The Clinical Thinking of Wilfred Bion

The first time I read this book I was struck by something that has taken a second read to confirm - everything about this book is excellent apart from the first couple of chapters, which are really flakey. The authors take the strange decision of throwing down the gauntlet in regards to Bion's standing as a thinker and psychoanalyst, claiming that he is the 'deepest' thinker in the firmament bar none - including of course everyone's favourite target, Freud. Freud as usual gets painted as reductive, blinkered and deterministic in his metapsychological model and Bion is the revolutionary white knight. Yes, Bion is the bestest, we are assured in often rather breathless purple prose and without hesitation or irony. Some of this is about the author's clear love for him and his thinking, which I admire and enjoy, and some of it is just plain silliness in the service of distinguishing and distancing him from his predecessors and contemporaries. Way too much of a meal is made of this - Bion wasn't the only thinker to synthesise something original from Freud and Klein's models - Winnicott for example was equally subversive in this way. So, that's the missing star from my review.Right, now that's out the way, I'm happy to report that the rest of the book is extremely well put-together and useful, written at just the right level for someone seeking a challenging introduction. 'The grid' is used as the centre point from which all of Bion's major concepts are presented, and the authors do this with deftness, insight and an obvious passion for what Bion stood for intellectually and philosophically. They get inside his ideas and light them up which, for a psychotherapy student such as myself, is invaluable since his original texts are not easy to get to grips with.I can unreservedly recommend this book. The misty-eyed silliness which crops up from time to time is ultimately easy to forgive when you consider how much research and effort has clearly gone into decoding Bion's slightly esoteric but nonetheless valuable contributions to the field.

I read this book whilst training in psychotherapy. I’d recommend it as a good introduction to Bion’s central ideas. I didn’t know where to start with his collected works so I appreciated the authors perspective. I thought that it read well and I know a little bit more about Bion than I did beforehand;especially the emphasis on the emotional life of the mind. That being said, the intro does state that the books focus veers towards Bion’s esoteric later period. I can’t comment on this but I’ve heard that some experienced therapists find this part of Bion’s oeuvre controversial and shrouded in mysticism. I personally found it deep and thought provoking, if not a little weird.

This is a wonderful book. Whilst still heavy going, the authors do make Bion accessible to clinicians who are not practicing analysts. This is no mean feat. I came away feeling that I had definitely developed some new perspectives on my ongoing clinical work as a psychologist.

Bion introduced The Grid, which gives perspective on development of thought. It gives an account of emergence of thought from the unconscious to concious thinking and how defence mechanisms prevent that from happening in many individuals. This is well illustrated by examples. 'Looking for the truth' in a person is Bion's main theme and I think that simplicity expresses what psychoanalysis is about.He is an 'independent' to his presuccessors such as Melanie Klein, and veers away from some concepts or just uses different terminology to describe the same thing, however, his book can be used to critically evaluate works of others, or help us think out of the box.

Arrived quickly good book.