Bion in the Consulting Room addresses the long unanswered question of Bion’s clinical and supervisorial technique and examines the way Bion’s conceptual model and clinical practices informed his theoretical work. As Bion wrote about technique so rarely, the authors set about looking at many of his clinical and supervisorial examples to infer what might be learnt from them. This book factors in the four distinctive periods of Bion's clinical and supervisorial work in chronological order: the group period of the 1940s; the period of the psychosis papers in the 1950s; the epistemological period of the early 1960s; and finally, the period of his international group seminars in the late 1960s and 1970s. In all four periods, the authors examine and analyse his method of clinical enquiry, or how he went about knowing and experiencing his analysands and supervisees. The authors offer a uniquely overarching view of his method of clinical enquiry, uncovering an amazing consistency in how Bion went about his work both as a psychoanalyst and supervisor. This illuminating book is essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and psychologists interested in the work of Wilfred Bion and the importance of his legacy in contemporary practice.

1. This volume is based on the premise of a ‘new wave’ in Bionian studies based on his clinical work; 2. Aguayo considers the entirety of Bion’s clinical work, as well as his publications, to inform this comprehensive volume, highlighting his cross-modal, interdisciplinary thinking and the way this was informed by philosophy, mathematics, history and literature 3. The volume is designed to open new discussions on Bion’s importance in a clinical – rather than merely theoretical - sphere

Bion in the Consulting Room addresses the long unanswered question of Bion’s clinical and supervisorial technique and examines the way Bion’s conceptual model and clinical practices informed his theoretical work. As Bion wrote about technique so rarely, the authors set about looking at many of his clinical and supervisorial examples to infer what might be learnt from them. This book factors in the four distinctive periods of Bion's clinical and supervisorial work in chronological order: the group period of the 1940s; the period of the psychosis papers in the 1950s; the epistemological period of the early 1960s; and finally, the period of his international group seminars in the late 1960s and 1970s. In all four periods, the authors examine and analyse his method of clinical enquiry, or how he went about knowing and experiencing his analysands and supervisees. The authors offer a uniquely overarching view of his method of clinical enquiry, uncovering an amazing consistency in how Bion went about his work both as a psychoanalyst and supervisor. This illuminating book is essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and psychologists interested in the work of Wilfred Bion and the importance of his legacy in contemporary practice.

1. This volume is based on the premise of a ‘new wave’ in Bionian studies based on his clinical work; 2. Aguayo considers the entirety of Bion’s clinical work, as well as his publications, to inform this comprehensive volume, highlighting his cross-modal, interdisciplinary thinking and the way this was informed by philosophy, mathematics, history and literature 3. The volume is designed to open new discussions on Bion’s importance in a clinical – rather than merely theoretical - sphere

Wilfred Bion's unpublished lectures at the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Society and Institute in April in 1967 represent a unique opportunity for students either new to or continuing in the study of the author's unique psychoanalytic vertex. Here one can both read - and hear - the author's clear exposition of his clinical and theoretical thinking to an audience of primarily Freudian trained American analysts, most of whom were new to his ideas. The first lecture sets out the author's ideas on 'memory and desire' in a paper that set the benchmark in the origins of contemporary Kleinian clinical technique. The author discusses the various factors that facilitate optimal listening receptivity in the analyst, for example how one differentiates the 'K' link vis-a-vis 'transformations in O.' In the second lecture, the author defined projective identification, container/contained and 'beta elements'- and how these ideas serve as an orienting template for the analyst's understanding of 'proto-mental' states of mind, either in psychotic, borderline or neurotic patients. He clarifies these ideas while engaging with the queries of renowned American analysts, such as Ralph Greenson.

Wilfred Bion s unpublished lectures at the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Society and Institute in April in 1967 represent a unique opportunity for students either new to or continuing in the study of Bion s unique psychoanalytic vertex. Here one can both read and hear Bion s clear exposition of his clinical and theoretical thinking to an audience of primarily Freudian trained American analysts, most of whom were new to his ideas.The first lecture sets out Bion s ideas on memory and desire in a paper that set the benchmark in the origins of contemporary Kleinian clinical technique. Bion discusses the various factors that facilitate optimal listening receptivity in the analyst. In the second lecture, Bion defined projective identification, container/contained and beta elements and how these ideas serve as an orienting template for the analyst s understanding of "proto-mental" states of mind. In the third lecture, Bion gives extensive case illustrations of primarily borderline and psychotic patients primarily in terms of work that ushered in a new era of understanding of both borderline and narcissistic pathological organizations. In the final lecture, Bion takes up hallucinatory forms of experience and intersperses his more recent thoughts about the mystic and the Establishment."