ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors focus specifically on some of those processes involved in collaborative thinking and writing, in an attempt to further explore and understand psychodynamic aspects of this approach to writing. They suggest that the Bionian assumption of "pairing" is creative and productive, rather than an obstacle to the so-called "task" or job of discerning momentary psychodynamic truths. W. R. Bion's idea is a critical position both in his theory of groups and in his work with individuals. But it is also primarily epistemophilic in that it seeks to understand the world, along the lines of the hypotheses generated through the sexual theories of children; and this productive push and pull of ideas, sometimes tender and sometimes blood-sport, is by turns comforting and aggressive. The authors share the aliveness and tentativeness of play, with thinking-in-progress adding a dimension to the thinking-through of the privileged and dyadic work of psychotherapy.
