ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses some points about Wilfred Ruprecht Bion's work with groups which are definitive. Bion regarded the individual and group psychology as different ways of looking at the same phenomenon, group psychology illuminating aspects of the individual that may seem alien to individual psychology. He described clusters of the psychotic phenomena as the three basic assumptions in groups about how to achieve their objectives, the basic assumptions of dependency, fight-flight and pairing. Bion followed up in psychoanalysis some of his group findings, notably the importance in normal and neurotic individuals of the psychotic elements and the need to deal with them in psycho-analysis or in the group. The Establishment can then develop laws or techniques that help the ordinary member to use the mystic's ideas. The hazards were perhaps greater for Bion than for some mystics, since his understanding of group processes contributed to his having a flair for that kind of role.
