1st Edition
Explorations in Bion's 'O' Everything We Know Nothing About
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.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS
INTRODUCTION
SECTION I
EVERYTHING WE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT
1 BION CROSSES THE RUBICON - The Fateful Course - and Curse - of "O" in Psychoanalysis and the Furies Left in its Wake
James Grostein
2 O - Bion’s Catch-22
Annie Reiner
SECTION II
BION’S JOURNEY TOWARD O
3 Wilfred Bion’s Los Angeles Seminars (9167): A Gateway to Contemporary
Kleinian Technique
Joseph Aguayo
SECTION III
TRANSFORMATION AND O
4 Between Emotion and Evolution
Jeffrey Eaton
5 Authentic Pleasure
Cecil José Rezze and João Carlos Braga
6 Writing and Transmission in Bion: Group Model, Pictorial Model and
Transformation in "O" Model
Adriana Salvitti
7 Tropisms At-one-ment and Mental Growth
Lia Pistiner
SECTION IV
FAITH AND O
8 Reciprocal Kindling, Emergent Life: Bion's Faith in O, in Search of
Emotional Truth
Keri Cohen
9 Stormy Navigation With Our "Secret Companion" of Incredulity Towards
Faith In "O"
Monica Horovitz
SECTION V
CATASTROPHE, CATASTROPHIC CHANGE AND O
10 Beyond the Spectrum: Catastrophic Change, Fear of Breakdown and the Unrepressed Unconscious
Avner Bergstein
11 The Girl Who Gave Me a Kiss on the Finger: How the Concrete and the Abstract Mix in Psychotic Symbolization
Alessandro Bruni
12 Thinking, Knowing, not Knowing, No Mind
Mary Sonntag
13 Dreams, Transformations and Hope
Jani Santa María
SECTION VI
CEASURA AND O
14 Increased Hypnagogic States, Subthalamic Fears and Caesura
Arnaldo Chuster
15 Careful Emptiness and Improvisational Listening in Psychoanalytic Education: Elements of Bion’s 1975 Recorded Caesura Lecture Not Contained in the Printed Vesion
Julie McCaig
16 Caesuras and Dis-caesuras: Causality, Morality and Envy
Renato Trachtenberg
17 Conjectures About Dreams, Memories and Caesuras
Carmen Mion
SECTION VII
CREATIVITY AND O
18 On the Verge of ‘Madness’: Creativity and the Fear of Insanity
Claudio Castello Filho
19 Induction of Numbing Deadening Narcosis by Primitive Superego Sources: A Method of Attacking Links by Severe Compromise of Attention
Michael Paul
20 Being in The Thought-Flow: Authentic Movement and Bion’s "O"
Debora Sherman
21 "The Analyst is Present": Viewing the Psychoanalytic Process as Performance Art
Alan Karbelnig
22 A Memoir of the Future: Reading, Proof and Enactment
Guelfo Margherita
SECTION VIII
FREUD, KLEIN, WINNICOTT, LACAN AND O
23 Not O and Not K. Then What is the Navel of the Truth?
Andrea Boccochiola
24 The Primitive Somatopsychic Roots of Gender Formation, Intimacy and the Development of Psyche with Implications for Psychoanalytic Technique
James Gooch
25 Lost to Repetition: Hysteria From Perspectives of Bion, Lacan and Green
Avedis Panajian
26 Truth, Beauty, Reality
Paulo Sandler
27 Regression in the Work of Bion and Winnicott,
Rudi Vermoté
28 Was Freud a Bionian?
Björn Salomonsson
SECTION IX
O IN THE CONSULTING ROOM
29 From Knowing to Becoming and from an Informed Mind to a Nourished Mind
Darcy Portolese
30 Catastrophe and Faith in Anorexia Nervosa
Tom Wooldridge
31 From a Talking Hole to a Container for Growth
Majlis Salomonsson
32 Penelope’s Suitors: From Reality to Play
Esther Hadassa Sandler
33 Understanding the Reversal of the Alpha Function Through a Case
Annie Stümer
SECTION X - EPILOGUE
Avner Bergstein
Gisele de Mattos Brito
Alessandro Bruni
Nanci Carter
Monica Horovitz
INDEX
Biography
Afsaneh K. Alisobhani (Psy.D.) is a training and supervising psychoanalyst, a faculty member and the past Vice President of Newport Psychoanalytic Institute, and a member of the New Center for Psychoanalysis. She is a member of the faculty at the University of California, Irvine, School of Psychiatry and Human Behavior and a member of the University of California/NCP Interdisciplinary Psychoanalytic Consortium since 2002. She was the co-chair of the International Bion Conference in Los Angeles in 2014. She is the founding member, faculty and supervisor at Tehran Center for Psychoanalytic Studies (TCPS) in Tehran, Iran. She is a lecturer and supervisor in the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy program at Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) and Ruzbeh Hospital in Tehran, Iran. She is also a supervisor and lecturer at China American Psychoanalytic Alliance.
Glenda J. Corstorphine (Psy.D.) is a training and supervising analyst and faculty member and the past Vice President of Newport Psychoanalytic Institute. Prior to receiving her doctorate from NPI she received a Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy and a Masters in Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary. She is a former board member at NPI and former Director of NPI’s Pasadena campus. She was the co-chair of the International Bion Conference in Los Angeles, 2014. She has been in private practice in Pasadena, CA, for over 25 years.
