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Humans are highly social primates who naturally seek out groups in which to live. Our individual psychology is inherently intertwined with that of the group, forming an inextricable link between the two. In keeping with Bion's insights into group dynamics, we approach contemporary conflicts by examining them through both social and psychoanalytic lenses. Drawing on Foucault's and Deleuze's analyses of societies, as well as considering the impact of technology and the COVID‐19 pandemic, we illustrate how modern societies function under the influence of three behaviors observed by Bion. Activated as a result of a psychological disaster, the ruins consist of the symptomatologic triad of arrogance, stupidity, and curiosity. We have called this functioning Bion's disastrous triad. We suggest that when it is set in motion, it leads to a withdrawal from the beauty of life, as Bion well expresses with the phrase “Thus far and no further.” Using Meltzer's notion of aesthetic conflict, we suggest that while operating under the mandates of the triad, recognition of the other becomes an impossibility. A plea for relationships based on mutual recognition—namely, aesthetic relationships—is in order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is actually made up of a series of digressions representing the author's unique approach to engaging with J. Palmer's ideas and offering a response. Instead of constituting a formal discussion, they have evolved into marginal notes inspired by an occasional visit to Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum, which is world famous for the masterpieces it houses. This formula allows for the exploration of various issues related to representation in art and life, as inherently intersubjective. The problems of aesthetic experience overlap with those of psychoanalysis, and vice versa: themes such as distance and aura; the relationship between content and container, i.e., between form and content or between frame and artistic motif; the aesthetics of the sublime as a portrayal of the vicissitudes of the primary relationship with the object; the negative of the invisible as what enables vision; art as a thematization of intersubjectivity; the artistic gesture as the movement and expression of the body, or rather, of intercorporeality; the construction of meaning that occurs in the "carnal" intimacy with art; painting as meditation on perception as unconscious (Merleau-Ponty); the pictorial structure of the dream within the dream or mise en abîme: these are all themes touched upon in a fragmented manner but that refer to various other works in which the author has addressed them, giving the sense of an ongoing research endeavor, where what matters is not the destination but the process of traversing the path of art as access to the psyche. All are interwoven in a series of internal references, the final figure or figures of which are left substantially open. The importance of reflection on art in general is continually reaffirmed in the work, both explicitly and implicitly, in the lines and between the lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Intuition" is probably the most frequently used term in all Bion's writings. However, in order to understand its role in his thought it is essential to give it the clearest possible definition. The thesis of this article is that by intuition Bion means a "specific" psychoanalytic concept. It is thus possible to extract intuition from the vague and mystifying reading of it by some authors, whic runs the risk of falling into an empty "intuitionism". For Bion, intuition is a psychoanalytic function of the analyst, the principal factors of which are the various expressions of dream-thought and insight. Furthermore, within the frame of the post-Bionian theory of the analytic field, the author suggests adding to these factors the use of the "we" vertex (or we-ness), i.e. to regard virtually every fact of analysis as co-created. The aim is to make the very concept of "field" more accessible. Compared with the metaphor of the analytic field, the concept of we-ness has both greater clinical versatility and greater pregnancy on the metapsychological plane. Indeed, it more directly reflects a radically social conception of human subjectivity: what is known in contemporary speculative thought – in J-L. Nancy, for example – as the "ontology of we". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some patients tediously describe depictions of their sexual perversions. These can bring the analyst to feel intense boredom and frustration. This "almost unavoidable monotony" can be interpreted in various ways. It can be seen as an expression of the patient's compulsion to repeat, whether one considers it a product of the death drive, or the need to give meaning to the traumatic experience that caused the perversion itself. On the other hand, it may be seen as an aspect of the unconscious emotional function that binds the couple together in the analysis. Monotony, then, is no longer intrinsic to "the patient's" perversion, but becomes the search for "mono-tony" or "at-one-ment" in the here and now of the session. At the root of this may be the fear of the tensions that arise from confrontation and difference, which may cause the pair to stay rigidly on the same wave. Then, analyst and patient maintain an adhesive identification with each other to prevent separation, and they pay the price of boredom and immobility. The field theory point of view is distinguished by two important aspects. As the analyst listens from the perspective of a "narrative We," this protects the pair from a judgmental attitude and, consequently, from a form of perversion of the analytic relationship. Second, it detects precise and distinct signs of how the process of mutual recognition unfolds on the level of the third, intersubjective or "common," unconscious. The fundamental postulate is that psychic suffering, including that which is expressed in sadomasochism, stems from important deficits in this same process in the primal relationship to the object. Consequently, it is important to privilege the level of being-with rather than that of knowing-about. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]