Transformations (maresfield Library)

WILFRED R. BION transformations [ ~ .KARNAC 1-0 ';;'", THE GRID Defini- A fJ-elements B e-elements tory Hypotheses lp Notation Atten- 1 2 3 4 Al A2 Bl 82 tion Inquiry Action 5 6 .. . n. A6 B3 B4 85 86 .,. Bn C3 C4 C5 C6 ... Cn --C Dream Thoughts Dreams, Myths CI C2 - 0 Pre-conception E Conception 01 02 03 04 05 06 ... On EI E2 E3 E4 E5 E6 ... En F5 F6 ... Fn --F Concept G Scientific Deductive System H Algebraic Calculus FI F2 02 F3 F4 TRANSFORMATIONS BY w. R. BION, D.S.G., B.A., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. MARESFIELD LIBRARY LONDON First published in 1965 by William Heinemann Medical Books Ltd. Reprinted 1984 with permission of Francesca Bion by H. Karnac (Books) Ltd. 58 Gloucester Road, London S.W.7., England Second Impression 1991 Printed & bound in Great Britain by BPCC Wheatons Ltd, Exeter ISBN 0 946439 07 9 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AOAIN it is a pleasure to me to acknowledge help and criticism of this book from a number of colleagues and friends who have read it in proof. Professor Elliott jaques, Miss Betty joseph, Mr. MoneyKyrle and Dr. H. Segal have all helped with advice and criticism. I am also indebted to Dr. j. O. Wisdom for many helpful criticisms of my previous work, and in particular of Learning from Experience, which have made me more aware of the pitfalls in this one. But whether I have avoided them is another matter. I would thank them all, but would not have them debited with my faults. As always there remains my debt to my wife which I can acknowledge but cannot repay. W. R. B. INTRODUCTION I had hoped to write this book so that it could be read independently of Learning from Experience and Elements of Psycho-Analysis, but I soon found this impossible without an intolerable degree of repetition. The other two books are therefore still necessary for the understanding of this one. I regret this; there are some things I said before which I would now say differently. But any reader who thinks the subject is as important as I do will find it rewarding ifhe can think the thought through despite defects of presentation. w. R. B. CHAPTER ONE SUPPOSE a painter sees a path through a field sown with poppies and paints it: at one end of the chain of events is the field of poppies, at the other a canvas with pigment disposed on its surface. We can recognize that the latter represents the former, so I shall suppose that despite the differences between a field of poppies and a piece of canvas, despite the transformation that the artist has effected in what he saw to make it take the form of a picture, something has remained unaltered and on this something recognition depends. The elements that go to make up the unaltered aspect of the transformation I shall call invariants. The artist is not the only person involved in looking at a picture; recognition of what the picture represents could not occur if the observer were to rely exclusively on his sense of smell. The wider his experience of art the more likely