The concept of time in Bion's "A Theory of Thinking"

A complex and subtle theory of time is at the heart of Bion's 1962 text "A Theory of Thinking." The central point is the differentiation of "conception" and "thought," psychic elements that in the infant are born respectively from experiences of satisfaction and frustration. These mnestic inscriptions should be understood as in dialectic relation with each other. From this matrix, within which originary temporality is established, lived time derives, but only when it is inserted in the symbolic order through the function of language, which gives access to the "concept." Our feeling of time is therefore based on the rhythm of presentation of the breast and thus on the primary relationship with the object, as well as on a broader symbolic network. The meeting of a preconception of the breast with the mere absence of the breast is not able to generate a "thought" and establish time. That is why Bion distinguishes between absence of breast or non-breast and nothing (noughtness), a state of nameless dread. Bion's concept of time provides an empirical idea, i.e. based on clinical cases where the destruction of time is observed, both of the origin of time and of what Heidegger called-as opposed to "linear" or objective conceptions of time-the ontological structure of temporality. An accurate and orderly critical reading of Bion's article is essential to reach these conclusions.