Wilfred Bion Wilfred Ruprecht Bion DSO ( 8 September 1897 – 8 November 1979 ) was an influential British psychoanalyst , who became president of the British Psychoanalytical Society from 1962 to 1965 . Bion has been twinned with Jacques Lacan as " inspired bizarre analysts . . . who demand not that their patients get better but that they pursue Truth " . ' Bion ' s ideas are highly unique ' , so that he ' remained larger than life to almost all who encountered him ' . He has been considered by Neville Symington as possibly " the greatest psychoanalytic thinker . . . after Freud " . Military service . Bion was born in Mathura , North - Western Provinces , India , and educated at Bishop ' s Stortford College in England . After the outbreak of the First World War , he served in the Tank Corps as a tank commander in France , and was awarded both the Distinguished Service Order ( DSO ) ( on 18 February 1918 , for his actions at the Battle of Cambrai ) , and the Croix de Chevalier of the Légion d ' honneur . He first entered the war zone on 26 June 1917 , and was promoted to temporary lieutenant on 10 June 1918 , and to acting captain on 22 March 1918 , when he took command of a tank section , he retained the rank when he became second - in - command of a tank company on 19 October 1918 , and relinquished it on 7 January 1919 . He was demobilised on 1 September 1921 , and was granted the rank of captain . The full citation for his DSO reads : " Bion ' s daughter , Parthenope . . . raises the question of just how ( and how far ) her father was shaped as an analyst by his wartime experiences . . . under [ p ] inning Bion ' s later concern with the coexistence of regressed or primitive proto - mental states alongside more sophisticated one " . Career . After World War I , Bion studied history at Queen ' s College , Oxford , earning a bachelor of arts degree in 1922 , then studying medicine at University College London . Initially attracted to London by the " strange new subject called psychoanalysis " , he met and was impressed by Wilfred Trotter , an outstanding brain surgeon who published the famous " Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War " in 1916 , based on the horrors of the First World War . This was to prove an important influence on Bion ' s interest in group behavior . Having qualified in medicine by means of the Conjoint Diploma ( MRCS England , LRCP London ) in 1930 Bion spent seven years in psychotherapeutic training at the Tavistock Clinic , an experience he regarded , in retrospect , as having had some limitations . It did , however , bring him into fruitful contact with Samuel Beckett . He wanted to train in Psychoanalysis and in 1938 he began a training analysis with John Rickman , but this was brought to an end by the Second World War . He was recommissioned in the Royal Army Medical Corps as a lieutenant on 1 April 1940 , and worked in a number of military hospitals including Northfield Military Hospital ( Hollymoor Hospital , Birmingham ) where he initiated the first Northfield Experiment . These ideas on the psychoanalysis of groups were then taken up and developed by others such as S . H . Foulkes , Rickman , Bridger , Main and Patrick De Mare . The entire group at Tavistock had in fact been taken into the army , and were working on new methods of treatment for psychiatric casualties ( those suffering post - traumatic stress , or " shell shock " as it was then known . ) Out of this his pioneering work in group dynamics , associated with the " Tavistock group " , Bion wrote the influential " Experiences in Groups " , London : Tavistock , 1961 . " Experiences in Groups " was an important guide for the group psychotherapy and encounter group movements beginning in the 1960s , and quickly became a touchstone work for applications of group theory in a wide variety of fields . During the war Bion ' s wife , Betty Jardine , gave birth to a daughter , but , tragically , she died soon afterwards in 1945 . His daughter , Parthenope , became a highly regarded psychoanalyst . She herself died prematurely , in a car crash in Italy in 1998 . Returning to the Tavistock Clinic Bion chaired the Planning Committee that reorganized the Tavistock into the new Tavistock Institute of Human Relations , alongside a new Tavistock Clinic which was part of the newly launched National Health Service . As his interest in psychoanalysis increased , he underwent training analysis , between 1946 – 1952 , with Melanie Klein . He met his second wife , Francesca , at the Tavistock in 1951 . He joined a research group of Klein ' s students ( including Hanna Segal and Herbert Rosenfeld ) , who were developing Klein ' s theory of the paranoid - schizoid position , for use in the analysis of patients with psychotic disorders , and became a leading member of the Kleinian school . He produced a series of highly original and influential papers ( collected as " Second Thoughts " , 1967 ) on the analysis of schizophrenia , and the specifically cognitive , perceptual , and identity problems of such patients . Bion ' s theories , which were always based in the phenomena of the analytic encounter , eventually revealed radical departures from both Kleinian and Freudian theory . At one point , he attempted to understand thoughts and thinking from a mathematical and scientific point of view , believing there to be too little precision in the existing vocabulary , a process culminating in " The Grid " . Later he abandoned the complex , abstract applications of mathematics , and the Grid , and developed a more intuitive approach , epitomised in the Memoir of the Future . He spent his later years in Los Angeles , California , before returning to the UK shortly before his death at Oxford . He left a reputation which has steadily grown both in Britain and internationally . Some commentators consider that his writings are often gnomic and irritating , but never fail to stimulate . He defies categorisation as a follower of Klein or of Freud . While Bion is most well known outside of the psychoanalytic community for his work on group dynamics , the psychoanalytic conversation that explores his work is mainly concerned with his theory of thinking , and his model of the development of a capacity for thought . Group dynamics — the " basic assumptions " . Wilfred Bion ' s observations about the role of group process es in group dynamics are set out in " Experiences in Groups " where he refers to recurrent emotional states of groups as basic assumptions . Bion argues that in every group , two groups are actually present : the work group , and the basic assumption group . The work group is that aspect of group functioning which has to do with the primary task of the group — what the group has formed to accomplish ; will ' keep the group anchored to a sophisticated and rational level of behaviour ' . The basic assumption group describes the tacit underlying assumptions on which the behaviour of the group is based . Bion specifically identified three basic assumptions : dependency , fight - flight , and pairing . When a group adopts any one of these basic assumptions , it interferes with the task the group is attempting to accomplish . Bion believed that interpretation by the therapist of this aspect of group dynamics would result in insight regarding effective group work . In dependency , the essential aim of the group is to attain security through , and have its members protected by , one individual . The basic assumption in this group culture seems to be that an external object exists whose function it is to provide security for the immature individual . The group members behave passively , and act as though the leader , by contrast , is omnipotent and omniscient . For example , the leader may pose a question only to be greeted with docile silence , as though he or she had not spoken at all . The leader may be idealized into a kind of god who can take care of his or her children , and some especially ambitious leaders may be susceptible to this role . Resentment at being dependent may eventually lead the group members to " take down " the leader , and then search for a new leader to repeat the process . In the basic assumption of fight - flight , the group behaves as though it has met to preserve itself at all costs , and that this can only be done by running away from someone or fighting someone or something . In fight , the group may be characterized by aggressiveness and hostility ; in flight , the group may chit - chat , tell stories , arrive late or any other activities that serve to avoid addressing the task at hand . The leader for this sort of group is one who can mobilize the group for attack , or lead it in flight . The final basic assumption group , pairing , exists on the assumption that the group has met for the purpose of reproduction — the basic assumption that two people can be met together for only one purpose , and that a sexual one ' . Two people , regardless the sex of either , carry out the work of the group through their continued interaction . The remaining group members listen eagerly and attentively with a sense of relief and hopeful anticipation . Bion considered that " the three basic - assumption groups seem each in turn to be aggregates of individuals sharing out between them the characteristics of one character in the Oedipal situation " . Behind the Oedipal level , however , Bion postulated the existence of still more primitive , part - object phantasies ; and ' the more disturbed the group , the more easily discernible are these primitive phantasies and mechanisms ' . Such phantasies would prove the main focus of Bion ' s interest after his second ( Kleinian ) analysis . Bion on thinking . " During the 1950s and 1960s , Bion transformed Melanie Klein ' s theories of infantile phantasy . . . into an epistemological " theory of thinking " of his own . " Bion used as his starting point the phenomenology of the analytic hour , highlighting the two principles of " the