ABSTRACT
In speaking of his own childhood, Bion refers to himself and his sister as “an accomplished pair of liars, smooth and quick to see what our betters expected of us and to provide accordingly”. Winnicott’s idea of the false self describes a premature defensive organization established at the very earliest object relations. Bion describes the psychodynamics of a severely pathological kind of mental escape from the self dominated by psychotic processes and a primitive conscience. In describing the capacities necessary to facilitate the infant’s mental growth, Winnicott redefines the meaning of early trauma to include the failures in the environment and maternal care. Winnicott sees the sense of oneness with the mother as a normal developmental state in which, psychically, there is no baby and no mother, but a combined infant-mother, indistinguishable in the baby’s mind. Nietzsche’s ideas about dreams predate Freud’s but bear comparison to his idea of the origin of dreams in primary process thinking.
