ABSTRACT
Bion’s writing is difficult: often turgid, frequently confounding (maddeningly so), and regularly mystifying. And yet, I find that my attempts to paraphrase his writing almost always leave me feeling that I have lost what is most important to Bion’s thinking. I offer here some thoughts on how, over the years, I have come to read Bion, which I hope will be of help to others in their efforts at finding their own ways to read his work. Perhaps most important to the way I read his work is the state of mind I try to bring to it – a state of mind in which I fully accept what I believe to be Bion’s view of his own writing: he strives not to be understood, but to serve as a catalyst for the reader’s own thinking.
