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International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, Volume 71, Part 1, 1990
In this paper I examine where Bion's theory of freedom fits within the traditional philosophical debate. I claim that the notion of freedom is the organizing centre of Bion's thought and that the traditional debate has focused with too great a concentration upon the will. I propose that underlying the workings of the will there is a fundamental substratum. This is governed either by the reaction model or by the response model. Freedom is coextensive with the latter mode of functioning but not with the former. The traditional debate needs to take this layer of personality functioning into account.
International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, Volume 71, Part 1, 1990
Theories of Freud, Piaget, Fonagy and Kristeva have been drawn on to argue that the concept of isolation should not be restricted to a delimited defence mechanism associated with obsessional/compulsive neurosis, as is the usual psychoanalytic conception. From a semiological point of view isolation may be seen as a disturbance of the relationship between signifier and the signified embracing affective communication ranging from the most primitive bodily expression via sound and intonation to a semantic level where affects are expressed through the content of words and ideas. As affects isolated on a pre-verbal level are deprived of expression on a semantic-symbolic level, they are not likely to be modified by content of interpretations alone. They can only be fully activated and brought into therapeutic dialogue through the quality of the speech sound of the analyst.