Bion's Transformations and Clinical Practice

Wilfred Bion's contributions to psychoanalysis are numerous: his early work on the psychology of groups that grew out of his experiences in the first World War; theories and work on the treatment of psychosis with Melanie Klein and later psychoanalysis with her; and the beginning of his own theoretical and clinical ideas, which nurtured analytic thinking and treatment approaches beginning in the mid-1960's followed by his relocation to the United States (1967). Bion's thinking can be deceptively simple, such as his statement that his third book, Transformations (1965), considered by many as exceptionally dense, is about "the communication of both patient and analyst about an emotional experience" (p. 29).