The Language of Bion: A Dictionary of Concepts by Paolo Cesar Sandler. Published by  Karnac, London, 2005; £45.00 hardback.

This book weighs in at 2 pounds 10 ounces, 1200 grams. Its 400 pages are all muscle mass punching for truth and wisdom and anyway it is the sole contender. There are 20 pages of introductory material which set forth in detail the exemplary ethos of the author's method and purpose. One sub-heading is Obscure and difficult? (p. 6). There the author, who is a Brazilian analyst and teaches at the Sao Paolo Institute of Psycho-Analysis, describes in the face of massive disagreement his own sense that Bion's writings are clear. He seems to suggest that this clarity is available only on the basis of sufficient personal analysis, experience of life and clinical experience. He professes his intent to clarify Bion's meanings by intensive reference to his subject's own words and in this he is superlatively successful. His dictionary seems to me more a concordance than the alphabetical sequence of definitions that is the usual meaning of the term dictionary. My only criticism of the impressive work is precisely that the author does not have the arrogance to presume to define Bion's terms in his own pedagogical words. But instead he offers an exhaustive guide to all the places where the enquirer may look in Bion's writing for accounts of his ideas. He organizes his entries under three icons: (1) suggested further readings, (2) evolution of concepts within Bion's work, and (3) suggested clarifications or extensions by other authors starting from Bion. He further qualifies his cross-references as two types: (1) Recommended - the entries are mutually complementary and the