From Extension to Revolutionary Change in Clinical Psychoanalysis: The Radical Influence of Bion and Winnicott

Abstract

This paper addresses the radical departure of late Bion's and Winnicott's clinical ideas and practices from traditional psychoanalytic work, introducing a revolutionary change in clinical psychoanalysis. The profound significance and implications of their thinking are explored, and in particular Bion's conception of transformation in O and Winnicott's clinical-technical revision of analytic work, with its emphasis on regression in the treatment of more disturbed patients. The author specifically connects the unknown and unknowable emotional reality-O with unthinkable breakdown (Winnicott) and catastrophe (Bion). The author suggests that the revolutionary approach introduced by the clinical thinking of late Bion and Winnicott be termed quantum psychoanalysis. She thinks that this approach can coexist with classical psychoanalysis in the same way that classical physics coexists with quantum physics.

Pragmatism or idealism: a systematic review and visual analysis of Winnicott’s psychoanalytical treatment views

“…Among them, Ofra Eshel and Marie Lenormand rank the first with 5 publications. Ofra Eshel (12) mainly focuses on the radical departure of Bion's and Winnicott's clinical ideas from traditional psychoanalytic work, particularly emphasizing the depths of early breakdown and regression The keyword clusters. in the treatment of disturbed patients.…”

“…While Winnicott has supplied metapsychology with factual foundations, he has rejected speculative metapsychology theorization; Christine Anzieu-Premmereur (31) uses Freud's classical psychoanalytic concept and Winnicott's theory to conduct the parent-child relationship intervention research. Ofra Eshel(12) points out that Winnicott has a revolutionary change in clinical psychoanalytic work. She suggests that Winnicott's clinical revision of psychoanalytic work, which emphasizes regression in the treatment, has great significance especially; M. Nathan Szajnberg(32) proposes three categories of Winnicott's technique and interpretations, and enunciates the peculiarity of Winnicott's theories between traditional analysts; Vincenzo Bonaminio(33) highly recognizes Winnicott's revolutionary place in the development of psychoanalytic theory, together with his important ideas as transitional space, the false self, and the use of the object; Michael Crocker(34) tries to analyze Freud and Winnicott's psychoanalytical theory from a scientific perspective.…”

The Collected Works of D. W. Winnicott Edited by Lesley Caldwell and Helen Taylor Robinson

“…I have chosen to examine slowly the radical evolution of Winnicott's clinical thinking into the launching of what I consider a revolutionary approach in clinical psychoanalysis. This is an essential point for me (Eshel 2013b(Eshel , 2017b(Eshel , 2019. Winnicott has exerted a profound influence on the theory and practice of clinical psychoanalysis over the past sixty years, and his groundbreaking ideas have been widely investigated by psychoanalysts and psychotherapists around the world.…”

On “asking for a kind of revolution” in clinical psychoanalysis: Winnicott’s concept of regression, care-cure, working within the realm of needs and creating new experiences

“…theoretically and practically, as they provide a formative matrix and a mode of work and transformation that conventional psychoanalytic work does not offer (Eshel, 2013a(Eshel, , 2016(Eshel, , 2017a(Eshel, , 2019a(Eshel, , 2019b.…”