ABSTRACT
This chapter examines interfering elements in conversation with the aid of Bion's Grid. The Grid has proved itself a great help in efforts to sort out these elements, and demonstrates in considerable detail the usefulness of this scientific instrument. Bion writes, The name is an invention to make it possible to think and talk about something before it is known what that something is. The chapter suggests that what Freud called "joining in a conversation" is a transformation of mere talk into verbal intercourse. It proposes to present now four psychoanalytic conversations. Two consecutive sessions with a man in his second year of analysis will serve to demonstrate by interfering elements, as their existence becomes evident in the conversations. The chapter discusses these elements at length and then demonstrates less bizarre interfering elements from two consecutive sessions with a woman in her third year of analysis.
