ABSTRACT

The largest part of Wilfred Bion’s theoretical work is a further elaboration of the transformations in Knowledge (TK); he defined the different categories, elements of the process in his Grid, and could formulate the transition between them in his alchemic formula. The great difference with Donald W. Winnicott is that Bion takes another attitude towards the undifferentiated zone. While Winnicott tried not to disturb the analysand in this zone, Bion developed techniques to get in contact with this zone which was for him not a hidden zone within the self as for Winnicott, but a great Unknown in and outside the self. Bion supposes that this zone is formless, undifferentiated, but that there are a-sensuous patterns that is conjunctions “in potentio” which are not expressed yet in forms that can be perceived by the senses. Critics of Winnicott pointed at the danger of excesses in facilitating regression.