The Present and Absent Object: On Thinking and the Capacity to Symbolize. By Arne Jemstedt, pp.  98-105.

In this paper, Bion's various theories on the development of thinking are introduced: on the one hand, his theory of thoughts as resulting from tolerance for the absence of the object, and on the other hand, dream thoughts and waking thoughts as stemming from the presence of the object, originally through the mother's containing function. The effects of failures in this development are discussed, such as hypertrophy of the projective identification apparatus that occurs at the expense of thinking capacities. Briefly, a comparison is made between a facilitating relationship between container and contained, and the oscillation between the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions, which Bion describes as a prerequisite for open symbolizing processes.

A discussion of Bion's theories and concepts is supplemented by material on Winnicott's theories on the creative illusion, the breast, and the mother as a subjective object, as a precondition for the symbolizing capacity that later develops in the potential space. Very briefly, a comparison is made between Winnicott's subjective object and Segal's symbolic equation. Clinical vignettes are interpolated.