ABSTRACT
Since the recognition of the importance of the containing function in analytic treatment, the crucial process of managing and metabolising raw emotional experiences by the analyst’s mind has been a focus of development in Kleinian theory. In the late 1960s and 70s, Wilfred Bion developed a theory of thinking processes. The other side of the coin was the question of what the analyst is to do with the experience in the session, and notably the important paper by Irma Brenman Pick ( 1985 ) shed some light on the significance of the projected emotional data being contained and metabolised, ‘worked through’, in the mind of the analyst. This further helped to give psychoanalytic attention to psychotic processes in the mind.
What is the meaning of this cryptic phrase – a thought searches for a thinker?
