The Courage of Simplicity

Essential Ideas in the Work of W.R. Bion

Hanni Biran

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Topic: Psychology
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429920387
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Relying on and developing the ideas of W.R. Bion, this book observes psychoanalytic thinking through three prisms: person, group and society. The book is divided into four sections. The first revolves around the individual. Clinical in its emphasis, it discusses Bion's theory of thinking, his reading of the Oedipus myth and his notion of the "selected fact". These are illustrated by vignettes highlighting the emotional aspect of thinking. The second discusses the small group and its unconscious processes. Although Bion's paradigms have greatly influenced psychoanalytic conceptions of small group processes, this section integrates the thinking of Bion with that of Klein, Foulkes, Turquet, Lawrence and Hopper. The third, focusing on the feelings of despair and helplessness in the face of repetitive, unending war, is inspired by the author's life in Israel. It relates to society at large and the traumatic history of the Jewish people: the Holocaust is still inscribed in the Israeli social-unconscious and this social trauma has considerable impact on the Jewish-Arab conflict.

PART I

INTEGRATIVE CONCEPTS

CHAPTER ONE

The concepts of the container and contained in Bion’s thought

In this chapter I will attempt to understand the meaning of the concepts of the container and the contained, first formulated by Bion (1956) and developed (1970, pp. 72–83) in Attention & Interpretation, and elaborated in a further chapter in the same book (1970, Chapter Twelve, pp. 106–125). My arguments are grounded in Bion’s (1962b) and (1967, pp. 106–125) theory of thinking and in his various statements regarding the concepts of the container and the contained that are scattered throughout his work.

I am aware of the writings of theoreticians such as Ogden, Eigen, Symington, and others, that rely on and develop Bion’s conceptualisations. Nevertheless, in this undertaking, I have endeavoured to return to the Bionian source, presenting it through my own world of experience and my clinical practice.

I will begin by describing several different aspects of the container, as I experience them.

The primary container is the mother. She is the one who provides the infant with her non-verbal emotional presence. She is attentive to this pre-verbal infant, who still cannot express himself in words. She grasps his being, his temper, his unique presence, his distress. This process takes place through two main functions (Bion, 1967).

The first function is translation. The mother receives the infant’s β-elements, elements the infant cannot yet think but only act. Bion paradoxically refers to these elements as “unthinkable thoughts”.

The infant, in himself, is helpless, able only to signal his distress to the mother. Some cries speak of hunger, others of cold. The body expresses different kinds of tension—stomach aches, and so on. According to Bion’s depiction, it is not easy being an infant. Without language, the infant has no other choice but to send such un-deciphered signals to his mother. These are all β-elements, which the mother receives and thinks. Inside herself, she transforms them and names them. This translating function is the most vital containing faculty; Bion calls it “the α-function”: the mother is internally giving words to the infant’s distress. His message is being transformed, inside her, into verbal thinking—she is doing the thinking for her baby, transforming the messages she received from him into α-elements, or “thinkable thoughts”. The more she is able to translate correctly, the more the infant is likely to be mentally healthy. When she is emotionally unavailable, anxious, or confused, she may leave the infant without her translation, or provide him with a confounded one. For instance, the infant is signalling that the room is too cold, but the anxious, inattentive mother shoves a bottle in his mouth. This is a confounding translation that only increases the infant’s distress, creating the grounds on which future thought-disorders and mental ailments may grow. When the mother provides a correct translation, she is thinking for her baby. Later on, he will learn, through her, how to think verbally on his own. She is helping him to acquire this important function and to learn to deliver his messages to the world in a clear way, leading to joy and satisfaction. The mother’s α-function is vital for the development of emotional life and the ability to think. This function shows us the extent to which Bion conceives of the container as a thinking container, which does not simply absorb, but also thinks and transforms, endowing the material entrusted to it with verbal meaning. Bion believes this manner of thinking is an action; therefore, the container is seen as an active agent, rather than a passive absorber, as it is often mistakenly depicted. A container with the capacity to contain is an active, dynamic, seeking, wondering, examining, and questioning container. This means that thinking is an act, an action. Thinking through the process of finding the right word is a complex, subtle, and devoted activity. The a-function has to do with creativity; the creativity of the mother thinking for her baby. This creativity increases when the mother is free to contemplate her own motherhood. When she actively forms her mothering experience she is creating a beneficial environment for her baby.

In summary, the container is the mother’s area of creation, that gradually turns into a shared area of creation, for both her and her infant. Finally, it will become a container for the child, a benevolent container that generates thought and feels emotional freedom and active curiosity, which is growing and becoming throughout its life, and in which motherhood is sustained without the need for the mother’s concrete presence. It is important to add that β-elements are the most primordial form of raw material. They are not yet transformed into thinking and at times retain their raw form. Bion (1970, pp. 22–41) often refers to them as “the thing in itself”.

