ABSTRACT
Wilfred Bion's comments on alpha-elements in Cogitations make it quite clear that there really were moments when he felt "stuck", like the rabbit, and that he was only able to get clear of the morass by thinking very deeply about his own emotional and intellectual reactions to the atmosphere in the consulting-room. Furthermore, one gets the impression from several people who had been in analysis with him that he must, at times, have seemed rather like the tar-baby too, saying almost nothing or perhaps nothing at all. It is interesting that Bion mentions understanding as being one of the things that one must not actively seek and the "cure" of the patient as another. Speaking of curiosity, it is noticeable how Bion's treatment of the subject has moved slightly from the Freudian-Kleinian base of almost exclusive concentration on the oedipal contents that arouse curiosity to a greater interest in the mechanisms and uses of curiosity itself.
