Through a richly detailed close reading of Wilfred R. Bion’s work on dreaming, as scattered across multifarious and largely unworked texts, this book argues that Bion’s thinking can form a unified theory of dreams which extends and has further implications as a visionary model of the mind.
The central quality of Bion's visionary model of the mind is the belief that all that is interesting in the human mind pulsates with an unreadably complex dynamic beyond the unknown, the unknowable and the unthinkable. However, rather than interpreting this negatively, the author understands the inevitable unknowability of the human mind as a call to perplexity and wonder which actively encourages the intuition of fundamental insights into who and what determines our internal lives. A major implication of this belief is that psychoanalysis is itself essentially about the unknown, and Monteiro generates informed observations about how this may influence psychoanalytic work.
Providing renewed insight into psychoanalytical understandings of dreams, this book is essential reading for any psychoanalyst wishing to broaden their knowledge of the importance of Wilfred R. Bion’s dream work.
Author(s): João Sousa Monteiro
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 272
City: London
Cover
Endorsements
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgements
Presentation of the Book
Foreword
Preface I
Preface II
Introduction
Part 1 On the Unknown, the Unknowable and the Unthinkable
1 Freud’s Dream-Thoughts: An Uninvited Step Into the Unknown, the Unknowable and the Unthinkable
2 Bion’s Theory of Contact-Barrier: A Winding Road Into the Mysteries of the Human Mind
3 New Remarks on the Structure: And the Workings of the Contact-Barrier
4 The Conscious Mind and the Unconscious Mind: New Remarks on the Contact-Barrier
5 A Brief Historical Survey
6 Alpha-Function as a Cluster of Dreaming Functions
7 Mother’s Reverie: And the Mystery of Introjection
8 What Is a Dream?
9 Bion’s Theory of Dream-Work-Alpha: Part I
10 Bion’s Theory of Dream-Work-Alpha: Part II
11 The Enigmatic Fabric of Mental Life
12 The Dreaming Ego
13 How Conscious Is Conscious and Unconscious Unconscious?
14 Freud’s Wrestling With “The Fact of Consciousness”
15 What, Then, Is a Dream?
16 The Soul and the Stone
17 Still Unregistered Disorders
18 I Don’t Know
19 What Is Hearing?
Part 2 The Human Mind as the Celebration of Unmeasure
20 The Fundamental Basic Assumption of Psychoanalysis
21 The Myth of Interpretation and the Role of the Ineffable
22 The Slippery Word Understanding
23 Knowledge as a Privileged Path to Intimacy
24 Passion and the Wonder of Unmeasure
25 The Misfortune of Explanation
26 “Thinking With Passion Is the Unconscious Thing”
27 The Inspiring Light of Perplexity and the Emerging Experience of Mystery: A Note
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
