ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of the book. This book highlights Billow’s work—a clinician-in-action openly describing his thought processes and his assessment of his actions. Theoretically, Billow’s work is located in a unique juncture, integrating Bionian metapsychology with contemporary relational psychoanalysis, with a dual focus on individual and group psychotherapy. Billow is known for his explication and synthesis of Bion’s later work and its application to the group situation. In addition to expanding Relationality from a two-person model to include groups, real and imagined, Billow’s brand of Relationality is unique in its emphasis on the therapist’s subjectivity and fallibility, the centrality of the search for emotional meaning, the awareness of the role of mutual falsity, and the therapist’s active leadership. The book describes how the therapist listens to, organizes, and responds to clinical data to move the participants into new emotional terrain.
