ABSTRACT
This chapter tells the “stories” of the inception of mind as developed in the work of five analytic theorists—Freud, Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott, and Bion. These thinkers are viewed as central to the evolution of a new and fertile form of psychoanalytic thinking and practice. The conception of mind presented by each of them moves from that of an “apparatus” for thinking (in Freud, Klein, and Fairbairn) to that of a process located in the very act of experiencing (in Winnicott and Bion). The work of each of these theorists constitutes a radical transformation of thinking relative to those who have preceded and those who follow. In telling the stories of the emergence of mind and the concept of mind according to each of these five theorists, this chapter offers an original narrative of the development of an analytic concept of mind, thereby taking steps toward a new form of analytic thinking and practice.
