Being a psychoanalyst: A personal journey with Bion

Michal Lapinski

I am grateful for the encouragement and for being given the opportunity to publish this paper here. I have offered it with certain hesitation because of its personal and subjective nature. The way it was originally written was justified by the circumstances of its initial presentation: at the EPF conference in March 2018 which took place in Warsaw and was hosted by the Polish Psychoanalytical Society. Warsaw is the city of my birth, and there I also began my life as an analyst. My life and analytical journey have taken me across the globe and brought me here, to the other side of the world. I used this paper as an opportunity to offer reflections on my analytical path, with the hope that they refer also to more general analytical issues, worth discussing and not limited to any particular continent, nor personal context. With the same intention, I also shared this paper at the conference in Mumbai in September 2018.

A virtual companion in my discussion is Bion. You may ask why? Many people and ideas have assisted me on my analytical journey, however, Bion has been most influential in guiding me through the significant part of my later development, and has helped me to be where I am now. Therefore, I will be using some of his thoughts, and my own ideas inspired by his work, as a part of what I am going to reflect on.

Unfortunately, for the reason of confidentiality, the clinical material which constituted an important part of my discussion had to be excluded from this publication. I incorporated instead my reflections on the "paranoid personality of our times", a part of another paper I presented the following year in Warsaw at the conference of the Polish Psychoanalytical Society on that theme.

Download pdf

The beginnings

Bion leads us to consider that a thought that may become a word has to be acquired, born out of experience — and as he puts it using his favourite Milton's expression — "won from the void and formless infinite".

He lets us contemplate that crucial moment when a choice is made, at the crossroads of the psyche, where one path leads to a birth of thought, and the other — away from it. He considers it "the critical decision", and the choice as "one that lies between procedures designed to evade frustration and those designed to modify it." (Bion, 1962). The first direction is inimical to thinking; the latter path leads to the development of the processing and thinking mind.

The choice is made poignant by the fact that the mind from the onset has to deal with loss and psychic pain — and this process continues through life.

When Bion talks about the choice he does not tell us who is making that choice, and on what basis it is made. This may suggest the objectless world, a "formless infinite". But it would be only an illusion of an unpeopled universe in which the "I" bears the name of existence.

In fact, a thought does not come about by itself. In order to come to being it needs Another — the breast - the mind - the person — who, as it is discovered later, is coupled with another Other.

A lot needs to happen in that relationship and in others for the life experiences to be tolerated, contained and processed for the thought to be given a home, "a habitation and a name" (William Blake), and for the mind to grow. But how does it all begin? … Maybe the very origins of mental life will remain obscure as ever.

These considerations bring me to a related question, how is an analyst born? How does one become an analyst? Bion says, "You can't make doctors or analysts they have to be born." (Bion, 1994) but we may say that even though the germ of personality is formed in the earliest childhood, and even in the womb of the mother, the birth of an analyst, similarly as the psychological birth of a human being, is extended over time.

So if there is such a thing as a psychoanalytic personality, then maybe it is worth asking how such a person has come to being; how someone, at a certain stage of his life, comes to the decision to explore the conscious and unconscious mind. He embarks on an analytical journey, first, of course, starting with himself, and then helping others in their explorations. If we relate such a journey to someone's life history, we perhaps could consider events, influences and developments that were instrumental and formative for someone becoming and being an analyst for a large part of one's life.

I could identify certain areas which, looking from the current perspective, could be considered important in leading me towards the path of psychoanalysis. I will highlight only some of them, those which I hope may be of general interest and worth discussing.

Loss and trauma, as well as survival and recovery, have been as much a part of my life and the life of my family across the three generations, as they have constituted a part of the history of Poland, the country of my birth.

My maternal grandparents, together with their 3-year-old daughter — my mother — escaped from Russia, where they lived at the time, after the Bolshevik revolution. When I was 3, we lost our home, and the foundations of our existence were destroyed when after the fall of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising we ended up being deported out of the burning city.

But our family, luckier than many others, largely survived. My father went unscathed when fighting the Germans in 1939. He could also thank his luck for being just wounded on the first day of the Warsaw Uprising, thus escaping the fate of thousands of his combatant colleagues who perished. The only close death was of my maternal uncle killed by the Soviets when they invaded Eastern Poland in 1939. I have never met him, of course, but I was given his name as my middle name.

Much later, my own adult family also was to undergo the trauma and loss associated with our migration to Australia. It was our attempt to survive and recover from the loss of any hope for a free democratic Poland which had been irrevocably, as we believed at the time, destroyed under the sway of the martial law imposed in 1981, crushing not only the Solidarity movement but also the spirit of the people.

