Wilfred Bion

by Gérard Bleandonu

Wilfred Bion was one of the most original and influential thinkers in recent psychoanalysis. His ideas, which can be traced in direct line in the development of psychoanalytic theory from Freud to Melanie Klein, are difficult to grasp because his writing style was often enigmatic and ambiguous. This is the first full biography and the first comprehensive explication of his significant contribution to psychoanalytic theory and practice. Bion was born in 1897 and spent his early childhood in India. He endured tragedy as a young man when his wife died after giving birth. In his later years, he found great love with his second wife. A bona fide war hero who won a Military Cross in the Tank Corps, he became Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Tavistock Clinic, London in 1945; Director of the London Clinic of Psychoanalysis from 1956 to 1962; and President of the British Psychoanalytic Society from 1962 to 1965. He made pioneering studies in psychiatric rehabilitation, founded the gro