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In this brief and by necessity oversimplified discussion I want to first present some basic concepts from British object relations theorists that can help expand and contrast Lacan's and Althusser's ideas on recognition and interpellation. I will take into account Robert Samuels's carefully articulated summary of Lacan's theories of recognition. Second, I will elaborate these ideas in reference to the recent episodes of school violence as discussed by Thomas J. Catlaw. In doing this I am attempting to move between Lacan and Althusser and Bion and Winnicott in looking at these events. And finally, I will add my own thoughts from my own developing concepts of group work where I use both Lacan's theory and object relations thinking.
Bion argues that thinking develops out of emotions and sensory experiences that are processed by the mother as a container. According to Bion, the subject learns to “contain” its feelings of aggression as a result of its early pattern of relating to the mother. Before the use of language, a number of developmental tasks take place in a dialogue of recognition between the baby and the mother. In this process, the mother serves as a container who receives the baby's early sensory impressions (beta-elements, similar to Lacan's real). If the containment process is fortunate, beta-elements develop into alpha-elements, or sense and emotional experiences that later serve as visual and imagistic experience. Alpha elements, thus, can become part of dream thoughts, unconscious thinking, dreams, and memories.
What is contained is influenced by the baby's capacity to tolerate frustration—in other words, by genetic factors. Additionally Bion speaks of the beta-element screen. This is seen as an agglutination or agglomeration of beta-elements that under certain