Object Relations

2-Year Certificate Program (2YCP)
2022-23, 3rd Term — Mondays, 6:30-7:45pm

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February 20, 2023 — Wilfred Bion: the container and the contained

[33 pages]

Bion integrated Klein’s contributions on unconscious phantasy with Winnicott’s focus on the caregiving other. The clinician establishes a therapeutic connection by transforming unformulated thought into a shared understanding of experience. This repeats the process through which infants learn to communicate their anxieties and needs to their caregivers.

Levine, H.B. (2007) Truth, Growth, and Deception: The Late Seminars of Wilfred Bion: The Italian Seminars. By Wilfred R. Bion. London: Karnac Books, 2005, 109 pp., $23.95. The Tavistock Seminars. By Wilfred R Bion. London: Karnac Books, 2005, 118 pp., $23.95.. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 55:677-685

Aguayo, J. (2018) D.W. Winnicott, Melanie Klein, and W.R. Bion: The Controversy Over the Nature of the External Object—Holding and Container/Contained (1941-1967). Psychoanalytic Quarterly 87:767-807

(Read pages 779-803)

Point of focus: What helps you to formulate your patient’s experience when they are not able to speak about it? Do you feel that this creates a shared connection?

Optional Reading

Angeloch, D. (2021) The Experience of the First World War in Wilfred Bion’s Autobiographical Writings. Psychoanalytic Quarterly 90:7-48

(This is not available on the Pep-Web. Please email me if you would like me to send you a copy.)

Brown, L.J. (2005) The Cognitive Effects of Trauma: Reversal of Alpha Function and the Formation of a Beta Screen. Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 74:397-420

Read clinical example.