Wilfred Bion is regarded as a psychoanalytic purist and his austere portrayal
of the analytic aim and attitude is often considered to make impossible
demands on patient and analyst alike. Not surprisingly, the applicability of
Bion’s theory and recommended practice to once-weekly psychotherapeutic
work is often questioned. Bion is thus ambivalently regarded by
psychotherapists as the embodiment of an analytic ideal, whose developmental
theories are important, but whose practical utility is doubted,
especially in the context of the typical therapeutic setting. This paper seeks to
challenge these assumptions by presenting the once-weekly therapy of a
woman with attenuated mentalizing capacity and a tendency to destructive
acting out. The therapy was guided by the application of central concepts,
models and ‘technical’ principles emerging from my understanding of Bion’s
work. The aim of the paper is to demonstrate that Bion’s utility is not
confined to formal psychoanalytic settings and that his work may be usefully
applied in more modest psychotherapy contexts.