Making the best
of a bad job (Bion, 1979)
When two
personalities meet, an emotional storm is created. If they make sufficient
contact to be aware of each other, or even sufficient to be unaware of each
other, an emotional state is produced by the conjunction of these two
individuals, and the resulting disturbance is hardly likely to be regarded as
necessarily an improvement on the state of affairs had they never met at all.
But since they have met, and since this emotional storm has occurred, the two
parties to this storm may decide to ‘make the best of a bad job’.
In analysis, the
patient comes into contact with the analyst by coming to the consulting room
and engaging in what he thinks is a conversation which he hopes to benefit by
in some way. Likewise the analyst probably expects some benefit to occur – to
both parties. The patient or the analyst says something. It is curious that
this has an effect; it disturbs the relationship between the two people. This
would also be true if nothing was said, if they remained silent. I often do
remain silent, hoping to see, or become aware of, or observe something which I
could then attempt to interpret – I usually leave the initiative to the patient
if I can. The result of remaining silent, or of intervening with a remark, or
of even saying, “Good morning”, or, “Good evening”, sets up what appears to me
to be an emotional storm. One does not immediately know what the emotional
storm is, but the problem is how to make the best of it, how to turn the
adverse circumstance – as I choose to call it at the moment – to good account.
The patient is not obliged to do that; he may not be willing or able to turn it
to good account; his aim may be quite different. I can recall an experience in
which a patient was anxious that I should conform to his state of mind, a state
of mind to which I did not want to conform. He was anxious to arouse powerful
emotions in me so that I would feel angry, frustrated, disappointed, so that I
would not be able to think clearly. I therefore had to choose between
‘appearing’ to be a benevolent person, or ‘appearing’ to remain calm and clear thinking.
But acting a part is incompatible with being sincere. In such a situation the
analyst is attempting to bring to bear a state of mind, and indeed an
inspiration, of a kind that would in his opinion be beneficial and an
improvement on the patient’s existing state of mind. That interference can be
resented by the patient whose retort can be to arouse powerful feelings in the
analyst and to make it difficult for the analyst to think clearly.
In war the
enemy’s object is so to terrify you that you cannot think clearly, while your
object is to continue to think clearly no matter how adverse or frightening the
situation. The underlying idea is that thinking clearly is more conducive to
being aware of ‘reality’, to assessing properly what is real. But being aware
of reality may involve being aware of the unpleasant because reality is not
necessarily pleasing or welcome. This is common to all scientific inquiry,
whether of people or things. We can be in a universe of thought, a culture, or
even a temporary culture, of such a kind that we are sure to suffer the pain of
feeling that our universe is not conducive to our welfare. To dare to be aware
of the facts of the universe in which we are existing calls for courage. That
universe may not be pleasing and we may be disposed to get out of it; if we
cannot get out of it, if for some reason our musculature is not working, or if
it is not appropriate to run away or to retire, then we can be reduced to other
forms of escape – like going to sleep, or becoming unconscious of the universe
of which we do not wish to be conscious, or being ignorant, or idealizing.
‘Escape’ is a fundamental cure; it is basic. The infant, unwilling to be aware
of its helplessness, idealizes or ignores. (I use ‘ignores’ as the process
requisite to reaching ‘ignorance’.) It also resorts to omnipotence; thus
omnipotence and helplessness are inseparably associated. The tendency is to
objectify omnipotence in the person of father or mother, or god or goddess.
Sometimes it is made easier by a physical inheritance such as good looks: Helen
of Troy could mobilize great powers through her beauty, as we know through
Homer – “Is this the face that launched a thousand ships and burned the topless
towers of Ilium?” Much the same thing can apply to the male who can be
fortunate enough to be Paris or Ganymede, whose ability to achieve omnipotence
was facilitated by their physical legacy, their physical capital. The body can
be brought in to redress the unpleasure of the mind; reciprocally, the mind can
be brought in to redress the unpleasure of the body. The basic assumption of
psychoanalysis is that the ‘function’ of the mind can be used to correct the
fallacious solutions which I have briefly sketched. But sometimes a cosmetic
power is not enough; the solution to which such a person has been tempted has
not in fact been robust enough or durable enough to meet the further exigencies
of existence. For example, if a soldier is given authority by virtue of his
physical appearance, the facts of waging war may impose a burden on cosmetic
beauty that it cannot carry.
