Bion Today explores how Bion’s work is used in contemporary settings; how his ideas have been applied at the level of the individual, the group and the organisation; and which phenomena have been made more comprehensible through the lenses of his concepts. The book introduces distinctive psychoanalytic contributions to show the ways in which distinguished analysts have explored and developed the ideas of Wilfred Bion.
Drawing on the contributors’ experience of using Bion’s ideas in clinical work, topics include:
- an introduction to Bion
- clarification of the inter-related concepts of countertransference and enactment
- concepts integrating group and individual phenomena
- clinical implications of Bion’s thought
- Bion’s approach to psychoanalysis.
Bion Today will be a valuable resource for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and all those who are interested in learning more about Bion’s thinking and his work.
Part I: Introduction to Bion. Mawson, Introduction: Bion Today: Thinking in the Field. O’Shaughnessy, Whose Bion? Part II: Mainly Conceptual. Fisher, The Emotional Experience of K. Britton, The Pleasure Principle, the Reality Principle and the Uncertainty Principle. Bell, Bion: The Phenomenologist of Loss. Taylor, Anticipation and Interpretation. Cortiñas, Science and Fiction in the Psychoanalytical Field. Part III: Mainly Clinical. Ferro, Clinical Implications of Bion's Thought. O'Shaughnessy, Relating to the Superego. Levine, ‘The Consolation Which is Drawn from Truth:’ The Analysis of a Patient Unable to Suffer Experience. Grotstein, Clinical Vignette Encompassing Bion’s Technical Ideas. Mitrani, Taking the Transference: Some Technical Implications in Three Papers by Bion. Part IV: Aesthetic. Dartington, W. R. Bion and T. S. Eliot. Sayers, Bion's Transformations: Art and Psychoanalysis. Part V: Group Mentality. Armstrong, The Plurability of Experience. Garland, Group Therapy: Myth in the Service of Work. Lipgar, Learning from Bion’s Legacy to Groups. Gordon, Some Neglected Clinical Material from Bion’s Experiences in Groups. Part VI: Later Bion. Vermote, Bion’s Critical Approach to Psychoanalysis. Waddell, ‘From Resemblance to Identity’: The Internal Narrative of a Fifty Minute Hour. Harris-Williams, ‘Underlying Pattern’ in Bion's Memoir of the Future. Karnac, Appendix: W. R. Bion Bibliography.
Biography
Chris Mawson is a training and supervising analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society and works as a psychoanalyst in private practice.
"This is a very stimulating, at times almost provocative, book. It will make a fresh and valuable contribution to our thinking about the nature and significance of Bion’s work today." - Betty Joseph, Distinguished Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society, London, UK
"The book’s authors represent diverse parts of the psychoanalytic world and the book itself covers a dizzying range of topics... It deserves to be widely read." - Tom C. Russ, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Vol 25, No 3, September 2011
