ABSTRACT
Wilfred Ruprecht Bion is concerned with three main themes. First, the development of a new metapsychology. Second, the application of this new metapsychology to the problem of thinking and learning, that is to say to offer a theory of what thinking and learning consist of or how they can originate. Third, the application of this metapsychology to the phenomena of the consulting room. Whether one thinks metapsychology a good thing or a bad thing, for what it is worth Bion has made the only large-scale addition to it since Freud. Bion's addition—whether right or wrong-is more powerful in its scope for it purports to explain the basic processes of mental functioning. Bion's theory of functions deals with a gap left by existing theory between libido and perceptual objects. In the Melanie Kleinian theory, the concept of something libidinal is certainly used but it is not the same as the classical concept of libido because in Freud libido is non-object-relational.
