You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
In 1994 Dr Rosa Beatriz, from Rio de Janeiro, sent me a copy of this paper, which had been given to her by Dr Hans Thorner in 1971, when she was in London. I am grateful to her for resurrecting this piece, especially as it had disappeared from my records – and my memory – and has not been previously published, with the exception of its inclusion in a magazine containing the contributions to a workshop held in Rio de Janeiro in November 1994. Bion presented it at a scientific meeting of the British Psychoanalytical Society on 2 October 1963; I believe that a hand-written date on the first page, 2/10/63, was added by Dr Thorner.
It was written after the publication of Learning from Experience , in which the Grid is not mentioned, although Bion had been working on the idea for some time before that. We discussed various possible names for the new ‘offspring’ about which he was then expressing all the usual enthusiasm aroused by a new invention – followed ultimately by the equally usual realization of its defects (see Bion, Two Papers, [Volume X, p. 9; see also Volume VIII, p. 291]).
In this 1963 paper, his aim is to give a clear and detailed explanation of the Grid's construction and its uses; this he does admirably and does not ‘digress’, as he could be said to do in the 1971 version, which is twice as long. That paper contains some vivid clinical material and a fairly lengthy discussion of six myths (Row C constructs); he laid increasing stress on the importance of their use from 1963 (Elements of Psycho-Analysis, ) onwards.
He produced plenty of evidence to highlight the deficiencies of the Grid: 'I can say that an early casualty in trying to use the Grid is the Grid itself.' But he goes on, 'Nevertheless, its use has made it easier for me to preserve a critical and yet informative, illuminating attitude
to my work' [Volume X, pp. 9–10]. In 1974, in Rio de Janeiro, he said, ‘The Grid is a feeble attempt to produce an instrument…. I think it is good enough to know ho