Bion’s Vertices

Dr Tomasz Fortuna is a psychoanalyst with the British Psychoanalytical Society and a founding member of the Hanna Segal Institute for Psychoanalytic Studies. He worked as a psychiatrist in the NHS for sixteen years and is now at the Portman Clinic and in private psychoanalytic practice. He teaches and supervises at the Tavistock and Portman Clinics, Institute of Psychoanalysis, University College London, and abroad, and was a visiting professor in psychoanalysis at the psychiatry department of University Putra Malaysia. He was a member of the Bion in Marrakech seminar and taught Klein and Bion in the UK, China, and South Korean. His professional interests include the relationship between psychoanalysis and the arts, and the understanding of severe emotional disturbance and criminal behaviour. He has published several articles and chapters, co-authored with R. D. Hinshelwood, Melanie Klein: The Basics (Routledge, 2017) and co-edited with Ignês Sodré, Mapping the Landscape: Explorations in Psychoanalysis, by Priscilla Roth (Routledge, 2025).

'Bion is reputed to have said that the essential aim of psychoanalysis is to introduce the patient to the one person they spend their life with, namely their own self. In this outstanding book, Tomasz Fortuna has assembled a group of eminent psychoanalytic scholars who explore from various vertices the challenges of reaching and bearing such truth and the price we and our patients pay when we falter in this endeavour. Anyone who struggles to be psychoanalytical with their patients (and this should be anyone who chooses to work this way) will benefit greatly from this outstanding collection.'

• Acknowledgements About the editor and contributors Series editor’s preface by Tomasz Fortuna Foreword by Joseph Aguayo Introduction by Tomasz Fortuna  Part I - Enquiry into the truth/lie domain1. “The forms of things unknown”: Aesthetic processes in poetry and psychoanalytic thoughtMargot Waddell2. Knowledge and its pretenders: Bion’s contribution to knowledge and thoughtDavid Bell3. Representation and truthR. D. Hinshelwood4. Bion’s two principles of mental functioning Robert Caper5. A certain praise for lying Roosevelt M. S. Cassorla Part II - Change, growth, creativity, and their opposites6. Chaos: Destruction or creation?Ronald Britton7. Reaching the ineffable: On emotion, intuition, and creativity in psychoanalytic encounter Tomasz Fortuna8. Catastrophic change: Container–contained, the shape of what we experience … and beyond Denis Flynn9. Bion: Lies and perversion of truth Dimitris J. Jackson10. Thinking about truth, lies, and propaganda Antònia Grimalt Part III - Clinical conversations11. “Truth shall spring out of the earth …”: The analyst as gatherer of sense impressionsAvner Bergstein12. What might be in so close that as psychoanalysts we miss it? Nicola Abel-Hirsch13. The analyst’s state of mind and growth in the psychoanalytical processAlberto Hahn14. A story that could never be told: Transference and truth Monica Horovitz15. Truth and lies: The perversion of truth and the disruption of passionJudy K. Eekhoff16. The psychoanalyst’s toolbox: An apprentice in Bion’s and Meltzer’s ateliersCarlos Tabbia AfterwordPaulo Cesar SandlerIndex