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Bion: We consider that the human individual behaves exactly as if it had some kind of will, or purpose, or government. In the study of the individual cell, individual person who has boundaries which are the same as the boundaries of his body, an attempt has been made to describe that body with names like ‘hand’, ‘arm’, ‘head’ and so on. But once the anatomists and physiologists look into the matter they tell us that they don't know what is meant by ‘a hand’ because they don't know where the hand starts and where it finishes. We could carry out violent investigations by cutting off a hand or a foot, but it is noticeable that the human cell or individual is never the same when these violent operations are carried out – and the change is striking indeed if you cut off the head. In fact the popular idea is that the dead person is very different from the live one.
That is a relatively simple problem, but anatomists know of ‘ghost hands’, ‘ghosts’ of such portions of the body that have been removed. We understand that there is an obvious explanation in the continued stimulation of the nerve endings which previously went to the missing organ. The psychoanalyst's problem is that he is told of pains which cannot be linked with physical structures; we call them ‘mental pains’.
The problem exists in part because there is no adequate or satisfactory geography or map of the human mind. Perhaps that is because there is no such thing – it may be a figment of the imagination. But it does look as if the idea that the mind is in some way subject to the same limitations, the same boundaries as the body, can no longer be regarded as true. Through the use of the vocal cords the human creature can communicate with other individuals; the characteristics of one individual can be spread to other individuals.
It becomes clear that attempts to describe the mind – soul, super-soul, for example – are not adequate. Freud suggested the terms id, ego, superego. The Jesuits described an ‘arbitrium’