I would make a
distinction between existence – the capacity to exist – and the ambition or
aspiration to have an existence which is worth having – the quality of the
existence, not the quantity; not the length of one’s life, but the quality of
that life. There are no scales by which we can weigh quality against quantity,
but existence is to be contrasted with the essence of existence. The fact that
the patient, like the analyst, is still in existence is not adequate; this
inadequacy is inseparable from the drive responsible for the existence of the
two people, analyst and analysand, in the same room at the same time.
This paper I
claim to be scientific, but I do not think you are likely to agree that it
merits being so categorized, for I shall continue with a series of statements
for which I have not a shred of factual support. They are these: the Self that
the psychoanalyst observes – the analyst having the same characteristics – has,
according to the embryologists, some growing objects which they call the cortex
and medulla of the adrenals. Those names are given to these structures as soon
as they assume a pattern that is observed in different individuals at different
times and dates. These bodies in course of time become functional and produce a
chemical substance which is concerned with aggression, or fighting, or flight.
I prefer to be less precise and to exclude any element of direction by saying
that the adrenals do not provoke fight or flight, but provoke ‘initiative’. The
terms that I use – fight, flight, initiation – would be appropriate if the
object being observed had a psyche. To get over the difficulty, the obstacle to
progress that is presented by my lack of intelligence or knowledge, I shall
resort to imaginative conjectures in contrast to what I would call facts. The
first and most immediate of these imaginative conjectures is that the adrenal
bodies do not think, but that the surrounding structures develop physically and
in physical anticipation of fulfilling a function we know as thinking and
feeling. The embryo (or its optic pits, auditory pits, adrenals) does not
think, see, hear, fight, or run away, but the physical body develops in
anticipation of having to provide the apparatus for filling the functions of
thinking, seeing, hearing, running away, and so on. Since I cannot know – and
am most unlikely to have the necessary intelligence in the course of my ephemeral
existence – I try to convey to the body politic these gropings towards
intelligence in case my own anticipations lead to the contagious and infectious
communication of these conjectures which may in due course become realized.
So far I am only
discussing the physical body as if it anticipated functions which would later
on come to pass, but which would already have a bodily equipment suitable for
serving the purposes of a particular function that we call ‘psyche’. This is
what I name a ‘physical anticipation’, a bodily anticipation making possible
the later functional operation of a mind. I am borrowing from psychology in
order to describe a physical matter; later I borrow from a physical matter to
describe something psychological.
I now turn to the
problem of communication within the Self. (I dislike terms that imply ‘the
body’ and ‘the mind’, therefore I use ‘self’ to include what I call body or
mind, and ‘a mental space’ for further ideas which may be developed. The
philosophical statement of this approach is Monism.) When we are engaged on
psychoanalysis in which observation must play an extremely important part – as
has always been recognized in a scientific inquiry – we should not be
restricting our observation to too narrow a sphere. What then are we observing?
The best answer that I know is provided by the formulation in Milton’s
introduction to the Third Book of Paradise Lost.
So much the
rather thou Celestial light
Shine inward, and
the mind through all her powers
Irradiate, there
plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and
disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things
invisible to mortal sight.
When the patient
comes into the consulting room the analyst needs to be sensitive to the
totality of that person; it should, for example, be possible to see a flush on
the face as a physical manifestation of the blood system, as well as being able
to hear the words which that person utters as a part of the operation of the
vocal musculature – not particularly emphasizing the activity of the voluntary
muscles, nor yet particularly the sounds which are created by the vocal cords
and the vocal apparatus, but rather the total thing. As Donne wrote in The Second
Anniversary:
Her pure and
eloquent blood
Spoke in her
cheeks, and so distinctly wrought,
That one might
almost say, her body thought.
