ABSTRACT
The Freudian unconscious is formed by repression. For Bion, the unconscious is the product of social 'pressure'. Before becoming autonomous intrapsychic activities, both censorship and the alpha function act from the outside - in the mother or whichever member of the social group may take her place - even though they rely on innate structures. Deeply influenced by Freud, Derrida's thought offers an appropriate philosophical framework for the theories of Bion and post-Freudism in general, acting as a bridge between the two. Basically one could say that, by adopting the methodological principle of hyperbolic Cartesian doubt, Bion completes the Freudian deconstruction of the ego or the subject, ridding psychoanalysis of the last remnants of the positivist dream. The unconscious is a psychoanalytic function, because it was discovered/invented by psychoanalysis. If the unconscious is a function, it should have a corresponding verb: 'to unconscious'.
