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The rounding out of Bion's views in ‘Attention and Interpretation’ does not clearly declare itself until he begins to examine the relationship of the individual to the group. He means, in regard to the special problem of psycho-analysis, but perhaps to human relationships in general, the juxtaposition of the relations of individuals to one another as individuals to their involvements in group functions and mentality. The circling back to the work in ‘Experiences in Groups’ shows again the internal integrity of Bion's life work and its progressive tightening and complexity, a fact which is superficially belied by the shifts in paraphernalia of exposition in the various major works. In the present book, where the language has shifted to the religious vocabulary, it is clear that the linguistic paraphernalia is the inevitable equipment of the religious vertex on the world. In ‘Elements’ and ‘Transformations’ Bion was inclined to hedge this with claims that the mathematical mode of expression was analogic rather than intrinsic. But in retrospect it is clear that he had a period of romance with a mathematical dream of a precise and quantifiable world of essential internal harmony threatened mainly by the failure of alpha-function, of containers to contain and of selected facts to be discovered to implement Ps↔D. It was not the case that he had abandoned the death instinct, the role of envy, innate destructiveness, etc. in his thought, but that the mathematical dream had no place in it for aught but confusion as the enemy of growth. In consequence the anti-growth elements in the mind could be relegated to a single ‘use’, column s.
The failure of the mathematical vertex to contain the violence of emotionality of mental life and the impending explosion of that container of formulation when swollen with this fermenting stuff led to its abandonment in favour of the religious vertex. Thus the ultimate reality is no longer ‘O’ but ‘God’ and the striving to ‘become O’ is now the