ABSTRACT
Wilfred Bion's theory of groups offers an approach to study many of the problems and opportunities that emerge within that experience. This chapter explores three of the challenges one encounters in the application of Bion's approach. The heart of Bion's approach to the study of groups, is his invitation to use reverie or "waking dream thoughts" to construct "group-as-a-whole" hypotheses or metaphors for the unconscious functioning of the social system in its entirety. Bion's theory of groups and his theory of thinking pose important problems as well as point towards creative opportunities. By regression Bion referred to inevitable emergence of powerfully influential yearnings for emotional connection and non-rational unconscious phantasies about the meaning of group life derived from the earliest, most undifferentiated phases of development in the minds of all group participants. Bion suggests that there are always two organizations to a group that coexist simultaneously and interact dynamically with each other: the work group and the basic assumption group.
