The aim of this ten-week series is to discuss ten of W R Bion’s ideas that help us understand ourselves as individuals, and as inextricably group or social beings. It is a series about the psychology of the individual in the group, and how the group is in the individual.
Bion is notoriously difficult to read, and therefore to understand him takes considerable determination and will. The weekly discussions will be based upon his key texts that help us understand ourselves as individuals in the group, and how the group is in us as individuals. Participants will be expected to read the allocated weekly text and be ready to contribute to the discussion.
As with Freud, Bion developed his ideas throughout his career. Therefore, there are often references or brief descriptions of previously discussed ideas within subsequent texts. Some of these previous ideas may be ones the series has in focus, or they may not be. We will be keeping the focus of attention on the weekly text, and its relation to that weekly idea/topic.
The curriculum and reading list will be sent to participants once they have been allocated a place on the series.
Recordings: 48hrs. after each weekly session event a recording will be available to registered participants for 4 weeks.
Andrew Briggs
I trained as a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist at the Tavistock in the early 1990s and then returned twenty years later to train as an Organisational Consultant. In 2018 I retired from the NHS where for the previous 15 years I had been the Head of Child Psychotherapy within a large NHS Trust in southern England. Since then, I have been busy offering consultation to public and private sector organisations- their teams, senior managers and CEOs. I have a psychotherapy practice where I see children and their parents and offer supervision to other psychotherapists. I also offer webinar series on the role of the father in families and society, democracy and observing organisations. With Rob Stuart I convene the OPUS Climate and Democracy Listening Posts.
From the early days of training, I have had an enduring interest in the work of W R Bion. He is far from easy to understand but I have found a way through his writing that makes sense to me whilst aligning with the sense many others make of him. I hope the journey I have taken will be of some help to those who attend this webinar.
