ABSTRACT
Interest in Wilfred R. Bion and in his work continues to increase. International conferences in Turin (1997), Los Angeles (2002), Sao Paulo (2004), and London (2005) have been well attended by scholars, clinicians, and psychoanalysts from almost every part of the world. Since his death in 1979, a biography and many new books and articles have been published. Among these, I want to note here the two volumes that Malcolm Pines and I co-edited, which include new chapters by 20 authors in seven different countries, Building on Bion: Roots (Lipgar & Pines, 2003b) and Building on Bion: Branches (Lipgar & Pines, 2003a). Even so, as interest in his work grows, his legacy continues to be confounded by myths, misunderstandings, and caricatures. Appreciation and application of his extraordinary insights deserve further study. A collection of papers from the Turin Conference in 1997 provides another resource for understanding and gaining perspective on Bion’s contributions to group psychology (Bion Talamo, Borgogno, & Merciai, 1998).
