Lia Pistiner de Cortinas - Böcker

In this magisterial work, the author almost encyclopaedically reviews all of Bion's works and does so from the perspective (vertex) of the aesthetic dimension. She scans virtually all the essential elements of Bion's contributions and then details them at length, giving unusual clarifications as she does so..'This work constitutes an outstanding piece of Bion scholarship and interpretation. One comes away from it with a deep appreciation for the authors dreaming of Bion's work and for the light she has shined on many of Bion's more recondite themes.'- James Grotstein MD, Professor of Psychiatry, UCLA School of Medicine, from his Preface

This book represents some of Wilfred Bion's basic concepts, which are reconsidered from the perspective of mental growth. It elucidates Bion's significant legacy of the differentiation between the psychotic and non-psychotic parts of the personality and its evolution in his writings.

Psychoanalysis is indebted to Bion for some of its most original moments. He took it to its limits, establishing a dialogue with other disciplines and integrating the arts and sciences. This dialogue generated innovating questions that transformed the psychoanalitical technique. Bion conceived of the mind as a universe expanding, and psychoanalysis as a powerful, disruptive idea. His hypotheses significantly developed psychoanalytical clinical practice through its transformative model of mental growth. Bion extended our understanding of protomental and pre-natal phenomena, the mysterious transformations in hallucinosis, and the role of psychoanalytical intuition. Psychoanalysis needs to include and incorporate emotional experiences that cannot immediately be apprehended by the senses, just as post-Newtonian physics has come to access infrasensorial phenomena. The Copernican revolution that Bion introduced is implied in his ideas of catastrophic change, transformation, and 'at-one-ment', which imply a new conception of analysis - not only as a process towards knowing oneself but also to be in 'at-one-ment' with what one is becoming. The chapters containing theoretical and abstract notions are followed by discussions of contemporary film, used as clinical illustration. The final chapter, concerning the primitve mind in Bion, has an original approach with its elaboration of the concept of 'tropisms'.

These newly discovered clinical seminars of Wilfred Bion, which include supervisions, personal case presentations, and lectures on psychoanalytic theory, represent his initial foray into many years of work that have inspired South American analysts for nearly a half a century.The clinical and theoretical work of Bion arguably ranks rather high in the current psychoanalytic firmament-as national and international conferences convene regularly to continue discussing the contemporary relevance of his work. His work has served as a source of inspiration to contemporary psychoanalysts in all three regions of the International Psychoanalytical Assocation-Ronald Britton, Antonino Ferro, Giuseppe Civitarese, Thomas Ogden, James Grotstein, and Paolo Sandler, just to name a few. These newly discovered clinical seminars from work Bion conducted in Buenos Aires in 1968 help us to further fill out the picture of his versatile gifts. In these seminars, we find lectures on Bion's elaborations on his epistemological research-still on-going in the 1960s when he went to Buenos Aires; a lecture on the Grid and its clinical relevance.But most importantly for analysts, new or old to Bion studies, is a centrepiece two-seminar, continuous case supervision conducted by Bion on the analytic work of Horacio Etchegoyen, then a relatively new student of Kleinian studies after being re-analyzed in London by Donald Meltzer. This supervision alone represents the single, longest supervision ever recorded of Bion. Other highlights include Bion's own case presentation of a very difficult-to-treat borderline patient, something of a rarity in his published work, as Bion was generally disinclined to present his own case work. These clinical seminars are rounded out by other supervisions, Q and As with the audience of over 300 analysts who came from all parts of South America to hear this premier analyst in Buenos Aires.

'In this magisterial work, the author almost encyclopaedically reviews all of Bion's works and does so from the perspective (vertex) of the aesthetic dimension. She scans virtually all the essential elements of Bion's contributions and then details them at length, giving unusual clarifications as she does so..'This work constitutes an outstanding piece of Bion scholarship and interpretation. One comes away from it with a deep appreciation for the authors dreaming of Bion's work and for the light she has shined on many of Bion's more recondite themes.'- James Grotstein MD, Professor of Psychiatry, UCLA School of Medicine, from his Preface