On Minding and Being Minded: Experiencing Bion and Beckett

Buy On Minding and Being Minded here. - Free delivery worldwide

On Minding and Being Minded explores links between depictions of lived experience written by Samuel Beckett and the experience of psychoanalytic psychotherapy pioneered in the writings of W.R. Bion. These robust literary and clinical intersections are made explicit within the demanding culture of twenty-first century psychotherapy as patient demand for time-limited, result-driven therapeutic outcomes conflicts sharply with the contours of intensive, long-term psychotherapy.

Bion and Beckett present elements of familiarity to the practicing psychoanalyst which emerge tantalizingly, out of explicit reach, yet become knowable through interpersonal engagement. These stutterings and intimations are thick with meaning, suggestively presented in passing. They hint at how it is for the patient, provoking excitations of thinking; and, like the mental constructions of us all, their articulation conceals deep artistry.

On Minding and Being Minded provides a therapeutic link bridging the single session with multiple session psychotherapy focused upon the dynamic engagement of patient and therapist. This is the social workshop within which Bion's 'learning from experience' occurs. Not only does the analyst supply the requirements for its construction in provision of space, time, and boundary, but also bears in mind the psychoanalytic object itself, its feel, tang, and experiential shape, initially unknowable to the patient.

Samuel Beckett - Quotes

The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.
Beckett, Samuel. Murphy. 1938.

God is a witness that cannot be sworn.
Beckett, Samuel. Watt. 1943.

Memories are killing. So you must not think of certain things, of those that are dear to you, or rather you must think of them, for if you don’t there is the danger of finding them, in your mind, little by little.
Beckett, Samuel. The Expelled. 1946.

They were most correct, according to their god.
Beckett, Samuel. The Expelled. 1946.

I have always been amazed at my contemporaries’ lack of finesse, I whose soul writhed from morning to night, in the mere quest of itself.
Beckett, Samuel. The Expelled. 1946.

They never lynch children, babies, no matter what they do they are whitewashed in advance.
Beckett, Samuel. The Expelled. 1946.

I don’t know why I told this story. I could just as well have told another. Perhaps some other time I’ll be able to tell another.Living souls, you will see how alike they are.
Beckett, Samuel. The Expelled. 1946.

The short winter’s day was drawing to a close. It seems to me sometimes that these are the only days I have ever known, and especially that most charming moment of all, just before night wipes them out.
Beckett, Samuel. The Expelled. 1946.

I felt ill at ease with all this air about me, lost before the confusion of innumerable prospects.
Beckett, Samuel. The Expelled. 1946.

Yes, I don’t know why, but I have never been disappointed, and I often was in the early days, without feeling at the same time, or a moment later, an undeniable relief.
Beckett, Samuel. The Expelled. 1946.

Poor juvenile solutions, explaining nothing. No need then for caution, we may reason on to our heart’s content, the fog won’t lift.
Beckett, Samuel. The Expelled. 1946.

Does one ever know oneself why one laughs?
Beckett, Samuel. The Expelled. 1946.

All I say cancels out, I’ll have said nothing.
Beckett, Samuel. The Calmative. 1946.

To think that in a moment all will be said, all to do again.
Beckett, Samuel. The Calmative. 1946.

How tell what remains ? But it’s the end. Or have I been dreaming, am I dreaming? No no, none of that, for dream is nothing, a joke, and significant what is worse.
Beckett, Samuel. The Calmative. 1946.

I marshalled the words and opened my mouth, thinking I would hear them. But all I heard was a kind of rattle, unintelligible even to me who knew what was intended.
Beckett, Samuel. The Calmative. 1946.

It’s to me this evening something has to happen, to my body as in myth and metamorphosis, this old body to which nothing ever happened, or so little, which never met with anything, wished for anything, in its tarnished universe, except for the mirrors to shatter, the plane, the curved, the magnifying, the minifying, and to vanish in the havoc of its images.
Beckett, Samuel. The Calmative. 1946.

To contrive a little kingdom, in the midst of the universal muck, then shit on it, ah that was me all over.
Beckett, Samuel. The End. 1946.

I knew it would soon be the end, so I played the part, you know, the part of — how shall I say, I don’t know.
Beckett, Samuel. The End. 1946.

Normally I didn’t see a great deal. I didn’t hear a great deal either. I didn’t pay attention. Strictly speaking I wasn’t there. Strictly speaking I believe I’ve never been anywhere.
Beckett, Samuel. The End. 1946.

Do you ever think? The voice, God forbid.
Beckett, Samuel. The End. 1946.

I tried to groan, Help! Help! But the tone that came out was that of polite conversation.
Beckett, Samuel. The End. 1946.

I felt weak, perhaps I was.
Beckett, Samuel. The End. 1946.

It was long since I had longed for anything and the effect on me was horrible.
Beckett, Samuel. The End. 1946.

The earth makes a sound as of sighs and the last drops fall from the emptied cloudless sky. A small boy, stretching out his hands and looking up at the blue sky, asked his mother how such a thing was possible. Fuck off, she said.
Beckett, Samuel. The End. 1946.

I didn’t feel well, but they told me I was well enough. They didn’t say in so many words that I was as well as I would ever be, but that was the implication.
Beckett, Samuel. The End. 1946.

Don't wait to be hunted to hide, that's always been my motto.
Beckett, Samuel. Molloy. 1951.

To restore silence is the role of objects.
Beckett, Samuel. Molloy. 1951.

To him who has nothing it is forbidden not to relish filth.
Beckett, Samuel. Molloy. 1951.

Yes, there were times when I forgot not only who I was, but that I was, forgot to be.
Beckett, Samuel. Molloy. 1951.


Source:  European Graduate School (EGS)