In his chapter about the theory of thinking, Bion depicts the process of the growth and development of the ability to think: the first stage of thinking is the appearance of a preconception. The primary and most important preconception is the infant’s anticipation to encounter the mother’s nourishing and emotionally present breast. If this encounter takes place, it becomes what Bion calls a realisation. The encounter will thus lead to the development of a conception, that is a key element of the ability to think. As mentioned before, β-elements remain beyond the ability to think, appearing as they are (for instance, as a psychosomatic illness).

The second function performed by the mother as the primary container is her capacity for reverie. Bion sees this in terms of the mother’s capacity to daydream forward (Bion, 1967). I believe that the reverie is the mother’s ability, in times of great difficulty, distress, and falling apart, to daydream inside herself, to conjure up a complete image that keeps her looking forward. She is imagining that all the bad, difficult, confused, and broken things now overwhelming her will develop into benevolent being. She is daydreaming toward the horizon from which something good will be born, from which growth will surely arrive. What now seems like a catastrophe will turn out to be a catastrophic change bringing forth renewed growth. Reverie gives one the ability not to fall apart or lose one’s way. It is a non-verbal emotional presence. Still, it too is not passive, but a form of action. I think that the capacity for reverie lies in a world where the mother or the analyst are capable of performing what Bion (1970, pp. 6–26) calls an “act of faith”.

This aspect of daydreaming forward, in which the mother or analyst daydreams a benign future image, is implicit in Bion’s formulations. Most interpreters of his work consider reverie a form of meditation that entails renouncing logical thinking. It is commonly portrayed in analytic literature as the ability to tap into one’s intuition and perceive an unseen, non-verbal being, here and now. This interpretation sees the analyst, who is dreaming for the patient, as performing a containing function. However, I also see in reverie the ability to daydream forward into a better future for the patient who is now in misery.

As his clinical work develops, Bion makes things more complex. Through his profound research and the questions he poses to himself, he grants the contained an ever increasing role. As we move on to his later writings, the mother seems more and more to be part of the container–contained equation, meaning that the infant plays a central role in the performance of the containing function. Container and contained are developing a kind of interrelation, in which the infant has considerable influence over the mother’s ability to contain. The infant may be born with a restless temper, making him harshly demanding. The more the infant is dissatisfied, irritated, and misunderstood, the less the mother is able to contain him. The more he is responsive, calm, smiling, and content, the more the joy of giving and creativity grows. Therefore, according to this perspective, the contained also creates its container. When the infant extorts the container, giving nothing in return, the container is diminished. When the contained uses the container to fill itself up, their roles may become reversed: the contained containing the container and vice versa. This is a subtle, yet important, shift. A misunderstood or very passive infant reduces the mother’s capacity for creativity. A happy, responsive infant increases her capacity to give and create. The dramatic area of growth is therefore the mother–infant link (Bion, 1967, Chapter Eight).

The following vignette illustrates this matter. A patient tells me that her mother said to her that as a baby, she suckled very slowly, so that each feed took a long while. The mother told her grown up daughter: “you suckled so slowly, that I had time to read all of Agatha Christie while breastfeeding you”. This infantile situation, which I could vividly imagine, shed light on the patient’s work in group therapy, specifically regarding her difficulties in establishing emotional intimacy with other members. Our initial tendency might be to be angry at the mother, blaming her for not being emotionally present, for looking for the thrill of figuring out “whodunit”, while her daughter is suckling in her lap. On second thoughts, however, it will be wrong to judge only the mother, without considering the role of the contained in this constellation. We might find it more accurate to say that the mother–infant communication was disrupted, and this disruption had various implications for the grown up psyche. Such an event is certainly registered in the emerging psyche, but there are no guilty parties: it took place in the space between container and contained. The more the mother became withdrawn and preoccupied with her books, the slower the infant suckled. And Bion would say, “wait, the opposite is also true”. This is the Bionian perspective, always pointing out the reversible perspective, the “vice versa” (Bion, 1963, pp. 48–53). The opposite is also true: the slower the infant suckled, the more the mother found refuge in her book. She may not have known any other way to handle the situation. Such events should be examined carefully, we should study their effect on the patient’s relationships while constantly rethinking and avoiding clichés such as the automatic accusation directed at the emotionally absent mother. The key is observing the space formed by the mother–infant link.

