Development of W. Bion's Theories of Observation: Investigations on Clinical practice, Tradition and Style.

• Grant number: 11/08870-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: September 01, 2012
• End date: January 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Luis Claudio Mendonca Figueiredo
• Grantee: Adriana Salvitti
• Host Institution: Instituto de Psicologia (IP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Bion's work is characterized by different epistemological models and critical reconsiderations which derived from the ripening and modification of his ideias. The author's literary style is concise, not always didactic, abstract, unsystematic and evocative, which contribute to obscure the links among his ideias, the nature of his contributions, and make more difficult to know how and why they changed. Moreover, it is not always explicit the role of the psychoanalytic tradition in the constitution of Bion's thinking. Using the notion of observation in psychoanalysis as one of the thematic axis of his work we propose the articulation of ideias that prepare and help to construct Bion's theoretical and methodological conceptions. The intention is to delineate the development of Bion's conceptions on observation in the 50s and 60s, through an analysis of the demands which emerged from his clinical work, of his style, and through the investigation of the intertextual dialogues with his own work and with his tradition. We will make a close reading of the formal and literal elements in Bion's texts without the intention to correct or solve its heterogeneities, obscurities and ambiguities. This close reading also uses the evocative effect of language in order to put forward ideas that are implicit and articulate them to other of his texts. This strategy of reading and interpretation contribute to the construction of a narrative about how Bion dealt with the problems that have been imposed to his thinking, and allow the verification of the crossing points and gaps between his work and with some of his tradition. This reading will also permit the exposition of the network that sustains and fertilizes Bion's clinical and theoretical thinking in his training as an analyst.