ABSTRACT
The previous introductory chapters, which include some samples of Bion’s text, allow this writer now to attempt a précis of the whole work. Inspired by symphony orchestras, but with no pretension to be an equal to them, here goes. 1
When, as psychoanalysts, we are concerned with the reality of the personality there is more at stake than an exhortation to “know thyself, accept thyself, be thyself”, because implicit in psychoanalytic procedure is the idea that this exhortation cannot be put into practice without the psychoanalytic experience. The point at issue is how to pass from “knowing” “phenomena” to “being” what is “real”.
[Bion, 1965, p. 148]