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Bion offers a new formulation of group dynamics based on his eight years' experience with groups. He defines several trends of mental activity seen in groups. W is work group or purpose for which the group is assembled. W is related to reality, its methods rational. It resembles the ego; its leader is termed WL. Opposing W are 'basic assumptions common to all the group', labeled D, P, and F, which are in effect drives toward dependence, 'pairing' (an unclear concept apparently involving sexual congress and identification), and fight or flight. Each drive has a leader, DL, PL, and FL. The similarity between D, P, and F and the manifestations of the unconscious as described by Freud is not noted by Bion. D, P, and F depend on 'valency', the spontaneous unconscious functioning of the gregarious tendency of man. Valency is contrasted with the conscious coöperation that makes W possible.
Certain specialized groups, such as the church, are described in Bion's terms.
The author disagrees with some tenets of Freud, namely: 1, that the social instinct derives from the conditioning by family life; Bion asserts that man is 'a herd animal'; 2, that the individual's emotions become intensified, and his intellectual ability reduced, by group participation; the author cites occasions when he as WL frustrated W, in order to explore group dynamics, and found that intellectual activity appeared to be increased; 3, that the qualities of the leader's personality are important to the group; Bion states that WL is forceful to the extent that he is in touch with reality, while PL, DL, and FL depend not on his attributes so much as on the extent to which he can express these basic assumptions; 4, that panic is best observed in military groups; the author states that panic is an instantaneous fear among group members of the 'internal object', in a Kleinian sense.
Noting what he considers the trivial and monotonous nature of the conversation in groups he has led, the author concludes