A Critical Companion to Bion
Functions of a Psychoanalytic Personality
1st Edition
Will be published approx. on 13. August 2026
Book
Hardback
332 pages
978-1-041-17488-2 (ISBN)
Description
A Critical Companion to Bion is an introduction to the extraordinary contributions of W.R. Bion, providing a close and detailed reading of his work, anchored in systematic critical expositions of the arguments in his four main theoretical studies (1962-1970).
The complex reality of Bion's texts and public talks is studied in depth, placing them in sharp contrast to the phenomena of Bion's subsequent influence. Building on this analysis, the book goes on to explore the reasons for the striking gap between what Bion said and what professional psychoanalysis tends to imagine he meant. The author argues that the psychoanalytic profession has cultivated the charismatic authority of Bion's posthumous "psychoanalytic personality" in the service of both clinical innovation and conservative psychoanalytic identifications. A careful reading of the Bion opus provides essential insight into the history of psychoanalytic thought and the chronic institutional problems still facing the psychoanalytic movement.
With a careful, detailed analysis of Bion's work and a clear vision of how it can be applied to theoretical and clinical work, this is key reading for all psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists, and will also be of interest to cultural historians and critical theorists.
The complex reality of Bion's texts and public talks is studied in depth, placing them in sharp contrast to the phenomena of Bion's subsequent influence. Building on this analysis, the book goes on to explore the reasons for the striking gap between what Bion said and what professional psychoanalysis tends to imagine he meant. The author argues that the psychoanalytic profession has cultivated the charismatic authority of Bion's posthumous "psychoanalytic personality" in the service of both clinical innovation and conservative psychoanalytic identifications. A careful reading of the Bion opus provides essential insight into the history of psychoanalytic thought and the chronic institutional problems still facing the psychoanalytic movement.
With a careful, detailed analysis of Bion's work and a clear vision of how it can be applied to theoretical and clinical work, this is key reading for all psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists, and will also be of interest to cultural historians and critical theorists.
Reviews / Votes
'Charles Levin believes that in today's world our understanding of Bion bears an unknown relation to what Bion actually wrote. To understand Bion's place in contemporary psychoanalysis, we must suspend our received understandings, which are sometimes idealized, and revisit his writings with an attitude of careful, intensive, and thoughtful attention to what he wrote and said... This book is a profoundly respectful and insightful work of scholarship.'Donnel Stern, Ph.D., William Alanson White Institute
'A Critical Companion to Bion is a very special book. In this bold and illuminating study, psychoanalyst Charles Levin undertakes a rare and incisive re-encounter with Bion-stripping away layers of idealization to reveal the complex, unsettling, and profoundly generative thinker behind the legend... Refusing shortcuts, simplifications, or sanitized retellings, the author leads us deep into the dense forest of Bion's thought, guiding us toward a more truthful, demanding, and transformative engagement with one of psychoanalysis's most radical and mythologized figures.'
Ofra Eshel
'This book is an irreplaceable tool for anyone interested in Bion or psychoanalysis in general. In recent years, Bion's name has become quite popular in the psychoanalytic world. But as with every author that comes into fashion, one can wonder how much of Bion was actually and properly read. The present book results from an exceptionally close reading of the essential works of the famous British analyst and it does him - and us - a service that is quite rare : it is a truly critical reading. It is a Companion that does not leave Bion unscathed but that enlivens the minds of its readers, be they "bionians" or otherwise.'
Prof. Dominique Scarfone, Montreal
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Postgraduate, Professional Practice & Development, and Professional Training
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-041-17488-2 (9781041174882)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
approx. 08/2026
1st Edition
Routledge
€43.50
Not yet published
E-Book
approx. 08/2026
1st Edition
Routledge
€45.99
Not yet available
E-Book
approx. 08/2026
1st Edition
Routledge
€45.99
Not yet available
Person
Charles Levin, PhD, (FIPA), is a training and supervising analyst in Montreal and a member of the Canadian Institute of Psychoanalysis.
