James Donnelly, DSW, LCSW
About 10 years ago, when I first picked up one of Wilfred Bion’s works (which one I don’t remember), after an initial excited foray into the volume, I realized I would never ‘get’ Wilfred Bion. The formulations were so difficult and foreign to me that I actually gave the book away and resigned myself to the fact that I would never access a psychoanalytic theorist that was being acclaimed as the most ground breaking and innovative since Freud himself. I know I felt relief; I can’t say I felt loss.
However, it is only as a result of being guided through Bion’s life and ideas by James S. Grotstein and, particularly, this highly stimulating and enlightening introduction, A Beam of Intense Darkness that I would certainly feel a tremendous loss to never have met Wilfred Bion. Grotstein was an analysand of Bion and the title of this book was taken from Bion’s translation from a letter of Freud to Lou Andreas-Salome that Bion read to Grotstein:
“When conducting an analysis, one must cast a beam of intense darkness so that something that has hitherto been obscured by the glare of the illumination can glitter all the more in the darkness.”
It is my impression after reading Beam of Darkness that this sentence summarized for Grotstein the core of Bion’s concern: the requirements for therapist and client in the actual moment to moment living experience between them in session. The radical difference between Bion and Freud, however, was in their different understanding of the ‘first cause’ of the psychological difficulties their clients were suffering. For Freud the analytic object was the unconscious drives; for Bion, it was the impingement/possibilities of existence itself for both therapist and client in the lived moments of the session.
Grotstein guides us through Bion’s endeavor to use mathematical/geometric terms to describe both human development and the psychoanalytic experience in order to create a formulation that was more scientific (unsaturated with predetermined meanings). It is with these concepts he hoped to avoid the pitfalls of traditional (saturated) metaphorical expressions. Grotstein successfully deconstructs Bion’s unique language in order to help us understand these ‘unsaturated’ expressions in terms of the dynamics of Klein’s theoretical formulations of projective identification as well as the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions in the stages of development. Bion’s understanding of projective identification as a normal dynamic in human relationships radically alters Klein’s theory and is the engine around which he constructs his own unique concepts of human development and relationships: alpha and beta elements and the concept of the ‘container’, L,K,H, dream-work, etc.
Grotstein, however, quickly introduces us to the radical heart of Bion’s thinking: Bion’s shift in theorizing from what he considered the straight jacket of positivist thinking dominating Frued’s understanding of the human condition towards an overtly philosophical and metaphysical formulation of the dilemmas of human development. The most radical center of Bion’s theory is his concept of “O”: the ineffable, unknowable power of Being itself as it both creates and challenges our lives. In Bion’s theoretical approach to psychoanalysis, the dynamics of human development and relationships are placed within his formulation of the articulation of Being itself. Psychoanalytic healing for Bion is anchored in the requirements for both therapist and client to be open and faithful to this essentially transcendental articulation in the very moments of the therapeutic encounter. Thus the ‘psychoanalytic objet’, beyond any manifestation of conscious or unconscious presentation is the dilemma and challenge of existence itself in the actual moments of encounter between therapist and client. This is Bion’s profound reformulation of our traditional understanding of transference and counter transference. For healing to occur the existential demands of the encounter must be met by both.
Out of this formulation comes Bion’s oft quoted requirement for the therapeutic stance of the therapist: to allow a state of attentiveness/reverie wherein one abandons memory, understanding and desire in order to be open and available to the truth of O in the moments of encounter between therapist and client. This is Bion’s non-positivist frame of Freud’s original method of free association and fee floating attention. In Bion’s reframe, the original Freudian method becomes an attitude of radical faith.
Grotstein describes how Bion has eclectically drawn from many diverse philosophical traditions in his journey towards a transcendental frame for understanding psychoanalysis: Kant, Plato’s theory of Forms, medieval Christian and Jewish mystics such as Meister Eckhart and the Zohar. Bion’s paradoxical epistemology is rooted in the ‘via negativa’ of Eastern and Western mystic traditions.
It is evident throughout A Beam of Intense Darkness that James Grotsten’s relationship with Bion is a profoundly personal one. This, I believe, is the unique value of his work and this book. He describes his own and many other’s puzzlement at Bion’s reluctance to ‘explain himself’ in workshops, conferences and individual meetings. Bion’s dictum was that we should pay attention to our own reactions and responses to him more than distracting ourselves from what is actually occurring in the moment by striving to ‘understand’ his concepts. It is in this spirit that Grotstein attempts to introduce us to Bion.
Grotstein’s work is in the manner of a three way dialogue: as he speaks to us of Bion, he is engaging his own dialogue with Bion as this process continually works to transform his own thinking about psychoanalysis. Throughout Grotstein’s entire presentation there is an engaging and lively process in which one is continuously impelled to ‘talk back’ to both Bion and Grotstein!
In reading this book, one becomes with both Bion and Grotstein, engaged in Jacob’s struggle with the angel.
For thoughts and comments, please send to: jdonnellydsw@gmail.com
© 2013 James Donnelly, DSW.LCSW
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South Garden Press, New York