emergence of truth and mental growth . The mind grows through exposure to truth . " The foundation for both mental development and truth are , for Bion , emotional experience . The evolution of emotional experience into the capacity for thought , and the potential derailment of this process , are the primary phenomena described in Bion ' s model . Through his hypothesized alpha and beta elements , Bion provides a language to help one think about what is occurring during the analytic hour . These tools are intended for use outside the hour in the clinician ’ s reflective process . To attempt to apply his models during the analytic session violates the basic principle whereby " Bion had advocated starting every session ' without memory , desire or understanding ' — his antidote to those intrusive influences that otherwise threaten to distort the analytic process . " Alpha elements , beta elements , and alpha function . Bion created a theory of thinking based on changing beta elements ( unmetabolized psyche / soma / affective experience ) into alpha elements ( thoughts that can be thought by the thinker ) . Beta elements were seen as cognate to the underpinnings of the " basic assumptions " identified in his work with groups : " the fundamental anxieties that underlie the basic assumption group resistances were originally thought of as " proto - mental phenomena " . . . forerunners of Bion ' s later concept of beta - elements . " They were equally conceptual developments from his work on projective identification — from the " minutely split ' particles ' " Bion saw as expelled in pathological p . i . by the psychotic , who would then go on to " lodge them in the angry , so - called ' bizarre objects ' by which he feels persecuted and controlled " . For " these raw bits of experience he called beta - elements . . . to be actively handled and made use of by the mind they must , through what Bion calls alpha - functions , become alpha - elements " . β elements , α elements and α function are elements that Bion ( 1963 ) hypothesizes . He does not consider β - elements , α - elements , nor α function to actually exist . The terms are instead tools for thinking about what is being observed . They are elements whose qualities remain unsaturated , meaning we cannot know the full extent or scope of their meaning , so they are intended as tools for thought rather than real things to be accepted at face value ( 1962 , p . 3 ) . Bion took for granted that the infant requires a mind to help it tolerate and organize experience . For Bion , thoughts exist prior to the development of an apparatus for thinking . The apparatus for thinking , the capacity to have thoughts " has to be called into existence to cope with thoughts " ( 1967 , p . 111 ) . Thoughts exist prior to their realization . Thinking , the capacity to think the thoughts which already exist , develops through another mind providing α - function ( 1962 , p . 83 ) — through the " container " role of maternal reverie . To learn from experience alpha - function must operate on the awareness of the emotional experience ; alpha – elements are produced from the impressions of the experience ; these are thus made storable and available for dream thoughts and for unconscious waking thinking . . . If there are only beta - elements , which cannot be made unconscious , there can be no repression , suppression , or learning . ( Bion , 1962 , p8 ) α - function works upon undigested facts , impressions , and sensations , that cannot be mentalized — beta - elements . α - function digests β - elements , making them available for thought ( 1962 , pp . 6 – 7 ) . Beta - elements are not amenable to use in dream thoughts but are suited for use in projective identification . They are influential in producing acting out . These are objects that can be evacuated or used for a kind of thinking that depends on manipulation of what are felt to be things in themselves as if to substitute such manipulations for words or ideas . . . Alpha - function transforms sense impressions into alpha - elements which resemble , and may in fact be identical with , the visual images with which we are familiar in dreams , namely , the elements that Freud regards as yielding their latent content when the analyst has interpreted them . Failure of alpha - function means the patient cannot dream and therefore cannot sleep . As alpha - function makes the sense impressions of the emotional experience available for conscious and dream — thought the patient who cannot dream cannot go to sleep and cannot wake up . ( 1962 , pp . 