ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses an approach in which psychoanalytic observation is concentrated on events lying between the bodily and the psychic fact, and my argument will be based primarily on Freud’s (1915c) conception of affects as the link between the somatic and the psychic. Some of Freud’s (1911a) most significant intuitions are reformulated by Bion (1963) in his grid, a condensed model in which the pure abstraction of mathematical calculation appears as a direct development of the beta and alpha sensory levels. In his last years Bion explored some new possibilities for expanding the grid:
Suppose the analyst wants to investigate more deeply this very area that lies between corporeal fact and psychic fact. He can interpose between the Grid rows A and B the entire Grid as if within the Grid itself could be seen in depth further Grids. In this way he could amplify the Grid indefinitely to suit himself, provided he explained what he had done by some phrase such as “second cycle,” as contrasted with “first cycle.”
