You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The analysis of Bion's thought shows continuity between «Language and the schizophrenic» , «Experiences in groups and other papers» and «Attention and Interpretation» , (which, as we know, has a sub-title: «A scientific approach to insight in psycho-analysis and groups»).
Ever since his first research on groups Bion considers psychoanalysis as a working group specialized in the basic pairing assumption. Freud's sexual theory of neurosis is in this way subordinated to one basic assumption, opening the way to a social view of psychoanalytic clinical work. Bion refuses the libidinal theory of the group, replacing the concept of libido with the one of valency, defined as «spontaneous and unconscious function of the social abilities of man's personality»; this holds true even when he asserts that in the pairing group the valency is the Messianic hope, while guilt and depression form the cement of the dependent group and anger and hate represent the cement of the fight-flight group.
A new conception of the Oedipus complex arises from this first radical move: «The observations can be grouped in two categories whose affinity is shown by facts (phenomena) which appear centred on the Oedipal situation in relationship with the pairing group when examined with one method, while they appear centred on the Sphinx (or related to the problems of knowledge and scientific method) when examined with the other method»(1).