ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to demonstrate some potential hurdles to beginnings with individuals who seem to “know all about” analysis, but who have yet to experience one. It is important to realize that each member of the prospective analytic couple comes complete with their own quota of authoritative statements. W. R. Bion also warned that: Human beings clamour for some kind of authoritative statement to take the place of both ignorance and the exercise of curiosity; they hope, in that way, to put a stop to disagreeable feelings of ignorance and the repetition of the questions. But repetition compulsion may in fact be a spark of human curiosity, which has hitherto failed to be extinguished by any authoritative statements from whatever source. Bion seems to be suggesting that there is an aspect of human nature that is actively and quite insistantly involved in a quest for psychic truth.
