Attention and Interpretation
Attention and Interpretation (1970) is Wilfred Bion’s most philosophically ambitious work, connecting psychoanalytic epistemology to mysticism and negative capability. In this collection of seminars, Bion develops his theory of thinking, the container/contained model, and the concept of approaching psychoanalysis “without memory or desire.” The work represents a bridge between the clinical tradition and contemplative practice, between scientific rigor and poetic imagination, between the British object relations tradition and the mystical traditions that emphasize encounter rather than knowledge.
Without Memory or Desire
Bion’s famous instruction to the analyst to approach each session without memory (of previous sessions) or desire (for particular outcomes) is not about amnesia or indifference. Rather, it describes a receptive state that allows the analyst’s reverie to function as a container for the patient’s projections. Memory and desire are defensive structures that prevent genuine encounter with what is happening in the present moment. The analyst who remembers the last session may impose its framework on this one; the analyst who desires a particular outcome may miss what is actually occurring.
This instruction connects to Keats’s concept of negative capability — the capacity to remain in uncertainty without irritable reaching after fact or reason. It also connects to the apophatic tradition’s via negativa — the path of negation that clears away all that can be said in order to encounter what cannot be named. The analyst who evacuates memory and desire is practicing a form of negative capability that approaches the contemplative.
The Grid
Bion develops a formal system called the Grid for mapping the transformations of psychic elements from raw sensation through dream-thought to conscious thought. This represents his attempt to create a scientific language for psychoanalytic experience. The Grid is a matrix that plots psychic material according to its level of transformation and its logical structure. At one end are raw, unprocessed beta elements; at the other end are conscious thoughts that have undergone multiple transformations.
The Grid is controversial and rarely used in clinical practice, but it represents Bion’s commitment to scientific rigor. He wanted to show that psychoanalytic experience could be mapped and studied systematically, that there was a logic to the transformations of psychic material. The Grid is his attempt to make this logic visible.
O, the Thing-in-Itself
Bion distinguishes between K (knowledge) and O (the ultimate reality, the thing-in-itself). K is the drive toward knowledge — toward genuine contact with the truth of emotional experience. O is what cannot be known — the ultimate reality, the emotional truth of a session, the absolute otherness that underlies all representations. O cannot be known (K) — it can only be “become.” The analyst’s task, in Bion’s later formulation, is not to understand the patient but to be present to O — to evacuate memory, desire, and understanding and allow the session to reveal itself.
This distinction connects directly to mystical traditions and to apophatic theology. The mystic who seeks union with God is not seeking knowledge about God but transformation toward God — an experiential encounter with ultimate reality. Bion’s concept of O is the psychoanalytic analogue of this mystical aim.
Alpha Function and Beta Elements
Bion’s distinction between alpha and beta elements is foundational to his theory of thinking:
Beta Elements — Raw, unprocessed sensory and emotional experience. These cannot be thought, dreamed, or remembered; they can only be evacuated through projective identification or acted out. When alpha function fails, beta elements remain unprocessed, leading to “thoughts without a thinker” — concretized psychic experiences that haunt rather than inform.
Alpha Function — The mental capacity to transform beta elements into thinkable form. This is not a conscious process but an unconscious one. It operates through reverie — the receptive state that allows experience to resonate and find its meaning.
Alpha Elements — Processed experience that can be stored, dreamed, thought about. These are the building blocks of thinking and dreaming. Without alpha elements, genuine thought is impossible.
The capacity for alpha function is not innate; it is developed through the experience of containment. The infant whose beta elements are received and transformed by the mother’s reverie gradually internalizes this function and develops the capacity to think. The infant whose projections are rejected or who has no container remains haunted by beta elements — experience that cannot be thought and therefore cannot be integrated.
Connection to Mysticism and Negative Capability
Bion’s work connects psychoanalytic epistemology to mysticism through several concepts:
O as Mystical Union — The concept of O (the thing-in-itself) is analogous to mystical union. Both describe an experiential encounter with ultimate reality that cannot be reduced to knowledge or representation.
Without Memory or Desire as Apophatic Negation — The analytic stance of evacuating memory and desire parallels the apophatic tradition’s via negativa. Both involve clearing away what can be said or known in order to encounter what cannot be named.
Reverie as Contemplative State — The receptive attention of reverie resembles the contemplative practices of various traditions. The capacity to receive, to hold, to transform — these are contemplative capacities.
Transformation as Spiritual Transformation — The transformation of beta elements into alpha elements is analogous to spiritual transformation. Both involve a change in the capacity to experience and to be present to reality.
Christopher Bollas and the Unthought Known
Christopher Bollas’s work, particularly The Shadow of the Object and Being a Character, extends Bion’s thinking. Bollas argues for a return to understanding how Freudian psychoanalysis works unconscious-to-unconscious.
The Unthought Known — Bollas’s concept of the “unthought known” parallels Bion’s thinking — experiences that are known at an unconscious level but not yet thought at a conscious level. These are the earliest mother-infant interactions that form the basis of personality but remain outside conscious awareness.
Evocative Objects — Bollas describes elements within the analytic situation — words, gestures, silences, or even the therapist’s presence — that serve to evoke aspects of the client’s unthought known. This extends Bion’s container/contained model into the realm of unconscious communication.
Clinical and Philosophical Significance
Attention and Interpretation represents a bridge between:
- Psychoanalytic theory and mystical tradition
- Scientific rigor and poetic imagination
- Clinical technique and philosophical inquiry
- The British object relations tradition and contemplative practice
The work’s emphasis on the analyst’s receptive state, the transformation of experience through the analytic relationship, and the aim of encounter rather than knowledge makes it deeply relevant to questions of participatory knowing, the between, and contemplative practice.
Connections
Wilfred Bion — The author; this work represents his most philosophically ambitious statement.
Melanie Klein — Bion’s supervisor and most important influence; he took her concepts and extended them in radical new directions.
Thomas Ogden — Ogden’s readings of Bion are the most clinically useful and accessible.
Containment — The central clinical concept developed in this work.
Reverie — The receptive state that makes containment possible.
Projective Identification — The mechanism through which unprocessed experience is communicated.
The Unthought Known — Bollas’s concept that extends Bion’s thinking.
Object Relations Theory — The tradition in which this work is situated.
Apophatic Theology — The mystical tradition that shares the negative capability required for the analytic stance.
The Shadow of the Object — Bollas’s extension of Bion’s thinking into the realm of evocative objects and the unthought known.
Key Passages
“The psycho-analyst should aim at achieving a state of mind so that at every session he feels he has not seen the patient before.”
“The capacity to bear psychic pain contributes to the development of a capacity for thought.”
“A thought without a thinker… needs a thinker to think it.”
“Tolerate the evolution of the unknown… wait.”