Or, putting it
differently, the analyst needs to be able to listen not only to the words but
also to the music, so that he can hear a remark which is not easily translated
into black marks on paper, which has a different meaning when it is made in
tones of sarcasm, or in terms of affection or understanding, or by a person who
has actual experience of authority – though the words might be the same in each
instance. For example, it might be possible to think in terms of an ideal
world, a Utopia, as Sir Thomas More did, and to write it in terms which can
still be understood by those who care to read his book. In the analytic session
there is a difference when words are spoken by an analysand who is a man of
authority, accustomed to wielding authority. When he talks about some ideal
constitution, what he has to say will be different from the same words said by
a person who has no such power and no such authority.
What I am saying
may appear to be painfully obvious. My justification for saying it is that the
obvious is so often not observed, namely, that which is the difference. So I
think that it is worth while mentioning these obvious facts – otherwise they
will not become the object of scrutiny on which any kind of scientific progress
depends. When I say ‘scientific’ in this context, I mean the process of
realization as contrasted with the process at the other ‘pole’ of the same
concept, ideal-ization, the feeling that the world, the thing, the person, is
not adequate unless we alter our perception of that person or thing by
idealizing it. Real-ization is doing the same thing when we feel that the ideal
picture which we present by our statement is inadequate. So we must consider
what is the method of communication of Self with Self.
A great deal of
work has been done in studying the central nervous system, the para-sympathetic
and the peripheral nervous apparatus. But we have not considered the part that
is played, if any, in the communication of thought, or the anticipation of
thought by the glandular system. As tuberculosis of the lung can be
communicated, say, with the lymphatics of the lower limbs, so perhaps the
thoughts which we are accustomed to associate with the cerebral spheres could
likewise be communicated to the sympathetic or para-sympathetic, and vice
versa. Such a conjecture could account for the peculiar state of affairs when a
patient says that he is terrified or is very anxious, and has not the slightest
idea what about. We are familiar with using free associations for purposes of
interpretation; I wonder whether it is also possible to use or to tap these
communications before they reach the cerebral spheres, before they reach the
area which we regard as conscious or rational thought. Can any part be played
in all this by what I have called ‘imaginative conjectures’? I would also add
‘rational conjectures’; that is to say conjectures which seem to be linked with
reasonable activity or the activity which has a ratio. Compare this kind of
thought with that which communicates itself in tossing and turning in bed when
we are asleep and are having what we describe as a ‘restless night’, or with
the patient who talks about having catarrh or rhinitis. Anatomists call a part
of the brain the ‘rhinencephalon’ – as if they think there is such a thing as a
nose– brain. I understand from the embryologists and physiologists that the
sense of smell is a distant receptor in a watery fluid – sharks and mackerel
provide a model of that long-distance receptor. But the human being has to
carry some of this intra-cellular fluid into the world after birth where the
fluid is not watery but gaseous. The watery fluid, instead of being an asset,
can become a liability; the individual can complain of rhinitis and difficulty
in breathing. Or a patient may complain of an inability to stop the flow of
tears – another excretion of fluid which has its uses; it can irrigate the
eyeball and wash away dust and dirt, but an excess blinds the patient with
tears.
At the risk of
being monotonous on the one hand, and on the other of appearing to be changing
the subject, I propose now to repeat the essence of what I have been saying.
Suppose we regard being asleep as being in a particular state of mind in which
we see sights, visit places, and carry out activities which are not usually
carried out by us when we are awake – although there can be activities which we
carry out when we are awake which are reminiscent of dreams; people say that
they go to a place to which they have always ‘dreamt’ of going, speaking
metaphorically. The change from the state of mind in which we are when asleep
(S-state) to that in which we are when awake (W-state) is reminiscent of the
change from watery fluid to gaseous fluid, pre-natal to post-natal. We have a
prejudice in favour of the W-state: people, without hesitation, talk about
having had a dream, often meaning that therefore it did not really happen. But
I would say that that is a prejudice of a person who is in favour of the
voluntary musculature, who does not attach importance to where he can go unless
he can do it by the use of his voluntary muscles. We do not hear much about the
places we visit, the sights we see, the stories we hear and the information
which is available when we are asleep – unless we translate it into being
awake.
