Teaching Bion: Modes and Approaches (The Harris Meltzer Trust Series)

This book is one of a short series on the teaching of post-Kleinian psychoanalysis, with a companion volume on Teaching Meltzer.Wilfred Bion always emphasised that he had no desire to implant his thoughts in others but hoped instead to inspire their own process of self-knowledge or 'becoming', which can only take place in the conviction that the mind 'exists' and is not merely a figure of speech.He spoke of 'intercessors' and cited one of his own teachers, Socrates, on the need to distinguish phantoms from real thoughts, intelligence from wisdom.Like psychoanalysis itself, teaching is a form of learning from experience, conducted in the context of a joint search with students or colleagues, or indeed patients.A good teacher is essentially a student, and 'What are you when you cease to be a student of psychoanalysis?" as Bion said.Teaching the work of one's teachers can be an especially fruitful means of internalising them, and an invitation to others.The contributions in this book are