Wilfred R. Bion
Wilfred R. Bion (1897 -1979) was born in India and first came to England at the age of eight to receive his schooling. During the First World War he served in France as a tank commander and was awarded the DSO and the Legion of Honour. After reading history at Queen's College, Oxford, he studied medicine at University College London, before a growing interest in psychoanalysis led him to undergo training analysis with John Rickman and, later, Melanie Klein. During the 1940s his attention was directed to the study of group processes. Abandoning his work in this field in favor of psychoanalytic practice, he subsequently rose to the position of Director of the London Clinic of Psychoanalysis (1956-62) and President of the British Psychoanalytical Society (1962-65). From 1968 he worked in Los Angeles, returning to England two months before his death in 1979.
A pioneer in group dynamics, he was associated with the 'Tavistock group', the group of pioneering psychologists that founded the Tavistock Institute in 1946 on the basis of their shared wartime experiences. He later wrote the influential Experiences in Groups, an important guide for the group psychotherapy and encounter group movements beginning in the 1960s, and which quickly became a touchstone work for applications of group theory in a wide variety of fields. Bion's training included an analysis with Melanie Klein following World War II. He was a leading member in the Kleinian school while in London, but his theories, which were always based in the phenomena of the analytic encounter, eventually revealed radical departures from both Kleinian and Freudian theory. While Bion is most well known outside of the psychoanalytic community for his work on group dynamics, the psychoanalytic conversation that explores his work is concerned with his theory of thinking and his model of the development of a capacity for thought.
Learning from Experience
Wilfred R. Bion was one of the foremost psychoanalysts of his generation, whose work has shaped and enriched psychoanalysis and psychotherapy indelibly. Renowned for some highly original and... (more)
Elements of Psychoanalysis
Elements is a discussion of categorising the ideational context and emotional experience that may occur in a psychoanalytic interview. The text aims to expand the reader's understanding of cognition... (more)
Cogitations
Cogitations, the last of the posthumous publications, is a collection of occasional writings representing Bion's attempts to clarify and evaluate both his own ideas and those of others by casting... (more)
Transformations
Transformations continues the investigation of various aspects of psychoanalytic theory and practice which Bion commenced with Learning from Experience (1962) and pursued in Elements of... (more)
Attention and Interpretation
Bion's central thesis in this volume is that for the study of people, whether individually or in groups, a cardinal requisite is accurate observation, accompanied by accurate appreciation and... (more)
Bion in New York and Sao Paulo: And Three Tavistock Seminars
A new 2019 edition, edited and introduced by Meg Harris Williams.
These two talks given in 1977 and 1978 in New York and Sao Paulo respectively are an edited version of discussions and... (more)
Bion in Brazil: Supervisions and Commentaries
The discovery, translation into English, and publication of these previously unpublished recordings of Bion’s clinical supervisions in Sao Paulo, Brazil, with commentaries by leading Brazilian... (more)
Bion in Buenos Aires: Seminars, Case Presentation and Supervision
These newly discovered clinical seminars of Wilfred Bion, which include supervisions, personal case presentations, and lectures on psychoanalytic theory, represent his initial foray into many years... (more)
Clinical Seminars and Other Works
This selection of clinical seminars held by Wilfred Bion in Brasilia (1975) and Sao Paulo (1978) is the nearest we shall ever get to experiencing his application of his theories and views to... (more)
The Italian Seminars
Previously unpublished in English, this book comprises lectures W.R. Bion gave in Rome, in 1977. The volume consists of questions from the floor and Bion's fascinating and, at times, controversial... (more)
The Tavistock Seminars
Previously unpublished lectures from Wilfred Ruprecht Bion. The book consists of eight talks Bion gave at the Tavistock Clinic between 1976 and 1979. Topics explored include the importance of... (more)
A Memoir of the Future: Volumes I,II & III
A Memoir of the Future, Bion's unorthodox attempt to cast psychoanalytic speculation in fictional form, is composed of three semi-autobiographical novels: The Dream (1975), The Past Presented (1977),... (more)
Wilfred Bion: Los Angeles Seminars and Supervision
Wilfred Bion’s unpublished lectures at the Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Society and Institute in April 1967 represent a unique opportunity for students either new to or continuing in the study of... (more)
Taming Wild Thoughts
.Taming Wild Thoughts brings together previously unpublished works from two different periods of Bion's life which are linked, as Parthenope Bion Talamo says in her introduction, by the concept of... (more)
All My Sins Remembered: Another Part of a Life & The Other Side of Genius: Family Letters
All My Sins Remembered is the continuation of Wilfred Bion's autobiography, The Long Week-end. Although it is by no means a full account of his thirty years following the First World War - and he... (more)
The Long Week-End 1897-1919: Part of a Life
The Long Week-End is a reminiscence of the first twenty-one years of Wilfred Bion's life: eight years of childhood in India, ten years at public school in England, and three years in the... (more)
Experiences in Groups
A classic study which, by synthesizing the approaches of psychoanalysis and group dynamics, has added a new dimension to the understanding of group phenomena. This collection of Bion's writings on... (more)
Second Thoughts: Selected Papers on Psychoanalysis
Second Thoughts is a collection of papers on Schizophrenia, Linking and Thinking, and his commentary upon them in the light of later work. Originally composed between 1950 and 1962, it derives its... (more)
Three Papers of W.R. Bion
Three Papers of W.R. Bion features two previously unpublished papers and one which has only previously appeared in The Complete Works of W. R. Bion (2014). Characterised by Bion's directness, clarity... (more)
War Memoirs 1917-1919: Second Edition
Bion's War Memoirs is perhaps the most exceptional piece of autobiography yet written by a psychoanalyst. The first section of the book is documentary, consisting of the entire text of the diaries... (more)
Four Discussions with W. R. Bion
These four discussions held by Wilfred Bion with a small group of psychiatrists and psychotherapists in Los Angeles in 1976 were first published in 1978, edited by Francesca Bion. Despite its brevity... (more)
Two Papers: 'The Grid' and 'Caesura'
The Grid, an instrument devised by Bion to help the analyst record and elaborate observations arising from the analytic encounter, demonstrates how mathematics can be applied to locate the... (more)
Brazilian Lectures: a1973, Sao Paulo; 1974, Rio de Janeiro/Sao Paulo
These lectures, delivered in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro during 1973 and 1974, reveal Bion in his most vital and challenging mode both in respect of the material he presents, and in his responses to... (more)
The Complete Works of W.R. Bion
The Complete Works of W. R. Bion is now available in a coherent and corrected format. Comprising sixteen volumes this edition has been brought together and edited by Chris Mawson with the assistance... (more)