ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author processes to investigate the Freud from my basic training with the Bion that the author studied in child and parent-infant analytic training programs. In the following, the author compares Freud’s and Bion’s descriptions of the baby and submit Freud’s notion that the baby can regard a non-satisfying object as hostile, which elicits a defensive activity that may damage her relationship with mother. Then the author submits Bion’s notion of the infant mind, the use of projective identification in the traffic of beta- and alpha-elements, and the role of the container-contained relationship. Some clinical material will illustrate our discussion. The author started investigating connections between Freud’s portrait of the screaming baby and Bion’s theories about thought as concrete matter waiting to be given a digestible, symbolic form by a containing Nebenmensch.
