ABSTRACT
Bion’s distinctive views—his ‘implicit method of clinical inquiry’—developed in two directions: an implicit clinical technique and a method of questioning Freud and Klein’s existing clinical theories. This was a genuine paradox insofar as Bion was at the same time a core member of the ‘all-in’ Kleinian group.
Bion’s (1958a) paper, ‘On Arrogance,’ offers an example of his method of clinical inquiry. The patient’s experience of the analyst as an ingress-denying or obstructive object underscored Bion’s re-reading of Freud’s Oedipus myth. Oedipus represented the analyst’s role as the bearer of the ‘truth-drive,’ and as such, could appear obstructively to the patient’s preferred mode of defensive evasion. Freud’s version of the sexual Oedipus still carried explanatory purchase, but Bion relegated it to a position of secondary importance. Now the psychotic layer exerted an organizing and dominating influence over the personality—and as a result, it needed to be analyzed first.
Lastly, Bion also emphasized in ‘On Hallucination’ more than a pathological view of a profound denial of external reality. Some Post-Bionians, like Civitarese also accentuate Bion’s point, namely that the hallucinating psychotic will not feel understood unless the analyst can demonstrate a living experience of the patient’s own hallucinatory experience.
