On Wilfred R. Bion’s Way of Being

Wilfred R. Bion’s clinical thinking was profoundly impacted by his early childhood experiences in India. In this article, the author elucidates Bion’s perspective on how “thought” is different from “thinking.” Bion’s notion of truth and thought takes us from chronological to the timeless. His longing to return to India is also evident in his theorization of “O.” The clinical relevance of Bion’s ideas is much debated and discussed, but rarely has any psychoanalytic writing touched upon the way in which psychoanalysis is linked with the sonic and sacred aspects of Om. Exploring the truth of and the truth in Bionian psychoanalytic thought will take us into the unexplored paths of how the experience of culture meets experience in the clinic. A sincere and critical reflection of the ideas proposed by Bion would certainly help us to locate its unexplored referents. He never came back to India, but his theories and ideas attempted to create contact with his early childhood experiences. Bion left India, but India never left him. Bion was a Hindu boy belonging to a Christian body. The ways in which Bion conceptualizes neurosis and psychosis are elucidated in this study. However, some of his ideas remain a challenge, fathoming which, requires remembering, repeating, and working through the clinical and mystical elements in his writing.