Elements of Psychoanalysis (1963)

This chapter focuses on Elements of Psychoanalysis and Transformations. In Elements Wilfred R. Bion tries to categorize the elements of thought scientifically and continues this attempt in a nearly mathematical way in Transformations. Bion was working on the idea of a Grid while writing Learning from Experience, and he presented a paper to the British Society of Psychoanalysis about the Grid on 2 October 1963. In psychoanalysis, myths are often used to provide content and meaning. Bion's practice taught him that mental pain is an essential element of psychoanalysis. The relation between growth, pain and knowledge is described in the myths of Oedipus, the Tree of Knowledge, the Tower of Babel and the Sphinx. In The Work of the Negative André Green, who befriended Bion, works out the idea of the negative based on Freud. The theory of elements and the construction of the Grid enabled Bion to develop his theory of thinking further.