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This rather unusual book is by a French author who is listed as “a community psychiatrist in a suburb of Lyon” and the author of a “work on group therapy,” who is now “writing a book about dreams.” It is an attempt to review the life and works of the well-known psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion, and the author accomplishes this task in his own idiosyncratic way. As Hinshelwood writes in the foreword to the book, “Bion the philosopher comes through strongly; he was a theory-builder, and only on the way a therapeutic psychoanalyst” (p. ix). Bléandonu's book reviews what is known of Bion's childhood, turns to a discussion of his work on groups, describes his theories of psychosis, and concludes with a presentation of Bion's “epistemological phase” and a final brief section on Bion's “fiction.”
It is very difficult to judge the first part of the book, an attempt to review Bion's personal life. We have very little information to go on besides what Bion offered in his autobiographical writings, which, like much of Bion's writings, is notoriously ambiguous and often obscure. Bléandonu makes an attempt at times at dynamic formulations of Bion's personality, which may or may not be correct on the basis of such sketchy evidence. Those who are interested in his review of Bion's work on groups will find this section to be clearly written and worthwhile. Psychoanalysts who are inclined to accept deep Kleinian concepts of psychosis will be at home in the discussion of Bion's view of psychosis; those who are skeptical of the entire Kleinian system will find this difficult to accept. One of the best features of the book is that difficult Bionian concepts are presented in relatively short chapters so that each chapter may be meditated upon and the book may be read in small doses more suitable for the integration of such highly speculative material.
The high point of the book is the description of Bion's idiosyncratic extensive psychoanalytic epistemology. I have no idea who accepts such an e