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What is your theory of unconscious processes? What are other theories that you would contrast with your conceptualization?
The two pillars of my conception of the unconscious are Bion's notion of waking dream thought and his radically social vision of the birth of the subject. We dream not only at night but also during the day. A set of mental operations that are unknown to us, which Bion called the α-function, constantly alphabetize the crude sensory and emotional stimuli (or β-elements) received from the environment in which we are immersed, and transform them mainly into visual images (α-elements). These absolutely idiosyncratic pictograms are in a form that can be readily memorized and are used for dreaming and thinking. In order for the subject to be awake and conscious, as well as to learn from experience, a whole series of stimuli must previously have been conscious and, after processing by the α-function, have been “unconscioused” (Bion, 1992, p. 353). If the α-function is deficient, undigested accumulations of β-elements may give rise to pathologies of various kinds.
A child is born with a rudimentary consciousness (α-function). It feels stimuli but is unaware of itself. It perceives without understanding. This “rudimentary consciousness” (Bion, 1967, p. 117), Bion notes, “is not associated with an unconscious. All impressions of the self are of equal value; all are conscious. The mother's capacity for reverie is the receptor organ for the infant's harvest of self-sensation gained by its conscious” (Bion, 1967, p. 116). This