6 - 7 ) Knowledge , love and hate . Successful application of alpha - function leads to " the capacity to tolerate the actual frustration involved in learning ( " K " ) that [ Bion ] calls ' learning from experience ' " . The opposite of knowledge - K - was what Bion termed - K : " powerful beta - elements [ Bion ' s term for primitive proto - mental experiences ] are linked . . . [ to ] the operation of ' - K ' as the process that strips , denudes , and devalues persons , experiences , and ideas . " Both + K and - K thereupon interact for Bion with Love and Hate , as links within the analytic relationship . " The complexities of the emotional link , whether Love or Hate or Knowledge [ L , H , and K - the Bionic relational triad ] " produces ever - changing " atmospheric " effects in the analytic situation . The patient ' s focus may wish to be " on Love and Hate ( L and H ) rather than the knowledge ( K ) that is properly at stake in psychoanalytic inquiry . " For Bion , " knowledge is not a thing we have , but a link between ourselves and what we know . . . + K is being willing to know but not insisting on knowledge . " By contrast , " minus K ( - K ) . . . [ is ] not just ignorance but the active avoidance of knowledge , or even the wish to destroy the capacity for it " — " enacts what ' Attacks on Linking ' identifies as hatred of emotion , hatred of reality , hatred of life itself . " Looking for the source of such hate ( H ) , Bion states in " Learning from Experience " that with regard to the destruction of knowledge , " Inevitably one wonders at various points in the investigation why such a phenomenon as that represented by - K should exist . . . I shall consider one factor only — Envy . By this term I mean the phenomenon described by Melanie Klein in " Envy and Gratitude " " ( 1962 , p . 96 ) . Reversible perspective and - K . " Reversible Perspective " was a term coined by Bion to illuminate " a peculiar and deadly form of analytic " impasse " which defends against psychic pain " . It represents the clash of " two independently experienced views or phenomena whose meanings are incompatible " . In Bion ' s own words , " Reversible perspective is evidence of pain ; the patient reverses perspective so as to make a dynamic situation static . " As summarised by Etchegoyen , " Reversible perspective is an extreme case of rigidity of thought . . . As Bion says , what is most characteristic in such cases is the manifest accord and the latent discord . " In clinical contexts , what may happen is that notionally the analyst ' s " interpretation is accepted , but the " premises have been rejected " . . . the actual specificity , the substance of the interpretation " . Reversible perspective is an aspect of " the potential destruction and deformation of knowledge " — of the attacks on linking of - K . O : The ineffable . As his thought continued to develop , Bion came to use " reversible perspective as an analytic tool for examining psychoanalytic phenomena from both sides to get a stereoscopic ( binocular ) perspective " — something which may be linked to his increasing concern with what he termed " O " — the unknowable , or ultimate Truth . " In aesthetics , Bion is a neo - Kantian for whom reality , or the thing - in - itself ( O ) , can only be known through its sensory perception . " In terms of individual experience , Bion would speak of " an intense catastrophic emotional explosion O " which could only be known through its aftereffects . Where before he had valorised knowledge ( + K ) , now he would speak as well of " resistance to the shift from transformations involving K ( knowledge ) to transformations involving O . . . of resistance to the unknowable " . Hence his injunctions to the analyst to eschew memory and desire , to " bring to bear a diminution of the ' light ' — a penetrating beam of darkness ; a reciprocal of the searchlight . If any object existed , however faint , it would show up very clearly " . Reverie . Bion ' s concept of maternal " reverie " as the capacity to sense ( and make sense of ) what is going on inside the infant has been an important element in post - Kleinian thought : " reverie is an act of faith in unconscious process . . . essential to alpha - function ' " It is considered the equivalent of Stern ' s attunement , or Winnicott ' s maternal preoccupation . In therapy , the analyst ' s use of " reverie " is an important tool in his / her response to the patient ' s material : " it is this capacity for playing with a patient ' s images that Bion encouraged " . Late Bion . " For the later Bion , the psychoanalytic encounter was itself a site of turbulence , ' a mental space for further ideas which may yet be developed ' . " In his unorthodox quest to maintain such " mental space " , Bion " spent the final years of his long and distinguished professional life . . . [ writing ] a futuristic trilogy in which he is answerable to no one but himself . " A Memoir of the Future " . " If we accept that " Bion introduced a new form of pedagogy in his writings . . . [ via ] the density and non - linearity of his prose " , it comes perhaps to a peak here in what he himself termed " a fictitious account of psychoanalysis including an artificially constructed dream . . . science fiction " . We may conclude at least that he achieved his stated goal therein : " To prevent someone who KNOWS from filling the empty space " . < / small >