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Some years ago Dr. Bion suggested that I might write a book for the general reader about my personal experience of psycho-analysis. I am not yet ready to do that but, when the Editor of this Journal approached me to write a short article about the experience of analysis with Dr. Bion, I remembered the title I had thought of for such a book—“A Modem Pilgrim's Progress”. Inevitably, this title arises from the religious background in which I was reared. Although I value this, I now conceive of it in somewhat different terms. For the modem pilgrim, the final goal is not the Heaven which Bunyan envisaged, but a step into the unknown which Bion so eloquently and disturbingly placed before us. The purpose of this article is to try to give fellow travellers a brief glimpse of the pilgrimage I embarked upon under his auspices which led into dark comers of the mind I never realised existed.
I have often been asked whether Dr. Bion talked in the somewhat inscrutable, oracular way in which he sometimes wrote. I can say very firmly that this was not so. He was always brief, to the point and extremely simple and clear. Those who attended those memorable meetings in the Tavistock Clinic where he discussed with the audience any topic which arose will know what I mean about his simplicity and clarity. But he was very disturbing. The muted, complacent, safe reactions by which I had managed my life until I met him were upsettingly disturbed. I remember clearly the first time I met Dr. Bion to arrange the times of our analytic meetings. I thought I had never met anyone I disliked quite so much. As well as indicating my own intransigent resistance to analysis, I think it indicates the strong feelings which Dr. Bion aroused. He was not the sort of person towards whom one could have a halfhearted reaction. However, during the first week I had quite different thoughts from the ones I had had at that first meeting. With a sense of awe I thought, “I've got something rare here”. (Both Dr. Bion