Teaching Bion: Modes and Approaches (The Harris Meltzer Trust Series) - Softcover

Meg Harris Williams

Softcover

ISBN 10: 178220119X ISBN 13: 9781782201199

Publisher: Karnac Books, 2015

Synopsis

This book is one of a short series on the teaching of post-Kleinian psychoanalysis, with a companion volume on Teaching Meltzer.

Wilfred Bion always emphasised that he had no desire to implant his thoughts in others but hoped instead to inspire their own process of self-knowledge or 'becoming', which can only take place in the conviction that the mind 'exists' and is not merely a figure of speech. He spoke of 'intercessors' and cited one of his own teachers, Socrates, on the need to distinguish phantoms from real thoughts, intelligence from wisdom.

Like psychoanalysis itself, teaching is a form of learning from experience, conducted in the context of a joint search with students or colleagues, or indeed patients. A good teacher is essentially a student, and 'What are you when you cease to be a student of psychoanalysis?' as Bion said. Teaching the work of one's teachers can be an especially fruitful means of internalising them, and an invitation to others.

The contributions in this book are international and varied in their approach, and have been worked out over time, so offer an opportunity for current and future teachers to experiment and analyse their own methods. Style, cultural context, personal bias and interests are all important in making the teaching situation a live and authentic one from which the participants, and likewise the reader, can select what speaks to them.

About this title

About the Author

Meg Harris Williams, a writer and artist, studied English at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford and art at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, and has had a lifelong psychoanalytic education. She has written and lectured extensively in the UK and abroad on psychoanalysis and literature, and teaches at the Tavistock Centre in London, and the University of Surrey. She is married with four children and lives in Farnham, Surrey.

Edition details

• Publisher: Karnac Books
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 178220119X
• ISBN 13: 9781782201199
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256
• Editor: Meg Harris Williams