Bion in Love: Transformations in O
Presented by Dr. Judith Pickering
2 CEUs
Dates: December 4 2026
Time: 3:30 PM – 5:30 PM EST
Fee: $200; $100 for candidates
Abstract
Wilfred Bion’s thinking has enormous relevance for psychoanalytic couple therapy. Concepts such as container-contained, reverie, alpha function, at-one-ment, the emotional links of L, H, and K, negative capability, and transformations in O all offer rich ways of understanding the couple relationship. In this seminar, I want to suggest that transformations in O can also be understood as transformations in—and through—love.
We will weave together several strands: Bion’s theoretical work, aspects of his own love life and personal history, and clinical material from couple therapy. Along the way, we will consider why Bion’s invitation for the analyst to suspend memory, desire, and the need for understanding is particularly important when working with couples, where the emotional field can so easily pull us toward certainty and premature conclusions.
Wilfred Bion brought an originary vision to psychoanalysis, opening our eyes to a realm of infinite possibility that is utterly transcendent yet also immanent in every analytic encounter. He taught us to listen in the darkness beyond unknowing with a third ear of intuition to that which is beyond memory, desire and understanding.
Such a capacity for unknowing, what I call negative epistemology, is of profound relevance to psychoanalytic couple therapy. As well as the analytic discipline of eschewing memory, desire and understanding. Bion’s contribution to such negative epistemology includes his writings on the K link, the psychoanalytic application of Keats’ concept of negative capability and Henri Poincaré’s selected fact. In couple therapy, as I have proposed, (Pickering (2006, 2008,), this becomes a conjoint selected fact—a moment of shared emotional truth that emerges from the couple’s unconscious field.
Early relational trauma and emotional deprivation, as well as later catastrophic experiences—such as those Bion endured during World War I—can profoundly impair the capacity to form and sustain intimate relationships. Yet couple therapy has the potential to transform trauma into healing. The experience of being in love, and of becoming capable of love, may itself be profoundly transformational, restoring relational capacity, enhancing well-being, and fostering psychological growth. Arguably, this was something Bion himself came to experience in the later years of his life through his marriage to Francesca.
This seminar weaves together Bion’s theory, aspects of his personal life, and clinical material from couple work. We will consider why his injunction to suspend memory, desire, and understanding is especially important when working with couples, and explore how early relational trauma and later catastrophic experiences such as war, can disrupt the capacity for love. At the same time, couple therapy may become a place where trauma is gradually transformed, allowing love itself to restore relational capacity and foster psychological growth.
Learning Objectives
Discuss the relevance of Wilfred Bion’s major theoretical concepts for psychoanalytic couple therapy.
Explore the clinical implications of working without memory, desire, and understanding in the analytic encounter with couples.
Examine how love can function as a transformative force in O, fostering healing from early relational trauma and growth in the capacity for intimate relationships
