Beckett and Bion

Description

This book focuses on Samuel Beckett's psychoanalytic psychotherapy with W. R. Bion as a central aspect both of Beckett's and Bion's radical transformations of literature and psychoanalysis. The recent publication of Beckett's correspondence during the period of his psychotherapy with Bion provides a starting place for an imaginative reconstruction of this psychotherapy, culminating with Bion's famous invitation to his patient to dinner and a lecture by C.G. Jung. Following from the course of this psychotherapy, Miller and Souter trace the development of Beckett's radical use of clinical psychoanalytic method in his writing, suggesting the development within his characters of a literary-analytic working through of transference to an idealized auditor known by various names, apparently based on Bion. Miller and Souter link this pursuit to Beckett's breakthrough from prose to drama, as the psychology of projective identification is transformed to physical enactment. They also locate Bion's memory and re-working of his clinical contact with Beckett, who figures as the 'patient zero' of Bion's pioneering postmodern psychoanalytic clinical theories.

Subjects

Other Editions

• Beckett and Bion: The Patient Voice in Psychotherapy and LiteratureTaylor & Francis Group2013-01-01
• Beckett and BionKarnac Books2013-01-01
• Beckett and BionKarnac Books2013-01-01
• Beckett and BionKarnac Books2013-01-01
• Beckett and BionTaylor & Francis Group2018-01-01
• Beckett and BionTaylor & Francis Group2018-01-01