This is more of a footnote but interesting...
Beckett was Bion's first major case whilst a trainee therapist.
Beckett suffered from depression and physical manifestations of anxiety and came to England to receive treatment, which introduced him to Bion. There's some interesting writing on how this relationship effected the two men.
I find the fact that bion and beckett touched each others lives interesting, it's almost as if becket expressed this fear in his work. I haven't read much but what I have read is all quite depresseing!
ReplyDeletegothard was saying the other day that becket constantly felt that his life was all about getting ready to be born. he said this after i told him that i constantly have a feeling that life for me is like one big waking up process. in this waking up process i constantly feel i'm starting to realise what i am waking up to. and perhaps the nemless dread is about that, this feeling of anxiety when one wakes up. i guess that's just my interpretation of it and eveyone experiences this in a different way.
This could be useful: Armstrong, D. (1995). Making Absences Present: The Contribution of W. R. Bion to Understanding Unconcsious Social Phenomena. Paper presented at the Group Relations and Organizational Behaviour Seminar, New Bulgarian University. http://human-nature.com/group/chap3.html
DeleteAnd, for a counter-argument, see (Oppenheim, 2001, A preoccupation with object-representation: The Beckett-Bion case revisited)