Bion's concept of containment in marital work

Abstract

Abstract This article describes Wilfred Bion's theory of containment and the container-contained relationship (Bion, 1970), and applies these concepts to marital work. Bion wrote about the concept of containment throughout his later work, and particularly in a series of papers presented and published between 1960 and 1970. This paper gives an example of containment in practice, and also of the therapist's failure to contain the worst fears of the clients in marital psychotherapy. It is suggested that the concept of containment is relevant to and useful for social work practice generally