Wilfred Bion Flashcards
1
Q
What are the two position according to Bion (1957)?
A
- The depressive position is never permanently achieved
- The mind cycles between the two (Ps ↔ D), as the achievement of D creates anxiety which can only be handled in the Ps state (by more primitive defenses such as splitting)
2
Q
What is projective identification according to Bion?
A
- Projective identification (PI) not a defense or a phantasy as Klein conceived but rather an interpersonal process:
- ->The self gets rid of distressing feelings by evoking the feeling in another person, which has the psychological experience that the self does not have - Need for PI in infancy, when the baby is unable to absorb all his intense experiences (Bion’s containment concept)
- By projecting the unprocessed feelings into another human mind (a container) that can accept and transform them into meanings, the baby’s mind could cope
- Mother can comfort her baby if she can absorb his tension, to a point where he can internalize her as an object able to bear the original anxiety
- Absence of suitable container: child is left with overwhelming levels of anxiety and forced to deny reality
3
Q
What is containment according to Bion?
A
- Baby projects his unprocessed feelings into the mother’s mind
- Mother needs to ‘contain’ the baby mentally and respond to him emotionally and physically -> modulates his unmanageable feelings
- She reflects to baby her understanding of the feeling, the cause of them, and her capacity to deal with it
- Baby can re-internalize what was projected, emotional experience is now tolerable
- Bion links development of thought processes to the quality of containment
- Missing containment the results in fragmented thought
- ->An intensified need for further PI and splitting to contain the frustration - If PI is not entirely successful and the object is incapable of containing the infant’s anxiety, when the experience is re introjected, the experience becomes attacking and starves the personality of its good qualities
