ABSTRACT
The theme of transformations had already been significant in Bion's work in various iterations since the late 1950s when he noted in "On Arrogance" that the analyst, like the mother, is obliged to introject the analysand's projective identification and allow it to "sojourn" in his psyche. The subtitle of Transformations is "Change from Learning to Growth," which links this book to Learning from Experience and also underscores Bion's shift in focus to mental growth and the processes that occur between analysand and analyst to promote or forestall psychic development. Bion repeatedly emphasizes the importance of keeping ideas unsaturated, which means that we dissuade the patient and ourselves from attributing meaning to a constant conjunction until it is better understood. It was his effort to promote unsaturated concepts that led Bion to employ various symbols and that we should leave these symbols as unknowns whose value is to be determined.
