Beckett and Bion: The (Im)Patient Voice in Psychotherapy and Literature

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.  Read more... Abstract: 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 Content: Part One: The context and events of Beckett's psychotherapy with bion -- 1. Presenting problems -- 2. Proust as metapsychology -- 3. The first year of treatment: 1934 -- 4. Year two: 1935 -- 5. Broadening the context of this psychotherapy -- 6. Beckett's bion and bion's bion -- Part Two: An interpretative construction of Beckett's literary development and bion's later clinical theories -- 7. Free association: Beckett's private theatre -- 8. The novellas: Part one -- 9. The novellas: Part two -- 10. Three essays on "the trilogy" -- 11. The pschology of characters -- 12. Reaching the limit of free association -- 13. Patient zero: Learning from the Beckett experience.