Reading Bion

by Rudi Vermote

Wilfred R. Bion is considered a ground-breaking psychoanalyst. His thinking is rooted in Freud and Klein from where it takes an original flight. Reading Bion shows the evolution of his seminal insights in psychic functioning and puts them in a wider context.



Rudi Vermote integrates a chronological close reading and discussion of Bion’s texts, with a comprehensive approach of his major concepts. The book is divided in two main





Transformation in Bion’s odyssey to understand psychic processing or the mind



Transformation in in which Bion reinterprets his former concepts from the dimension of the unknown and unknowable



The running text is put against a background of biographical data and scientific, artistic and philosophical influences on his work, which are highlighted in boxes and separate chapters. Bion’s concepts are important for anyone dealing with the mind. His ideas have an ongoing deep impact on psychoanalysis, psychotherapy and psychopathology. His concepts help to understand psychic change, creativity, individual psychodynamics and small and large-group phenomena. The discovery of their value for studies on art, literature, sociology, religion, economics has just begun.



Reading Bion starts from the very beginning so that it is instructive for people who are new to his work, but the close reading and background information make it a meaningful companion for experienced psychoanalysts and psychotherapists studying his work.

Genres: Psychology, Psychoanalysis

280 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2012

Reviews

[Paul Johnston · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was a wonderful book. The clearest and most helpful book I have read on Bion who is certainly not easy to follow (let alone understand). The chronological format with helpful boxes on specific issues/aspects as they came up was great. I also thought that splitting the book into Bion's work on Transformations in K and his later focus on Transformation in O made a lot of sense. As a philosopher, I am amused and intrigued by Bion's appropriations from different philosophers, although I suspect that he uses his borrowings in a way that might surprise the people he borrowed them from. But why matters - what matters is what he is using them to say (or try to say). Anyway, I would still see myself as miles from understanding Bion, but now thanks to this book I at least feel that I have some sense of who was and what he was up to :-)

[Mohsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's not easy, reading Bion. At times i had tachycardia or deep anxiety while reading this book or Bions works. When you surf in the infinite, the O and talk about it, it really is something! It has a nature not like anything else in the world. The moment which you experience experiencing O, that's sth that really changes you. Of course, you'll find out afterwards. But the book was really helpful. I'm going to read more about Bion and then proceed to his original works.

[Yasemin]

I recommend that book for whom needs a top view to Bion’s theoretical and clinical evolution. And also Rudi Vermont gave a picture of his biographical echoes in his ideas.


“The best strategy is to try to read with a penetrating darkness, not-knowing and being sensible to connections that may emerge as a feeble light. Bion quotes the poet G.M. Hopkins: ‘Be shellèd, eyes, with double dark / And find the uncreated light’ (p. 271). One needs an inner eye, apart from the senses”


To Bion ‘answers’ are really space-stoppers, a way of putting an end to curiosity, especially if you believe the answer is THE answer. On another occasion he explained, ‘when I feel a pressure – I’d better get prepared in case you ask me some questions – I say, “To hell with it. I’m not going to look up this stuff in Freud, or even in my past statement – I’ll put up with it”, but of course I am asking you to put up with it too’. And again, ‘If you are looking for answers to questions you will not find them except through your own intuition and understanding’. Accordingly, his replies were aimed at clarifying the problem by approaching it by an indirect route; in due course it became clear that the apparently irrelevant answer had in fact illuminated the area of the question and beyond, like a circular tour bringing the traveller back to the point of departure but now seen with increased knowledge and experience gathered on the journey.
(Bion, F. 1995,)

[sHuysmans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ik ga Bion zijn advies opvolgen: 'Lees me, vergeet me en herlees me later nog eens.' Wel heel interessante concepten!