Who or what
decides the priority of the W-state over the S-state? My question may appear to
be somewhat ridiculous. But I shall exaggerate it by changing its form and
saying: who or what decides the state of mind of a man who says, as reported by
Hanna Segal, that anybody would recognize that the person playing the violin is
really masturbating in public? That is a point of view; it is clear enough;
there is not much doubt about its expression. Why is it that we take it for
granted that a person is really playing the solo part in the Brahms violin
concerto and that this view is the correct one, superior to the view of the
person who knows that the soloist is in fact masturbating in public? From that
vertex, can the psychotic patient put up a claim when opposed by the view of
the ‘sane’? Would it be possible for a psychotic to say, “Poor fellow – he
thinks it is the Brahms violin concerto – a typically sane point of view. Quite
wrong of course, but he is unfortunately sane”? This point is more obscure when
I say that the W-state, and the story about what we did when asleep, is as
depicted when wide awake. What of the psychoanalyst who thinks that the account
of the story told by a person who is awake deserves interpretation in order to
reveal a meaning other than the perfectly simple, straightforward account of
the events if they are considered to be factual descriptions of factual events?
After all, what is wrong with the factual event when the person is asleep? In
what way is this the incorrect view? In what way should we throw our votes in
the scale? For the W-state, when we have subjected the experience that we have
when asleep to wake-work? Or for translating, according to psychoanalytic
theory, the events of the day or the events of conscious thinking, into some
other form of thinking which is done by the process of dream-work? In other
words, what about the process done by the wake-work to translate the events,
the places we have been, the sights we have seen when asleep, into the language
of a person who is awake? What work would be necessary to translate the state
of mind of the person who sees that the violinist is masturbating in public
into the terms used by the people who think it is a Brahms violin concerto? Is
that work reasonably called a ‘curative’ activity? Certainly any work which was
done to translate the state of mind of the person who thinks that it is a
Brahms violin concerto into a state of mind of the person who thinks that the
individual concerned is masturbating in public would not be considered to be a
cure; on the whole the majority vote would seem to be in favour of the view
that such a person had deteriorated, had suffered a misfortune as a result of
his analytic experience.
If the S-state is
regarded as being worthy of respect equally with the W-state – the arbitrium
being impartial – then where one went, what one saw and experienced, must be
regarded as having a value which is equally valid. This is implicit when Freud,
like many predecessors, regards dreams as worthy of respect. So we can say that
the wake-work should be considered as equally worthy of respect as is the
dream-work. But why is the state of mind of being awake, conscious, logical,
regarded as having ‘our wits about us’, but only if it is half our wits? How
awful when you find a maggot in your apple! Not so awful as finding half a
maggot in your apple. So we find that only having half our wits about us is a
discovery that is most disturbing. It is one reason why there is a division of
opinion as to whether to have all our wits about us, or to get back to having
only one half – the wakeful, conscious, rational, logical. Only that kind of
mathematics that is generally accepted by the majority, the prevalent culture,
the social, civil, dominant fashion, is regarded as valid.
Suppose we
respect equally both states of mind, or many states of mind whatever they are:
then what state of mind shall we choose for interpretation? Verbal action? That
is an everyday problem. In our present culture it is not thought correct to
make a rhapsodic response, an immediate abandonment of the screen between
impulse and action, translating the impulse direct into action without any
intervening delay. It is considered to be equally incorrect to prolong thought
to the point at which the action is so delayed that it either does not take
place at all, or thinking becomes a substitute for action. When virtually
instantaneous action is called for, it is likely to precipitate a response that
is rhapsodic, impulse direct to action without any intervention of thought.
