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In every field, science or art, the vision of the genius requires a backup from workers in the field to give to the “imaginative conjecture” its practical realisation. In psycho-analysis this takes the form of discovering the clinical phenomena which correspond to the theoretical formulation derived from inspired reflection. Freud did much of this “field-work” himself, while Melanie Klein's strength lay in the discovery of phenomena for which precise theoretical formulations had to be achieved later. Bion is different from either, for on the basis of clinical practice a massive conceptual framework was gradually constructed, from Experiences in Groups to Attention and Interpretation, for which clinical reference was largely implicit rather than explicit. It is certainly from no preconceived plan that I find myself, in the last five years, giving lecture after lecture and writing paper after paper illustrating Bion's ideas with clinical material. Clearly his ideas are the current diamonds in the cutting head of my tool for exploring the unconscious with myself, my patients and supervisees. I confess without shame that the concept “transformations in hallucinosis” left me blank for years, while Bion's more specific ideas about the phenomenon of hallucination proper seemed immediately to link with my clinical experience. Only recently has its meaning dawned, no, burst upon me with a particular patient, lighting up an obscure area from many clinical experiences in the past.
Bion's theory seems to be this: when there is an impediment in the process of transformation of the perception of emotional experiences into symbolic form, or what he calls alpha-elements to be used in dreaming, something has to be done to get rid of this stimulation of the mental apparatus by the emotional experience. His idea is that the evacuation of the stimulation is mainly in one of two forms: either it is transformed into group behaviour of the type described as the Basic Assumption Group menta