ABSTRACT

One practical reason for their interest was that as American trained psychiatrists— and recall that the American Psychoanalytic Association was then a monopoly of psychiatrically trained physicians— these analysts all had psychotically disturbed patients in inpatient hospital settings. Even the most eminent Los Angeles analysts of that time, such as Ralph Greenson, were severely tested by patients such as Marilyn Monroe, whose psychological disturbance went beyond the boundaries of the classical psychoanalytic method for neurotically disturbed patients. The Los Angeles analysts could not have known the significance of their invitation to Wilfred Bion. Bion had been both president of the British Psychoanalytical Society and chair of the Melanie Klein Trust in the period from 1962 to 1967. James Grotstein very personal renderings of Bion’s work, all with a characteristic verve then obscure and hard to follow at other times. After the Bion Festschrift appeared, it was subject to criticisms that were becoming standard.