Reflections on catastrophic change

Abstract

Bion asserted that the possibility of change inherent in emotional growth and development was inevitably linked to fears of catastrophe. Did he intend this to apply to all patients and parts of the mind, or only to psychotic areas of functioning? Does subsequent clinical experience substantiate the universality of this assertion? These questions will be taken up from a general theoretical perspective in an attempt to understand what Bion had in mind when he proposed this view, and a clinical case will be presented to illustrate and examine the link between catastrophe and change.

Keywords:

• Annihilation anxiety
• abandonment
• catastrophic change
• containment
• Nirvana principle
• trauma
• unrepresented mental states

Notes

¹To imagine this idea, that there is a part of the mind in each of us that only suffers through awareness and existence and cannot help but wish to return to an inanimate state, one would almost have to be a character in the plays and novels of Samuel Beckett! But we know that Bion analysed Beckett when both were young, and Anzieu (1989), contemplating the powerful works of both authors, has raised the intriguing question of which one deserves authorial credit as the originator of their various ideas.