ABSTRACT
The term no-thing in W. R. Bion’s work is embedded in a rich network of associations and moves in several directions at once. It points to a general characteristic of mental life as such—its intangibility, invisibility, immateriality, or spacelessness. It also points to “specific no-things,” which may function as mental aches akin to hunger or gaps that call for accretions of meaning. Meaning itself is a no-thing, not a thing. To say that no-thing is seems to be a contradiction in terms. Yet the “is not” of no-thing that keeps space open for development or for undoing development is, for Bion, a crucial psychological reality. How one relates to what is a not plays an important role in how one relates to what is. For Bion sanity includes respect for polar terms of experience. If an object has a signifying function, one can credit the object and its meanings.