Freud described Two Principles of Mental Functioning; I suggest Three
Principles of Living. First, feeling; second, anticipatory thinking; third,
feeling plus thinking plus Thinking. The latter is synonymous with prudence or
foresight → action.
A man has much
muscular activity: when awake, he says he has had a restless night. Where did
he go? What did he see? Who was he? What did he do? Should the W-state prevail
and be accorded superiority? Should he respect the state of mind which was
associated with so much physical activity? What is certain is that that
physical activity which the patient has experienced is unmistakable whether he
or his analyst recognizes it; he often admits, unwillingly, that he is tired.
Perhaps the
problem can be approached more easily by projection. Let us consider it not in
each one of us individually, but by regarding it as a problem of the body
politic. Can we then locate in the community the origin, the source, the
emotional storm centre? In my experience it is always caused, or associated with,
or centred on a thinking and feeling person who can make his Self infectious or
contagious. To take a gross example, Shakespeare; it is said that the English
language has never been the same since. I have asked why we go to hear
scientific papers. If you want to be reminded of people and the way they
behave, do you choose a Shakespeare play, or do you come to an alleged
‘scientific’ paper by me? I will not embarrass you or myself by pressing such a
question, especially as I do not have to pronounce a solution to that problem.
It does, however, have a long history extending to periods before Shakespeare,
or indeed before modern English existed. It appears to have agitated the
Arians, though they were mostly concerned with the problems of material existence
and conquest. I do not think it is oversimplifying to say that even from the
earliest periods of human history of which we have any record – the Rig Veda –
there appears to have been a need to develop what we now call a ‘philosophy of
thinking’. But a philosophical discussion about the ancient wisdom of the Rig
Veda and the other Vedanta (ancient Hindu scriptures) became tainted with
hostility, as did the philosophy of the Greeks in the time of Plato and
Socrates.
Socrates: My art
of midwifery is in general like theirs; the only difference is that my patients
are men, not women, and my concern is not with the body but with the soul that
is in travail of birth. And the highest point of my art is the power to prove
by every test whether the offspring of a young man’s thought is a false phantom
or instinct with life and truth. I am so far like the midwife that I cannot
myself give birth to wisdom, and the common reproach is true, that, though I
question others, I can myself bring nothing to light because there is no wisdom
in me. [Plato, Dialogues – Theaetetus.]
It became so
feared and disliked by the authorities that the Emperor Justinian closed the
philosophical schools. But he was too late: a germ of philosophical thinking
escaped to Edessa in Babylonia and was again suppressed. But then, owing to the
spread of Christianity by virtue of the employment of the Greek language, the
language of the philosophers began to be studied again as an incidental
offshoot of the study of Christianity. To cut a long story short, it was again
locked up in Byzantium until the fall of the Byzantine Empire and
Constantinople. These lost wisdoms were then released and broke out to create
the virulent emotional turmoil that we know as the Renaissance. Wisdom seems to
have this capacity for survival by changing its route and then reappearing in
unexpected places.
Return Alpheus,
the dread voice is past,
That shrunk thy
streams; Return Sicilian Muse …
Galen established
the rights of observation and became authorized, respectable – just as Freud is
today – and an authority with which to suppress inquiry. Anatomy was not then
studied by looking at the human body, but Leonardo, Raphael and Rubens studied
the body, and as a result of this emergence amongst the artists, the anatomists
too began to observe the cadaver, physiologists to study the mind.
Will
psychoanalysts study the living mind? Or is the authority of Freud to be used
as a deterrent, a barrier to studying people? The revolutionary becomes
respectable – a barrier against revolution. The invasion of the animal by a
germ or ‘anticipation’ of a means of accurate thinking, is resented by the
feelings already in possession. That war has not ceased yet.
R. Bion, W.. The
Complete Works of W.R. Bion (Kindle location 45466-45651). Taylor and Francis. 2019,
Kindle edition.
