ABSTRACT
This chapter is about Wilfred Bion’s concept of the container and the contained. He derived this notion initially from his clinical work, particularly with borderline and psychotic patients, and applied it in a very general way to individual and group behaviour. I want to approach my discussion of his concept through its clinical manifestations in analysis, and I will begin with a description of a patient who resembles those who provoked the idea in Bion’s mind.
