ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the development of Francesca Bion's theory of thinking and explores the various trends in his personal and psychoanalytic experiences that contributed to the discovery of alpha function which, in view, was his greatest achievement. There has been a growing recognition in recent years that Bion's World War I traumatic experiences have been a hidden order in his published psychoanalytic writings. There is a curious divide between Bion's personal journals, published after his death in which his encounters in battle are described in often gruesome terms, and his "professional" writings, which make only oblique mention of these experiences, if at all. Bion began writing the Amiens diary in 1958 after he and Francesca visited the site of that battle and stopped, mid-sentence, in 1960. Francesca Bion attributes this stoppage to "other more pressing commitments intervened. The chapter also traces Bion's discovery of alpha function and its subsequent elaboration.
