A collection of papers on and about the work of Wilfred Bion and its continuing development. Most were presented at the International Centennial Conference on the work of Bion in Turin in 1997. Contributors include Francesca Bion, Andre Green, James Grotstein, and many others.

It is characteristic of some forms of scientific genius to alter not just what we see in the world, but how we see it - not just the view, but the lens. One thinks of Freud's discovery of the transference, or of Melanie Klein's attention to the play of children. Wilfred Bion's study of groups and group processes also has this quality. More than the content of what he saw and captured in the concepts of two modes of mental functioning in groups and in the differentiation of the basic assumptions, it was the way he saw or, more broadly, the way he sensed the emotional life of the individual in the group, and in the first instance his own, that opened up a quite new territory for exploration. Those of us whose practice takes place primarily in the institutional or social domain can find in his more psychoanalytic work seeds of new thought extending beyond the consulting room.Going "beyond the confines" might perhaps more generally stand as a metaphor for Bion's enterprise.

'It is characteristic of some forms of scientific genius to alter not just what we see in the world, but how we see it - not just the view, but the lens. One thinks of Freud's discovery of the transference, or of Melanie Klein's attention to the play of children. Wilfred Bion's study of groups and group processes also has this quality. More than the content of what he saw and captured in the concepts of two modes of mental functioning in groups and in the differentiation of the basic assumptions, it was the way he saw or, more broadly, the way he sensed the emotional life of the individual in the group, and in the first instance his own, that opened up a quite new territory for exploration. Those of us whose practice takes place primarily in the institutional or social domain can find in his more psychoanalytic work seeds of new thought extending beyond the consulting room.Going "beyond the confines" might perhaps more generally stand as a metaphor for Bion's enterprise.

Following Bion's Legacy to Groups (1998), this is a second selection of papers taken from the centenary conference on Bion's work held in Turin in 1997. This volume concentrates on theoretical and clinical psychoanalysis.Contributors: Deocleciano Bendocchi Alves, Francesca Bion, Parthenope Bion Talamo, Emanuele Bonasia, Franco Borgogno, Hayde Faimberg, Antonino Ferro, Andr Green, James Grotstein, Isabel Luzuriaga, Alberto Meotti, Silvio A. Merciai, Gianni Nebbiosi, Romolo Petrini, Rosa De Ferreira, Paulo Cesar Sandler, and Elizabeth Tabak De Bianchedi."'How are we to become wise when so much emphasis is placed on cleverness, on building increasingly complex substitutes for thought? Where does wisdom come on a scale measuring success?' So writes Francesca Bion, considering her husband's work. A fitting tribute to Bion would be a collection of papers containing passionate attempts at thinking, not substitutes for thought. In this book, concern with psychic life, far from being dead, reaches new places, takes deeper, more nuanced turns. The authors penetrate subtly into our lying ways and soundly appreciate the complexities of our hunger for truth and experience." - Michael Eigen