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Bion took seriously the suggestion of his analyst – the same one who, a year earlier, had hoped someone would write about linking – and produced a true gem of psychoanalytic literature: a remarkably brief essay, yet among the most cited of all time. But how could psychoanalysis, a discipline so preoccupied with relationships, have felt the need in 1959 to explicitly ponder the notion of “linking,” a term whose immediate meaning already suggests relation?
One might argue that the analytic bond was regarded – and perhaps still is, despite theoretical advances – primarily as a study of the other, without fully acknowledging its deeply intersubjective dimension. Yet in Klein’s groundbreaking ideas – where dreaming parallels playing and symbolizing – and in the invention of projective identification, one can already sense the emergence of intersubjectivity. However, in Klein’s approach, the analyst does not play with the child: the child plays, while the analyst interprets the unconscious fantasies expressed through that play. Bion’s further step in Attacks on Linking (AL) is precisely to frame linking as an authentically intersubjective process.
AL itself is like a fine red wine, revealing its complexity gradually. If the bottle remains Klein-inspired, it is as though projective identification were viewed under an electron microscope, emphasizing its communicative – and therefore bidirectional – function. Enter bizarre objects, obstructive objects, and mysterious “visible-invisible” hallucinations, both fascinating and unsettling.
I believe the essence of this essay is akin to Poe’s “Purloined Letter:” it slips past us precisely because it is right before our eyes. To clarify: taking seriously the concept of “bond” – expressed in English significantly through the verb “linking,” rather than the noun “link” – has an ontological resonance. Linking is the fabric of being: the dance of electrons, lovers in an embrace, the prayers of the faithful, the shout at a goal scored, th