in the Israeli social-unconscious and this social trauma has considerable impact on the Jewish-Arab conflict.