Bion On Thinking
"During the 1950s and 1960s, Bion transformed Melanie Klein's theories of infantile phantasy...into an epistemological "theory of thinking" of his own." Bion used as his starting point the phenomenology of the analytic hour, highlighting the two principles of "the emergence of truth and mental growth. The mind grows through exposure to truth." The foundation for both mental development and truth are, for Bion, emotional experience.
The evolution of emotional experience into the capacity for thought, and the potential derailment of this process, are the primary phenomena described in Bion's model. Through his hypothesized alpha and beta elements, Bion provides a language to help one think about what is occurring during the analytic hour. These tools are intended for use outside the hour in the clinician’s reflective process. To attempt to apply his models during the analytic session violates the basic principle whereby "Bion had advocated starting every session 'without memory, desire or understanding' - his antidote to those intrusive influences that otherwise threaten to distort the analytic process."
Read more about this topic: Wilfred Bion
Famous quotes containing the word thinking:
“Is it not manifest that our academic institutions should have a wider scope; that they should not be timid and keep the ruts of the last generation, but that wise men thinking for themselves and heartily seeking the good of mankind, and counting the cost of innovation, should dare to arouse the young to a just and heroic life; that the moral nature should be addressed in the school-room, and children should be treated as the high-born candidates of truth and virtue?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)