I will now turn to a second aspect of the container as conceptualised by Bion: the intricate analyst–patient relationship. The analyst, like the mother, is the container and the patient is the contained. The functions of translation, reverie, creativity, innovation, and discovery are evident here, and there is great importance to what is going on in the space between both parties. Some patients hinder our ability to give, and some patients expand and enrich our joy of creation and discovery. In analysis, the patient brings forth obscure fragments or particles as well. These frightening β-elements, which the patient cannot think verbally, are residues of material that were left untranslated in infancy and have now come back to attack the inner world. The patient acts them and the analyst translates them, internally, into verbal thinking. Beta-elements can take many forms: acting out, psychosomatic pains, sleep disorders, attention deficit disorder, and other similar manifestations. The analyst, through her emotional presence, is re-enacting the role of the mother, providing, by means of her thinking, the translation of unthinkable elements into thinkable elements. This is the essence of containing. Those of us who are experienced clinicians know well how different patients are contained in various and distinct ways. There are those who are easily contained, containing us as well and contributing to our growth and capacity; then there are those who are grumpy, dissatisfied, demanding, passive, giving little, and asking plenty, hindering our containing ability. A good example of this is boredom in analysis. When it is boring, we might find ourselves following our thoughts elsewhere, drifting after thoughts that run away from the office toward our daily matters and concerns. This is not uncommon, it happens to many of us and it is not always easy for us to admit it. Still, this is clearly a red light: I need to check why I am absent, why is the patient putting me to sleep, what must I do to change the quality of our relationship, and so on. We must ask questions that would help awaken us, putting us back in tune with the patient. Bion’s working assumption is that the analyst–patient link is under attack. An attack carried out by two parties.

Analytic containing is an intricate craft, a form of art even, and Bion devoted much of his writing to this subject. He claims that for such growth-promoting containment to exist, the analyst must subject herself to a state that resembles dreaming or daydreaming. This state prepares the analyst for the moment in which the patient is perceived as an original and unique being and to the reception of the patient’s signals. This requires the analyst’s container to be free and vacant, much like the mother’s freedom to form her own motherhood. The analyst must create herself as an analyst for the patient.

What is the meaning of a “vacant container”? First of all, it must be vacant of the dozens, even hundreds, of psychoanalytic theories. One must forget, for a while, all that one knows so as not to arrive in the analytic session with a container that is saturated and overflowing with theory. This might create a session filled with analytic jargon but lacking any authentic dialogue, as the analyst is unable to see the unique patient and hear her unique story. A vacant container is a container that never knows right away, that never understands too quickly, that does not label or categorise. It is a container that is not saturated with pre-existing knowledge. This vacancy has an active aspect as well—that of clearing away those elements within the container that obscure the patient’s unique presence. The vacant container enables the analyst to summon up those images that the patient evokes in her.

This begs the question, regarding the clinical application of this theory, of whether the experience of reverie is spontaneous or is it an artificially conjured image. Bion does not elaborate on this technique, leaving it open to our clinical insight. I believe that while spontaneous reverie is more faithful to the patient’s needs, in states of helplessness, pessimism, or failure in the analyst–patient relationship, a conjured image is both needed and appropriate. Thinking in images is much more “experience-near” than intellectual interpretations, and therefore capable of helping the analyst find a hidden channel of communication into the patient’s inner world.

The second aspect of the analytic container has to do with Bion’s famous saying that the analyst must come to the session without desire or memory. Bion kept coming back to this issue, which recurs throughout his writings. When the analyst is preoccupied with desire, she is not here. She may desire to cure the patient, to see some results, to see the patient get married, finish her studies, etc. She is harbouring some expectation that might hinder the attention she must employ. Memories are also a source of deception and disruption. Engaged with the past, memories derail the analyst into irrelevancies. She finds herself struggling to remember the previous session, the story the patient told when she first came to analysis, etc. This means that she is trying hard not to be here. Something important is happening here. It might be difficult. It might be frightening, causing the analyst to run away, to grasp at familiar material in the attempt to bridge the emerging gap. Avoiding the use of memory is also an active effort, that cannot happen on its own. The container must be cleared. It should be noted that Bion distinguishes memory from remembering. The latter is a welcome, spontaneous occurrence—”I suddenly remembered something that is related to what is happening now”. Remembering contributes to analysis, unlike memory. Memory fills the container with deceptive material. Bion illustrates this very well by saying that one cannot analyse one’s family members because one’s container is full of memories that prevent the discovery of the patient’s personality.

In discussing containing, we should note that Bion did not consider psychoanalysis in terms of the medical model. He saw it as dealing with evolution, development, and growth. The analyst performs a function that is much more mothering than medical—she is there for the patient in order to perceive and encourage her growth process. In other words, the analyst is a container that cannot operate by itself; it needs a growing, developing contained—a contained that sometimes switches roles, containing the container through a fruitful dialogue, through an interesting dream, through its fertilising creativity. Such growth cannot take place without the occasional crisis, setback, or even catastrophe. These difficult experiences slowly give rise to developmental change (Bion, 1970, pp. 87–92).

I will now turn to a third aspect of the container and the contained: the container exists as an internal function. The infant, with the help of the mother, and the patient, aided by the analyst, will eventually develop an internal container. This internal container arranges our world, distinguishing inside from outside, and possible from impossible. It is involved with acknowledging limitations, which, in ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• SERIES EDITOR’S FOREWORD
• INTRODUCTION
• PART I INTEGRATIVE CONCEPTS
• PART II PERSON
• PART III GROUP
• PART IV SOCIETY
• EPILOGUE Some selected facts of my biography
• NOTES
• REFERENCES
• INDEX