Overview
This full-day conference will bring together some of the leading psychoanalytic thinkers on Wilfred Bion to consider his place in current psychoanalytic research and practice.
Bion is one of the giants of psychoanalytic theory, best known for his work on groups, his widely applied concept of container-contained and his rich theory of thinking which places emotional experience at its heart.
His writings continue to be hugely influential, and are drawn on by new generations of therapists. This conference will consider the ways in which his work is used in the consulting room, both in psychoanalytic work with individuals and with couples, and what it can teach us about relationships.
Nicola Abel-Hirsch will present a paper entitled ‘Attending a clinical seminar with WR Bion’, Francis Grier will talk about ‘Narcissism and Containment in Couple Relationships’, Dr David Hewison about ‘Thinking with Bion and Jung about Container-Contained Processes in the Couple’ and Dr Judith Pickering about ‘Transformations in Love: an Application of Bion’s Thinking to Work with Couples’.
Programme
9.30am-10am - Registration
10am-10.15am - Welcome from the chair, Andrew Balfour
10.15am-11.15am - Dr Judith Pickering ‘Transformations in Love: an Application of Bion’s Thinking to Work with Couples’
11.15am-11.30am - Break
11.30am-12.30pm - Nicola Abel-Hirsch ‘Attending a Clinical Seminar with WR Bion’
12.30pm-1.30pm - Lunch
1.30pm-2.30pm Dr David Hewison ‘Thinking with Bion and Jung about Container-Contained Processes in the Couple’
2.30pm-2.40pm - Break
2.40pm-3.40pm - Francis Grier ‘Narcissism and Containment in Couple Relationships’
3.40pm-3.50pm - Break
3.50pm-4.30pm - Panel
Speakers' Biographies
Nicola Abel-Hirsch is the author of Bion 365 Quotes (Routledge 2019) and is a training and supervising analyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society. She has given clinical and theoretical papers and seminars on Bion in the UK; Taiwan (annually 2005-2012); the USA, and Europe. From 2013 to 2015 she was the visiting professor at the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex. Her publications include ’The Life Instinct’, Int. J. Psycho-Anal. (2010); ‘A Note and a Short Story’ in The Bion Tradition (2015); 'Bion, Alpha-Function and the Unconscious Mind', Brit. J. Psychother. (2016), and ’The Devil is in the Detail’ in The Melanie Klein Tradition (2017). She is the editor of Hanna Segal’s last book Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (2007). Under the auspices of Understanding Primitive Mental States NYC she has recently given a series of online seminars on ‘Bion’s Questions’. Nicola works in full-time psychoanalytical practice in North London.
Francis Grier is an Associate Editor (UK) of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, a Training Analyst and Supervisor of the British Psychoanalytical Society, and a Member of Tavistock Relationships.
He edited Brief Encounters with Couples: Some Analytical Perspectives (2001, Karnac) and Oedipus and the Couple (2005, Karnac), in which he also contributed ‘No Sex Couples, Catastrophic Change and the Primal Scene’, as part of the Tavistock Clinic Series. His papers include ‘Lively and Deathly Intercourse’ in Sex, Attachment and Couple Psychotherapy: Psychoanalytic Perspectives, (ed. C Clulow, 2009, Karnac), ‘The Hidden Traumas of the Young Boarding School Child as Seen through the Lens of Adult Couple Therapy” in Enduring Trauma through the Life-Cycle (ed. E McGinley and A Varchevker); and ‘Psychotic and Depressive Processes in Couple Functioning’ in Living on the Border, (ed. D Bell and A Novakovic, both published by Karnac in 2013).
‘Thoughts on Rigoletto’ was published in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis in 2011, and ‘La Traviata and Oedipus’ in 2015. Papers on Musicality in the Consulting Room and the music of Beethoven viewed through the prism of gender are forthcoming in the IJP, and a paper on forgiveness in Mozart operas is forthcoming in the Journal of Couple and Family Psychoanalysis.
He has a private psychoanalytic practice in London, and has succeeded Edna O’Shaughnessy in leading a seminar for psychotherapists working in the Fitzjohns Unit in the Tavistock Clinic with patients who would not normally have access to psychoanalytic treatment.
Dr David Hewison, DCplPsychPsych, is a Jungian training analyst of the Society of Analytical Psychology and consultant couple psychoanalytic psychotherapist. He joined Tavistock Relationships in 1996 with a background in adult mental health social work and training. He has been involved in all aspects of Tavistock Relationships’ work over the years and is part of the senior management team. He is currently Head of Research and Ethics and programme leader of the Professional Doctorate in Couple Psychotherapy.
He developed couple therapy as a treatment for depression in the NHS and was the lead author of Couple Therapy for Depression: A Clinician’s Guide to Integrative Practice in 2014. He was a member of NICE’s Depression Guideline Development Group 2015-2019. He is a member of the International Advisory Board of Couple And Family Psychoanalysis and was previously book reviews editor of the Journal of Analytical Psychology. The author of some 60 book chapters, journal articles, research papers and reviews, he teaches and lectures internationally. He has a particular interest in creativity and imagination, and is currently working on developing greater understanding of diversity in analytic work with individuals and couples.
Dr Judith Pickering is a psychotherapist and faculty member of ANZAP, a Training Analyst with The Australian and New Zealand Association of Jungian Analysts and a Psychoanalytic Couple and Family Therapist. She has tertiary degrees in Religious Studies, Asian Studies, Music Education (Kodály Institute, Hungary), Musicology, Psychotherapy and Analytical Psychology. She also has a doctorate in Psychology.
She has published and lectured widely in Australia, USA and Europe, including the Society of Psychoanalytical Marital Psychotherapists at the Tavistock Centre London; The International Family Therapy Association, Turkey, The Journal of Analytical Psychology, Oxford, St Petersburg, and Italy, Bion in Boston, and Berlin at The Journal of Analytical Psychology – XIIth International Conference.
Books include: Being in Love: Therapeutic Pathways Through Psychological Obstacles to Love (Routledge, 2008), The Search for Meaning: Spiritual Practice, the Apophatic Way and Bion (Routledge, 2018), and Transformations in Love: Bion and the Couple (Routledge, forthcoming) which applies the clinical thinking of Bion to work with couples.
Andrew Balfour is Chief Executive at Tavistock Relationships. A former Clinical Psychologist, he is a Couple Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist and an Adult Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist. He worked for many years in the Adult Department of the Tavistock Clinic after completing his training there, and was joint organiser of the course ‘Psychodynamic Approaches to Old Age’. He has a research interest in the area of dementia care and teaches and lectures widely, both in Britain and abroad.
