Psychoanalysis · 1962
Theory of thinking, alpha function and containment (Bion)
Emotional experience becomes thinkable when a container function transforms beta elements into alpha elements.
Wilfred R. Bion reformulates psychoanalysis by placing thinking as a function that emerges from the processing of emotional experience. He proposes that raw sensory and affective experiences — beta elements — need to be transformed by the alpha function in order to become thoughts, dreams and mentalisable images. When this function fails, experience is evacuated through acting out, somatisation or massive projective identification. The container–contained model describes the analyst's capacity to receive, hold and metabolise the patient's projections through reverie, returning them in a thinkable form. Bion shifts the focus from interpretive content towards the quality of the bond, the tolerance of uncertainty and the capacity to think in the presence of the unknown, revolutionising the understanding of emotional learning in individual and group clinical work. The approach is articulated through the alpha function, the container–contained link, reverie and the distinction between intellectual knowledge and transformative contact with the emotional truth of experience. His clinical work is not organised as a protocol of techniques, but as a discipline of attention, tolerance of uncertainty and interpretation that helps to re-establish links between affect, representation, thought and psychic reality. The theory extended from the study of psychotic states and of projective identification to a metapsychology of learning, dreaming, knowledge and group phenomena.
Theory of change
Change occurs when emotional experience that was previously evacuated can be contained, transformed by the alpha function and used to think, dream and learn.
Core ideas
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Thinking is a function that arises from the processing of emotional experience
Thinking is not conceived as an autonomous intellectual activity, but as the result of the transformation of primitive emotional experiences which, if they are not metabolised, remain as chaotic and intrusive states; the capacity to think depends on emotion being contained and transformed into usable symbolic material. (Bion, 1962).
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Beta elements require transformation in order to become thinkable
Raw sensory and affective experiences constitute unsymbolised elements that cannot be dreamt or remembered as thought, and that tend to be evacuated when no transformative capacity exists; clinical work is oriented towards enabling their conversion into elements that can be integrated into psychic life. (Bion, 1962; 1963).
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The alpha function is the basis of symbolisation and of dreaming
The transforming function allows emotional experience to become images, thoughts and dreams, constituting the foundation of learning from experience; when this function fails, the mind loses its capacity to symbolise and resorts to discharge or confusion. (Bion, 1962).
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Emotional evacuation replaces thought when there is no containment
When emotional experience proves intolerable and cannot be transformed, it is evacuated through acting out, somatisation, impulsivity or mental confusion, shaping a functioning in which discharge replaces elaboration and blocks emotional learning. (Bion, 1962).
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The container–contained relationship is the core of the therapeutic process
The clinical bond is understood as a structure in which one mind can receive and hold what another cannot think, allowing intolerable experience to be transformed and returned in metabolised form; the quality of the relationship is the vehicle of change rather than the interpretation of isolated contents. (Bion, 1963).
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Projective identification can be primitive communication
The projection of emotional states into the other is not reducible to a pathological defence: it can constitute an early form of communication when the subject lacks symbolic resources; the clinical work consists in receiving that induced experience, metabolising it and returning it transformed. (Bion, 1962).
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Tolerating frustration and uncertainty is a condition for thinking to emerge
The development of reflective capacity requires bearing the absence of immediate understanding, frustration and not-knowing, avoiding the imposition of premature meanings that would close the process down; the suspension of memory and desire makes it easier for genuine thought to arise instead of a defensive response. (Bion, 1970).
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Emotional learning replaces compulsive repetition
Clinical change becomes evident when emotional experience ceases to repeat itself as discharge or acting out and begins to become thinkable material from which meaning can be drawn, allowing a progressive reorganisation of the self and of the relationship with reality. (Bion, 1962).
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The shared emotional field is an indicator of the process under way
The affective atmosphere that emerges in the clinical encounter — confusion, heaviness, relief, tension — constitutes fundamental data for understanding the state of the transformation process, since it reflects whether experience is being contained or evacuated at that moment. (Bion, 1970).
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The link with knowledge can be attacked when emotional truth proves intolerable
Bion distinguishes between K, a relation oriented towards knowing and learning from psychic reality, and −K, a defensive organisation that destroys or falsifies the links capable of producing knowledge. This idea widens the understanding of resistance: the problem is not merely that the patient is unaware of something, but that knowing an experience, a dependence, a loss or a phantasy may be so threatening that the mind actively attacks the possibility of thinking about it. The intervention protects and restores the links before expecting a stable understanding. (Bion, 1959, “Attacks on Linking”; Bion, 1962, *Learning from Experience*).
Influences
- Psychoanalysis (Freud)
- Object relations (Klein)
- Group psychoanalysis
- Wilfred Trotter's theory of groups
Key references
- Bion, W. R. (1959). Attacks on linking. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 40, 308–315.
- Bion, W. R. (1961). Experiences in Groups and Other Papers. Tavistock Publications.
- Bion, W. R. (1962). Learning from Experience. Heinemann.
- Bion, W. R. (1963). Elements of Psycho-Analysis. Heinemann.
- Bion, W. R. (1965). Transformations: Change from Learning to Growth. Heinemann.
- Bion, W. R. (1967). Second Thoughts: Selected Papers on Psycho-Analysis. Heinemann.
- Bion, W. R. (1970). Attention and Interpretation: A Scientific Approach to Insight in Psycho-Analysis and Groups. Tavistock Publications.
- Bion, W. R. (1977). Two Papers: The Grid and Caesura. Karnac Books.
- Bléandonu, G. (1994). Wilfred Bion: His Life and Works 1897–1979. Free Association Books.
- Ogden, T. H. (1982). Projective Identification and Psychotherapeutic Technique. Jason Aronson.
- Symington, J., & Symington, N. (1996). The Clinical Thinking of Wilfred Bion. Routledge.