R." listed="true" role="author">W.R.BionW. R. BionLONDON
Using knowledge derived from his psycho-analytic studies Freud attempted1 to illuminate some of the problems which had been raised by Le Bon, McDougall and others in their studies of the group.
A more complete account may be found in Human Relations, Bion, W. R., Vol. 1, Nos. 3 and 4, Vol. 2, Nos. 1 and 4, Vol. 3, Nos. 1 and 4.
Bion, W. R.: Human Relations, Vol. 3, No. 1.
he is referring to W. and W. only in so far as he is talking about mental phenomena at all.
R." listed="true" role="author">W.R.BionW. R. BionLONDON
In this paper, which must be regarded as a preliminary announcement, I do three things:— (i) I discuss the point at which the psychotic personality diverges from the non-psychotic; (ii) I examine the nature of that divergence; and (iii) I consider the consequences of it.
R." listed="true" role="author">W.R.BionW. R. BionLONDON
The theme of this paper is that the differentiation of the psychotic from the non-psychotic personalities depends on a minute splitting of all that part of the personality that is concerned with awareness of internal and external reality, and the expulsion of these fragments so that they enter into or engulf their objects.
REFERENCES
BION, W.R. 1953 'Notes on the Theory of Schizophrenia.'
R." listed="true" role="author">W.R.BionW. R. BionLONDON
In this paper I propose to deal with the appearance, in the material of a certain class of patient, of references to curiosity, arrogance, and stupidity which are so dispersed and separated from each other that their relatedness may escape detection.
R." listed="true" role="author">W.R.BionW. R. BionLONDON
Descriptions of hallucinations with which I am acquainted lack the precision necessary to afford material for psycho-analytical interpretation.
R." listed="true" role="author">W. R. Bion
Contents
Acknowledgements
6
Introduction
7
Pre-View
10
Intra-Group Tensions in Therapy: Their Study as the Task of the Group
11
Experiences in Groups
28
1
29
2
41
3
59
4
77
5
93
6
115
7
127
Re-View
139
Group Dynamics
141
5
Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to the following for permission to reprint the papers collected in this volume: the Editor of the Lancet in respect of ‘Intra-Group Tensions in Therapy’ (Lancet, 27 November 1943); the publisher and the Editorial Committee of Human Relations in respect of ‘Experiences in Groups, I—VII’ (Human Relations, Vols.
R." listed="true" role="author">W. R. Bion
The articles printed here aroused more interest than I expected; consequently there have been requests for reprints which it has been impossible to supply from the stock available.
The part played by the mechanisms to which these theories relate is adumbrated in the last chapter, to which I commend your attention.
W. R. BION
8
R." listed="true" role="author">W. R. Bion
10
The term ‘group therapy’ can have two meanings.
A Scheme for Rehabilitation (W. R. B.)
In the treatment of the individual, neurosis is displayed as a problem of the individual.
22
Application of Group Therapy in a Small Ward (J. R.)
An experiment in the application of group therapy, in the newer sense, to patients in a ward of 14-16 beds was made in the hospital division of the same institution.
R." listed="true" role="author">W. R. Bion
28
Early in 1948 the Professional Committee of the Tavistock Clinic asked me to take therapeutic groups, employing my own technique.
Y tells him he is a Probation Officer, and has come to get a scientific knowledge of groups, which he feels would be of value to him. Mr. R, though not professionally concerned, has always had an interest in the scientific study of groups.
X, Mr. Y, and Mr. R also give some details of their background, and explain why they feel a scientific study would help them.
Other members of the group are not so forthcoming as Mr. Y and Mr. R. Furthermore, there seems to be some irritation with Mr.
R." listed="true" role="author">W. R. Bion
I ended the previous section by saying that my interpretations of group behaviour in terms of the group's attitude to myself must seem to be a contribution as impertinent as it was likely to be inaccurate.
Why do you always sit there like a good little boy—never saying anything, but upsetting the group? Dr. Bion is the only one who is ever listened to here, and he never says anything helpful.
I said what I thought was happening because I don't agree with Dr. Bion. I said it would be interesting to know what other people thought, but do any of you reply?
Here is another: a woman patient says:
Everyone seems to agree absolutely with what Dr. Bion has just said, but I said the same thing five minutes ago, and because it was only me no one took the slightest notice.
R." listed="true" role="author">W. R. Bion
In the preceding section I said that patients arrived with a preconception that serves very well as foundation for a structure intended to help the group to keep its behaviour pegged to a sophisticated level.
R." listed="true" role="author">W. R. Bion
The emotional state proper to a basic assumption is not wholly pleasurable.
For the sophisticated or work group I shall use W.
(a) Suppose that a disease X springs from the proto-mental stage of dependent and pairing groups when suppressed by basically expressed baF.
What I mean by this may be seen if we consider the attitude to money and the value that is set on it in a religious group where W is sufficiently strong to call baD into full activity and compare this value with the value that is set on money in a nation at war when baF is in full activity.
R." listed="true" role="author">W. R. Bion
In this article I would discuss one or two points about the small therapeutic group; let us consider the vicissitudes of an interpretation.
My contribution to W was diminished, to baD increased, and thus the ‘patient’ component in my contribution as a whole had been increased.
The priesthood, which, as I say, is the W group most experienced in dealing with the baD, strives, with very rare exceptions, to avoid both these points while making some concession to
122
the group demand for an actual concrete person.
Emotional Oscillation in a Group
My conclusion is that the situation derives from the stimulus produced by having, on the W level of the therapeutic group, leader and psychiatrist in one.
What is necessary is that the psychiatrist should find interpretations that give the group insight into what is going on; to bring the ba and W into contact.
Interpretations which expose, in detail and in the course of their development, the phenomena that I have here described in general terms seem to me to do this.
R." listed="true" role="author">W. R. Bion
In the preceding section I described one cause of oscillation in a group.
In my fifth article I said that ‘development’ was an important function of the W group. It is also one of the respects in which the W group differs from the basic-assumption group.
Since the W group is concerned with reality, its techniques tend ultimately to be scientific.
But the point that I have made throughout these articles is that the W group is constantly perturbed by influences which come from other group mental phenomena.
I think one of the striking things about a group is that, despite the influence of the basic assumptions, it is the W group that triumphs in the long run.
R." listed="true" role="author">W. R. Bion
139
Using his psycho-analytic experience Freud1 attempted to illuminate some of the obscurities revealed by Le Bon, McDougall, and others in their studies of the human group.
In contrast with W. Trotter (1916) but in agreement with Freud (1921, p.
Hodgkin, R. H. (1935). History of Anglo-Saxons.
McDougall, W. (1920). The Group Mind. (2nd ed.)
Trotter, W. (1916). Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War.