[EN] 8.1 Wilfred Bion — The No-Thing: Two Kinds of Zero, Creativity vs. Psychic Collapse

Описание: This lecture explores one of the most subtle and radical dimensions of Wilfred Bion’s thinking: the emergence of thought from absence, from “No-Thing” — the mental zero point that lies between something and nothing. Rather than treating emptiness as a lack to be eliminated, Bion invites us to understand it as the necessary condition for creativity, truth, learning, and emotional growth.

The discussion follows Bion’s revolutionary claim that thinking does not begin with knowledge, but with the capacity to tolerate frustration, uncertainty, and the painful encounter with what is not yet formed. When the mind can bear this state without collapsing into omnipotent certainty or defensive evacuation, the alpha function can operate, dreaming becomes possible, and genuine transformation may occur. When this capacity fails, however, the mind may fall into pseudo-knowledge, destructive emptiness, or psychotic foreclosure — forms of “Nothing” that extinguish thought rather than generate it.

Drawing on the clinical and theoretical extensions of James Grotstein, Michael Eigen, and André Green, the lecture carefully distinguishes between two radically different kinds of zero: a fertile mental space that functions as a white screen for representation and imagination, and a destructive void that functions like a black hole, annihilating meaning and symbolization. This distinction is essential for clinical work, as it allows the therapist to discern whether a patient requires support in approaching the unknown — or protection from it.

The lecture situates Bion’s concept of No-Thing within a broader field that includes the dynamics of dreaming, the caesura, transformations in O, and the ethical stance of “without memory or desire.” It emphasizes that the therapist’s task is not to eliminate uncertainty, but to help sustain it long enough for something true to emerge. In this sense, not-knowing is not a deficit but a discipline — the ground from which thinking, dreaming, and subjectivity are continually born.

This video is part of a comprehensive course on contemporary psychoanalysis, grounded in Bion’s work and its major developments by Ogden, Britton, Eigen, and others. The course integrates theory with lived clinical experience and emphasizes the development of an internal, embodied capacity to think rather than the accumulation of concepts.

🎧 Watch the full course playlist here:
🔗    • [EN] Bion & Not Knowing in Psychotherapy –...  

🌐 About the instructor
Dr. Yakir Krichman is a clinical psychologist and supervisor specializing in experiential and embodied workshops that help therapists internalize Bion’s concepts on a somatic and experiential level — beyond intellectual understanding and into lived clinical presence.
🌐 https://www.yakirkrichman.com/

📚 Recommended Reading
For those wishing to deepen their understanding of the ideas explored in this lecture, the following texts are especially valuable:

Symington, J. & Symington, N. (1996). The Clinical Thinking of Wilfred Bion. Chapter 11: Transformations, section The Domain of Thought (pp. 116–119). Brunner–Routledge.

Eigen, M. (2004). Psychic Deadness. Chapter 4: Bion’s No-Thing. Routledge.

Further recommended reading includes:
Grotstein, J. S. (2007). A Beam of Intense Darkness: Wilfred Bion’s Legacy to Psychoanalysis. Chapter 31: Bion’s Discovery of Zero (“No-Thing”). Routledge.
Eigen, M. (2004). Psychic Deadness. Chapter 6: Two Kinds of No-Thing. Routledge.

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