Our conference will offer various modes of engagement with Bion’s clinical thinking, particularly as it concerns itself with states of mind in which  the possibility of thought, of experience itself, is called into question.

To speak of psychosis here, whether in an individual or group context, runs the risk, warns Bion, of being too “macroscopic,” thereby missing another more “microscopic” vertex, one perhaps closer to the grounds of experience itself.

As his work develops, Bion becomes more focused on the question of how to “communicate the ineffable” in his clinical writing. Other vertices, including those of the philosopher, the physicist, the poet, the visual artist, the mathematician and mystic writer are enlisted.

We will invite contributions that explore Bion’s use of multiple vertices to open the areas of unthinkability and originary experience.