Bion and Thoughts Too Deep for Words: Psychoanalysis, Suggestion, and the Language of the Unconscious

Distinguishing psychoanalysis, as a search for truth, from suggestion, as a cure for symptoms, this book addresses the scientific status of psychoanalysis. Citing research into the relationship of infants to their caretakers, the author discusses evidence that unconscious communication is present from birth, and that this form of communication plays a central role in psychoanalysis at a level below that of verbal communication. Informed by Bion’s ideas of containment, group functioning and the fundamental psychological need for truth, this book asserts that psychoanalysis, based solely on the search for truth, has, among all psychological interventions, both a unique claim to scientific status and a unique ability to foster psychological development.

Exploring the relationship between unconscious communication, group dynamics, containment and psychological development in a highly original way, Bion and Thoughts Too Deep for Words: Psychoanalysis, Suggestion, and the Language of the Unconscious will be of great interest to psychotherapists, psychologists and psychoanalysts who are interested in the relationship between psychoanalysis and suggestion.