The seventh servant: The implications of a truth drive in Bion's theory of ‘O’

Abstract

Drawing upon Bion's published works on the subjects of truth, dreaming, alpha‐function and transformations in ‘O’, the author independently postulates that there exists a ‘truth instinctual drive’ that subserves a truth principle, the latter of which is associated with the reality principle. Further, he suggests, following Bion's postulation, that ‘alpha‐function’ and dreaming/phantasying constitute unconscious thinking processes and that they mediate the activity of this ‘truth drive’ (quest, pulsion), which the author hypothesizes constitutes another aspect of a larger entity that also includes the epistemophilic component drive. It purportedly seeks and transmits as well as includes what Bion (1965, pp. 147‐9) calls ‘O’, the ‘Absolute Truth, Ultimate Reality, O’ (also associated with infi nity, noumena or things‐in‐themselves, and ‘godhead’) (1970, p. 26). It is further hypothesized that the truth drive functions in collaboration with an ‘unconscious consciousness’ that is associated with the faculty of ‘attention’, which is also known as ‘intuition’. It is responsive to internal psychical reality and constitutes Bion's ‘seventh servant’. O, the ultimate landscape of psychoanalysis, has many dimensions, but the one that seems to interest Bion is that of the emotional experience of the analysand's and the analyst's ‘evolving O’ respectively (1970, p. 52) during the analytic session. The author thus hypothesizes that a sense of truth presents itself to the subject as a quest for truth which has the quality and force of an instinctual drive and constitutes the counterpart to the epistemophilic drive. This ‘truth quest’ or ‘drive’ is hypothesized to be the source of the generation of the emotional truth of one's ongoing experiences, both conscious and unconscious. It is proposed that emotions are beacons of truth in regard to the acceptance of reality. The concepts of an emotional truth drive and a truth principle would help us understand why analysands are able to accept analysts’ interpretations that favor the operation of the reality principle over the pleasure principle—because of what is postulated as their overriding adaptive need for truth. Ultimately, it would seem that Bion's legacy of truth aims at integrating fi nite man with infi nite man.

A Special Learning Experience About Transference and Countertransference Dynamics at the Beginning of My Psychoanalytic Training

“…I am following Ferenczi when I say that "we need to live the situation viscerally," and also Grotstein's discussion of Bion (Grotstein, 2004) in arguing with those who have maintained, as I often have characterized their positions, that during sessions, analysts should not "concretely become the patient" but should rather limit themselves to "being the patient in their thoughts identifying imaginatively with him," without being in any way personally altered in the process. This, indeed, is a vision of analysis which I-with others (e.g., Sapisochin, 2013)-oppose, not because I believe that we must, at all costs, become our patients, but rather because it is not infrequent that this occurs and that it does so out of necessity.…”

The ‘work group’: Redressing the balance in Bion’s Experiences in Groups

“…This is reflected in Bion"s frequent use of such phrases as "the quest for truth", "concern for truth", "truth function", and "regard for truth" (see references in Grotstein, 2007: 141): "It is my conjecture that the concept of a truth drive (quest, pulsion) may serve as an organizing principle through a major portion of Bion"s episteme." (Grotstein, 2004(Grotstein, : 1082 These observations are made in relation to Bion"s clinical work as a psychoanalyst, rather than to his group framework. However, the idea that "truth is growth-promoting and anti-truth psychically debilitating" (Symington & Symington, 1996: 114) -that "healthy mental growth seems to depend on truth as the living organism depends on food" (Bion, 1965: 38) -could be read as a summary of this framework.…”

The Roots of Envy: The Unaesthetic Experience of the Tantalized/Dispossessed Self

“…I'm suggesting that it is the premature tear in this phantasy of at-one-ment that is experienced as if it were a deflating fall from grace and can lead to so-called "envious attacks." (3) The presence of envy can't be grasped independent of the intersubjective context-including the other's subjectivity; namely, the mother's nonattunement with her infant's inchoate affects; her narcissistic appropriation of her child (Faimberg, 2005); her failure to "symmetrically resonate" (Grotstein, 2004) with her child's abject states (Dithrich, 1994;Mitrani, 1993Mitrani, , 1997; her failure to take in and metabolize the truth of her child's emotional experiences through her dream-work reverie process (Bion, 1962(Bion, /1977bOgden, 2005) and the way these various "failures" are enacted in the analytic process. Indeed, Winnicott (1959Winnicott ( /1989) averred that the "appearance [of envy] is a reaction to the failure of the mother's adaptation" (p. 445) and Klein (1957Klein ( /1975 herself stated, "whether the mother fully enjoys the care of the child or is anxious and has psychological difficulties over feeding-all these factors influence the infant's capacity to accept the milk with enjoyment and to internalize the good breast" (p. 180); so it's hardly a stretch to 274 GERHARDT 9 Thank God, it was not until after I finished writing this paper that I found and then sat down and read Joffe's (1969) thoughtful critique of the Kleinian concept of envy-otherwise my own envy may have paralyzed me!…”