Content
1. Introduction: Putting a Stick in It
Part 1 Learning from Experience (1962) 2. Bion's Intellectual 'Gait': An Overview 3. "Factor" and "Function" 4. A Teleology of the Unknown 5. Alpha-Function: The Transducer 6. Beta Reality 7. Complications in the Theory of Alpha Function 8. What is an Emotional Experience?
Part 2. Elements of Psychoanalysis (1963) 9. Situating Bion's Textual Practice 10. The Grid: 1 11. The Grid: 2 12. The Elements of Elements: The First Three Chapters 13. Essential Isolation 14. Commentaries on Chapters 5 through 16 15. A Negative Ontology under Psychic Construction
Part 3. Transformations (1965) 16. Transformation and the Invariant 17. The Advent of O 18. Improvisations on Categories of Transformation 19. Catastrophic change 20. Causality, Infancy, and Morality 21. Reason, Logic, and the Psychotic Mechanisms 22. The Travails of the Negative and the Slough of Minus K 23. An Ambivalent Geometry of Psychosis
Part 4. Attention and Interpretation (1970) 24. An Exploded View 25. Explosive Visuality 26. Non-Sensuous Realities: Part 1 27. The Reality Principle: A Metapsychological Detour 28. Non-Sensuous Realities: Part 2 29. The Evolution of Absolute Truth 30. Acts of Faith in the Dark Night of the Analytic Soul 31. Metanoia and the Group 32. The Lie
Part 5. Performances of Psychoanalysis 33. Some Reports on Bion as Analyst 34. Rarely Noted Features of Bion's Clinical Stance 35. A Glimpse into the Brazil Seminars 36. Some Clinical Self-Descriptions 37. Bion's Evasiveness 38. Bion's Rigidity 39. A Weird Dream of a Weir 40. The Perils of Splendid Isolation
Part 6. Transmissions of Psychoanalysis 41. Textual Gaps 42. Anxious Patterns of Influence 43. Psychoanalytic Extraterritoriality 44. 'A Shadow which the Future Casts Before' 45. The Bion Who Cannot Be Born(e)
Part 1 Learning from Experience (1962) 2. Bion's Intellectual 'Gait': An Overview 3. "Factor" and "Function" 4. A Teleology of the Unknown 5. Alpha-Function: The Transducer 6. Beta Reality 7. Complications in the Theory of Alpha Function 8. What is an Emotional Experience?
Part 2. Elements of Psychoanalysis (1963) 9. Situating Bion's Textual Practice 10. The Grid: 1 11. The Grid: 2 12. The Elements of Elements: The First Three Chapters 13. Essential Isolation 14. Commentaries on Chapters 5 through 16 15. A Negative Ontology under Psychic Construction
Part 3. Transformations (1965) 16. Transformation and the Invariant 17. The Advent of O 18. Improvisations on Categories of Transformation 19. Catastrophic change 20. Causality, Infancy, and Morality 21. Reason, Logic, and the Psychotic Mechanisms 22. The Travails of the Negative and the Slough of Minus K 23. An Ambivalent Geometry of Psychosis
Part 4. Attention and Interpretation (1970) 24. An Exploded View 25. Explosive Visuality 26. Non-Sensuous Realities: Part 1 27. The Reality Principle: A Metapsychological Detour 28. Non-Sensuous Realities: Part 2 29. The Evolution of Absolute Truth 30. Acts of Faith in the Dark Night of the Analytic Soul 31. Metanoia and the Group 32. The Lie
Part 5. Performances of Psychoanalysis 33. Some Reports on Bion as Analyst 34. Rarely Noted Features of Bion's Clinical Stance 35. A Glimpse into the Brazil Seminars 36. Some Clinical Self-Descriptions 37. Bion's Evasiveness 38. Bion's Rigidity 39. A Weird Dream of a Weir 40. The Perils of Splendid Isolation
Part 6. Transmissions of Psychoanalysis 41. Textual Gaps 42. Anxious Patterns of Influence 43. Psychoanalytic Extraterritoriality 44. 'A Shadow which the Future Casts Before' 45. The Bion Who Cannot Be Born(e)