Wilfred Bion

Wilfred Bion was one of the most original and influential thinkers in recent psychoanalysis. His ideas, which can be traced in direct line in the development of psychoanalytic theory from Freud to Melanie Klein, are difficult to grasp because his writing style was often enigmatic and ambiguous. This is the first full biography and the first comprehensive explication of his significant contribution to psychoanalytic theory and practice. Bion was born in 1897 and spent his early childhood in India. He endured tragedy as a young man when his wife died after giving birth. In his later years, he found great love with his second wife. A bona fide war hero who won a Military Cross in the Tank Corps, he became Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Tavistock Clinic, London in 1945; Director of the London Clinic of Psychoanalysis from 1956 to 1962; and President of the British Psychoanalytic Society from 1962 to 1965. He made pioneering studies in psychiatric rehabilitation, founded the group relations movement, and wrote what many believe to be the most important body of work on individual psychoanalysis since Freud and Klein. In 1968, he withdrew to California to escape the perils of fame. Although he originally intended to stay for three or four years, he did not return to England until 1979. Two months later, he died in Oxford. . Dr. Bleandonu takes us through Bion's personal and intellectual explorations and gives clear accounts of his key concepts, including work groups and basic assumption groups, psychotic processes, catastrophic change, abandonment of memory and desire, the mystic, and ultimate truth. In addition, the grid is carefully laid out and explicated; the emergence of the idea of links, and attacks on them, as a core theme for the rest of Bion's working life is given proper attention; and Bion's attempt to create an extensive psychoanalytic epistemology is discussed. Finally, Bleandonu guides the reader through the fantasy writings in the Memoir of the Future, the masterpiece that is Bion's autobiography, and his final writings, including the posthumous Cogitations. . Significant reading for anyone with an interest in psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and the development of psychoanalytic thought, this volume will be valued by professions and students alike.