ABSTRACT
The paper "Differentiation of the psychotic from the non-psychotic personalities" (1957) continues the exploration described in the earlier paper, "The development of schizophrenic thought" (1956), in which people can see how Wilfred Bion is finding original and creative ideas, even if these are still expressed in Kleinian terminology. In the 1957 paper, Bion deals with the disturbances of symbolisation processes at a level previous to verbal language. This paper develops the disturbing idea that psychotic and non-psychotic functioning coexist in every personality. In this paper, Bion describes the psychotic anxiety as a catastrophic anxiety, as the fear of an impending annihilation. This description has clinical implications. Concerning contact with reality, Bion differentiates between the mental state of a rudimentary consciousness that perceives but is not aware of what it perceives, and being aware. Awareness is a kind of evolved consciousness related to the development of the reality principle and the mental functions associated with this development.
