Work Of Bion Research Articles

Containment and the threat of catastrophic change in psychotherapy groups

Wilfred Bion's seminal work with treatment and training groups is considered by many group therapists to be a classic study of group behavior. Despite the influence of his early work on groups, practitioners frequently find his later writings difficult to apply to group settings. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the potential usefulness of Bion's later psychoanalytic writings to our understanding of the complex dynamics active in therapy groups. This paper examines the relationship among four concepts that Bion emphasized in his later writings: projective identification, containercontained, (Ps<---->D), and catastrophic change. Two clinical vignettes are presented to demonstrate how these concepts can aid the therapist in understanding the complicated dynamics active in therapeutic group settings.

The Unconscious from a Group-as-a-Whole Perspective: A Dream in the Context of a Training Group

This paper presents a dream in a social context to illustrate the manifestations of unconscious processes in a group setting and to show how such material may be used to increase understanding of both the individual and the group. The discussion of the manifest dream material is placed in the context of a brief review of the group-as-a-whole approach based on W.R. Bion's seminal work in group psychology. Implications of this tradition for the practice of group psychotherapy are presented, drawing attention to the need for special group process training.

The Behavior and Personality of Work Group and Basic Assumption Group Members

The purpose of this study was to examine andpredict individual workand nonwork behavior in groups, based on the personality of the individual. Personality was defined in terms of Bales 's SYMLOG character types. Work and nonwork behavior were conceptualized in terms of the Bion work group and basic assumption groups. Intelligence and gender were used as control variables. It was expected that group members observed to be task oriented and emotionally controlled, in SYMLOG terms, would be in a work group mode. The subjects in the study were participants in four academic self-study groups. Factor analysis was used to create scales describing work and nonwork activity. Scores on these scales were correlated with scores generated from SYMLOG Observations, SYMLOG Retrospective Ratings, the Culture Fair Intelligence Test, and the gender of the participants. The results of this study strongly supported the hypothesis that there is a positive relationship between work activity as defined by Bion and the SYMLOG character type of task orientation/emotional control. There were also a number of significant relationships between the various basic assumption groups modes and other SYMLOG dimensions. These results suggest that it is possible to systematically code and predict work and nonwork activity in groups based on the personality of the individuals involved. Implications forfurther research are explored.

The Group and the Shadow: Explorations and Echoes of Relatedness in a Small Study Group Setting

An account of the experience of work with four small study groups at the Scottish Institute of Human Relations in Edinburgh is presented using a method of group analysis recording previously reported by Bennis and Shepard (1956). The aim of the groups was to provide the members with an opportunity to study overt and covert processes involved in developing group membership. The consultant's framework refers to Bridger (1980) and is related to the work of Bion (1961), Foulkes (1964), and Anzieu (1984). The paper argues that there are three distinct phases in group life in a narrative structure. These are discussed within a wide range of theoretical constructs, from developmental studies of infants (Stern, 1985), quantum physics (Bohm, 1980), anthropology (Leach, 1983), mythology (Levi Strauss, 1986), and analytical psychology (Jung, 1964). It is concluded that the individual search in groups for personal and social meaning helps to make manifest certain universal and recurring themes.

The Concept of Alexithymia in the Light of the Work of Bion

ABSTRACT. Bion's work on the genesis, agenesis and dysgenesis of thought, and its subsequent development, allows us to delineate two fundamental mechanisms which are used to avoid the painful anxieties associated with the birth of a thought. These anxieties, which are perhaps best covered by the term catastrophic anxiety, may be avoided by evacuation of the elements that thought is born from, or by the conversion of these elements into pseudo‐elements or lies. The clinical concept of alexithymia, which evolved from work with psychosomatic patients, illustrates how these mechanisms may be manifested clinically by disordered thought and psychosomatic illness.

Bion and Group Psychotherapy

Bion's later work reveals him as a major force in modern psychoanalysis. Contributors here give critical attention to basic assumption theory, to Bion's later work, and to the context from which his work emerged.

The Induction of Acute Psychosis in a Group Setting

The case histories of two patients are described, each of whom suffered a severe psychotic decompensation, one apparently schizophreniform and the other affective, after attending a seven day marathon group conducted by a charismatic, aggressive leader. The work of Yalom and Lieberman is reviewed, with regard to leader and participant characteristics in encounter group casualties. Drawing upon the work of Bion and Kernberg, a specific means for the induction of psychosis is suggested, involving primitive splitting and the projection of "all bad" self-object constellations within a group setting.

Acts of Turning as Stress-Resolving Mechanisms in Work Groups (With Special Reference to the Work of W. R. Bion)

This study tested a theory based in Bion's work and developed to explain group members' acts of turning to individuals, group norms, and traditions, as if, in so doing, to move the group to operate in some specific mode or condition. A group operating in the condition of basic assumption culture activity is postulated to give rise to a state of stress, since in that condition, the work expectations of group members are confronted with group activity that does not allow work. Conjectures derived from the theory of acts of turning as stress-resolving mechanisms specified the kind of agency to which an individual intending a certain group activity would turn, given a basic assumption culture as the group condition. Tests of hypotheses corroborated the conjectures. Further theory development is warranted to explain those acts in which the agency turned to was inconsistent with the group activity intended.

Ego Psychology, Group Dynamics and the Therapeutic Community.

The author has undertaken a difficult and perhaps overly ambitious task: to provide a theoretical framework for the rapidly expanding, but loosely organized set of operations commonly grouped under the rubric of therapeutic community. By wedding a theoretical model based on ego psychology to some aspects of small group theory, Dr. Edelson attempts to bring order to what has been frequently a set of ad hoc prescriptions cast in a humanistic framework. The concepts of Federn and Fairbairn are central as are, on the other side of the theoretical street, the work of Bion and Redl. Much of Dr. Edelson's text is taken up with excellent brief summaries of ego psychology and, in this respect, it may be a useful introductory text for the beginning psychiatric resident. The knowledgeable reader will probably find some of the author's summaries too brief and at times too elementary. Small