ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the author’s thoughts about some specific aspects of work with patients who have been at the receiving end of projections. Patients whose projections are contained internalise, according to Wilfred Bion, an organising object capable of performing alpha function. The chapter suggests that disorganising function could be called omega function to signify that it is the obverse of alpha function. Both in author’s own clinical experience and in the experience of students and colleagues she have supervised, there is a strong countertransference feeling that some of the patients, for an object that could put some order in place, an order that could counteract the disorganisation. The chapter describes the predicament of patients who find it difficult to put order in their mind, at least partly, as a consequence of having internalised a disorganising object. Keats's words in "Ode to a nightingale" beautifully describe the dread of thinking in patients like Martin: Where but to think is to be full of sorrow and leaden-eyed despairs.
