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This is a beautifully written paper, including a wealth of clinical material that cogently presents the author's experience and understanding of ‘analytic intuition’ as a ‘central feature of analytic practice’. This is explored in relation to the thinking of Jung and Bion. Sherly Williams presents her experience of discovering congruence between two analytic thinkers that she had previously considered ‘could not, in many ways, be more different’. She presents her own process as an example of the intuitive attitude, with reference to the writings of the Symingtons, Eigen and Grotstein. Her depth of understanding, and her willingness to share her experiences from her practice, enables her to present ideas from two highly individuated analysts in a way that makes them accessible to her readers.
Williams writes: ‘Both Jung and Bion evolved a radical understanding of the unconscious as the infinite unknown and searched for a way of investigating this’. Both viewed the symptoms that bring patients to analysis as purposeful, Bion as an evolution of ‘O’, ‘an experience of the as-yet unknown’ (Bion 1970, p. 71) and Jung as ‘the objective activity of the psyche … trying … to speak to the conscious mind … and lead [the individual] to wholeness’ (Jung 1934, para. 313). Each, in his own way, believed that analysis is a means of relating to psychic reality, via ‘truth’ (Bion), or ‘meaning’ (Jung), apprehended through intuition, and both invite us into an analytic attitude that relates to unconscious processes through an act of faith in the unknown. Williams defines this aspect of the analytic attitude as ‘analytic intuition’. She elaborates this, emphasizing ‘reversible perspective’ (Bion 1963), ‘synchronicity’ (Jung 1952), and ‘dreaming the patient's material’.
Analytic intuition comes alive in a state of ‘reverie’ (Bion 1962) or ‘contemplation’ (Jung 1946b). Williams quotes Jung: ‘Suddenly there is a flash of association between two apparently disconnected and widely separated id