Bion’s discovery of alpha function: Thinking under fire on the battlefield and in the consulting room

This paper has traced Bion’s discovery of alpha function and its subsequent elaboration. His traumatic experiences as a young tank commander in World War I (overlaid on, and intertwined with, childhood conflicts) gave him firsthand exposure to very painful emotions that tested his capacity to manage. Later, in the 1950s, after his analysis with Melanie Klein and marriage to Francesca Bion, he undertook the analysis of psychotic patients and learned how they disassembled their ability to know reality as a defense against unbearable emotional truths in their lives. This led Bion to identify an aspect of dreaming that was necessary in order for reality experience to be given personal meaning so that one may learn from experience. Simultaneous with working out this new theory of dreaming, Bion also revisited his World War I experiences that had remained undigested and all these elements coalesced into a selected fact – his discovery of alpha function. In subsequent writings, Bion explored the constituent factors of alpha function, including the container/contained relationship, the PS?D balance, reverie, tolerated doubt and other factors which I have termed the ‘Constellation for Thinking’.     

EDUCATION SECTION: Infant observation in Britain:The Tavistock approach

The author draws attention to something distinctive in the psychoanalytic 'air' from the early 1960s onwards: the strong emphasis upon the very early psychological, emotional and cognitive view of infants and young children. She focuses on the work of two analysts in particular, Esther Bick and Wilfred Bion, and the comparable, though differently expressed, centrality of the observational method in their work. Each explored not only the pathological picture but also the nature and integrative function of psychic containment in earliest mental life. Each also shared a preoccupation with what constituted a psychoanalytic attitude and with the process of becoming a psychoanalyst and, in Bick's case, a child analyst or psychotherapist. The author provides an historical background to the idea of observation, followed by an account, with detailed examples, of the nature of infant observation and the observational method as taught and practised at the Tavistock Clinic, London since the late 1940s, and subsequently in many other training institutions. Here the themes of Bick and Bion are constantly interrelated such that the prototype or model for the creation of emotional meaning and thought can be appreciated and learning from experience can take place.     

‘I still have difficulties feeling like a mother’: The transition to motherhood of preterm infants mothers

Objective: The premature birth of their infant can constitute a sudden interruption of the transition to motherhood that requires a reorganisation of the process. The present study aimed to analyse the experience of the transition to motherhood of preterm infants’ mothers, framing it within Stern’s transition to motherhood theory.

Method: A semi-structured interview was administered to 30 mothers during the recovery of the infant in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The interview explored the experience of mothers related to pregnancy, the infant’s birth and recovery.

Results: Thematic Analyses evidenced four interrelated themes: disconnection from the child, perception of maternal inadequacy, loss of parental role and temporal suspension. The themes showed that the mothers’ experience of preterm birth not only concerns the traumatic delivery, but is also embedded in the entire process of becoming a mother within an institutional context.

Conclusions: Results were connected to Stern’s theory. Findings revealed difficulties for preterm mothers that could affect the development of the maternal constellation and thus their transition to motherhood. These difficulties may influence the construction of maternal identity, mother’s representation of their child and the bond with their child.     

Sister of the Heart and Mind: Healing and Teaching with Family System Constellations

This article honors the author's mentor, Suzi Tucker, a major contributor to Hellinger's systemic family constellation work. The current understanding of empathy is expanded to include multigenerational systemic empathy. Further, in this paradigm the relationship to the mother represents the relationship to the body and to life itself, and an intimate glimpse is offered of how Tucker also assisted the author toward completing the critical reaching-out gesture toward her own mother and ultimately to both lineages. In this way, the teacher – student relationship becomes a sister of the heart connection. As obstacles to receiving the most enduring source of strength and love are resolved, an even more trustworthy maturity develops that represents new possibilities for feminist therapeutic success.     

Pete the diesel: Psychotherapy with a severely disturbed five-year-old boy

The psychic significance of the figure of the grandmother in psychodynamic psychotherapy has received scant attention. This paper develops the concept of the ‘grandmaternal transference’ in parent–infant psychotherapy and explores its identification, its possible functions and its therapeutic significance. The grandmaternal transference has special relevance to parent–infant psychotherapy since the grandmother often represents both the mother’s mother and the child’s grandmother and offers a unique third position between mother and child. Three clinical vignettes illustrate how the grandmaternal transference may operate in this third position. In the first vignette, the therapist becomes in the transference a containing grandmother thereby facilitating maternal containment. In the second case, the therapist may be experienced as a differentiating grandmother able to help mother and infant with separation and individuation. In the third one, the therapist is transferentially experienced as a paternal grandmother who acts as a pseudo-father able to embody the paternal function. In each of these positions, the transference and countertransference – whether positive or negative – require that the therapist responds to rather than enacts the grandmaternal role. The three configurations of the grandmaternal transference have different clinical manifestations and offer different therapeutic ports of entry.     

阿多诺对斯特拉文斯基的三个批判

本文以斯特拉文斯基和勋伯格的音乐观念为契机,分析了阿多诺批判斯特拉文斯基的三个方面：“伪装”的现代音乐、反主体性以及基于本体时间基础的音乐作曲问题;文章进一步分析了阿多诺批判斯特拉文斯基的出发点并指出其不足之处,同时指出阿多诺音乐哲学的社会意义。     

情绪研究中的一种整体观——弗里达群集理论述评

情绪的激起是情绪心理学中一个基本的问题。对这一问题 ,前人有很多的争议。在对前人观点进行概述的基础上 ,重点介绍了美国情绪心理学家弗里达 (Frjida ,N .H)的“情绪是由群集引发的”这一观点 ,并认为他用一种整体的观点来看待情绪的激起 ,对以后的情绪研究有一定的启示意义。