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Dr. Bion's notes are based on the following assertions: “Memory is always misleading as a record of fact since it is distorted by the influence of unconscious forces. Desires1 interfere, by absence of mind when observation is essential, with the operation of judgment.
“Memory and desire exercise and intensify those aspects of the mind that derive from sensuous experience. … They deal respectively with sense impressions of what is supposed to have happened and sense impressions of what has not yet happened.”
Since unconscious forces distort both past (memory) and future, the author concludes that “psychoanalytic ‘observation’” is concerned neither with what has happened nor with what is going to happen but with what is happening,“ and therefore that ”every session attended by the psychoanalyst must have no history and no future.“ He also states that ”[psychoanalytic ‘observation’] is not concerned with sense impressions or objects of sense.“
The above-mentioned assertions crystallize with the two following aphoristic statements which, according to the author, “must be obeyed all the time:” 1. “The psychoanalyst can start by avoiding any desires for the approaching end of the session (or week, or term). Desires for results, ‘cure’ or even understanding must not be allowed to proliferate.” 2. “The psychoanalyst should aim at achieving a state of mind so that at every session he feels he has not seen the patient before. If he feels he has, he is treating the wrong patient.”