ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on Bion’s term “selected fact”. References to the selected fact are scattered throughout his various books, as are many of his other creative concepts. His writing is a flow of thoughts and associations, evolving through his inter-disciplinary freedom. The analyst who is capable of seeing a whole picture will find a connecting thread, a single idea underlying the patient’s words. This idea is the “selected fact”. It is the thing the analyst has chosen to say so the patient will feel contained and may sense some degree of cohesion. The selected fact is different from a cause. A cause is essentially related to time, but the selected fact is timeless: its elements can manifest simultaneously or in a jumble of different times. The selected fact is the mantra, or family myth, on which a child is raised: a key phrase or sentence repeated over and over again in varying forms.