Traumatic loss can be kept at bay, but its effects, even if not seen, may not be erased. The process of recovery from the disintegration invoked by the trauma may lead to an integration that can be more or less constructive.

I was growing up after the 2nd World War when the country was rebuilt, as was the existence of my original family, in the more peaceful but still not easy times. Warsaw, as we see it today, like Phoenix raised from the ashes, but its rebirth was directed and controlled by the new communist regime, which had been brought in on the bayonets of the Soviets — liberators/occupants — and sanctioned by the post-war partition of Europe, divided by the Iron Curtain.

That development was a form of reintegration for the city and country which suffered traumatic disintegration through the period of war and upheaval. At the same time, it was like a pathological organisation that secured a form of survival and fostered some growth, but at the cost of suppression of freedoms and of lasting impoverishment — not only of the material existence but of the spirit.

Growing up in that system, even though might not necessarily expose you to the extremes of oppression, certainly meant living in a depriving and severely constrained environment. You were also confronted with the need to find your way through a web of distortions, obfuscations and lies, which, despite your efforts, you might find yourself to be caught in, particularly if you listened only to the propaganda, and did not have access to alternative views.

Looking back, I can see that I was fortunate to be made aware of different perspectives and thus to have an opportunity to develop some critical thinking. I was challenged in that direction by conflicting views that were expressed, sometimes fiercely, within my family in political discussions between my father and my maternal grandfather. I was also exposed to the clash between the official propaganda in media pronouncements and in what was taught at school, and from what I learned listening to jammed broadcasts of Radio Free Europe and The Voice of America.

I learnt, painstakingly at times, about the importance and fragility of truth. I could experience first-hand the destructive impact of propaganda, and the threat arising from any kind of dogmatism.

At the same time, it led me to gradually develop the conviction that the best way towards understanding is through the dialectics of the opposites, through a scenario of discussion and debate, which involves continuous questioning of the givens and beliefs, and should also include verification of data from various sources.

Thus, long before I discovered psychoanalysis, I had been interested in the relationship with truth and with reality, and also aware of threats and obstacles to them.

Becoming an analyst

On that topic, Bion says the following,

"… you can go on too long with training and seminars. It is only after you have qualified [as an analyst] that you have a chance of becoming an analyst. The analyst you become is you and you alone; you have to respect the uniqueness of your own personality—that is what you use, not all these interpretations ..." (Bion, 1994, p. 15) "… that somebody else would give, (and you may end up using) instead of giving the interpretation you want to give. " (p. 16)

This refers to a general theme of growth of the psyche which Bion discusses in many ways. He highlights also obstacles to that growth arising from lack of freedom, from the deficiency of a breathing, nourishing space in which thought can germinate and propagate.

This applies also to the growth of a psychoanalyst. Having experienced psychoanalytic societies and institutions, I can see his point. The structure of teaching programs can prevail over content; the essence of what psychoanalysis is about can be lost in a labyrinth of soulless procedures or bureaucratic requirements; the toxic politics can thwart collegial collaboration and debate. But the idea that you become an analyst only after you have freed yourself from the yoke of the training does not convince me.

However, what can I say? The history of my psychoanalytical education illustrates different kinds of problems, arising from the training conducted outside established psychoanalytic organisations. Now that kind of psychoanalytical education has become a common occurrence and has been to a large extent institutionalised in various parts of the world, where support and some structure is offered to those who seek training, without having a local body to offer it.

When I decided to become an analyst while living in one of the euphemistically called "people's democracies" of Eastern Europe, there was no available support or facilitation for someone who wanted to train as an analyst. It was an individual endeavour, severely hampered by lack of access to training analysts as well as by the existence of impenetrable borders and by financial restrictions. Therefore, it required considerable motivation, persistence and often sacrifices.

In those difficult circumstances, I benefitted from the opportunity to become a member of a group of enthusiastic and committed psychotherapists who managed to conduct psychoanalytically oriented work, creating, in the unfavourable environment, a unique niche in which we could develop and grow. The work at the beginning principally involved group psychotherapy and was psychodynamic in its approach. Gradually, it underwent some differentiation, and some of us chose the strictly psychoanalytic path. I was one of them.

I was certainly driven, as many analytical candidates are, by the need to deal with my personal issues such as the conflictual relationship with my authoritarian father; the profound impact of the death of my mother when I was still a medical student; the subsequent dispersion of my original family; and later, my wish to succeed in my own adult family life.

My motivation also flowed on from the belief that in order to deeply understand other people you have to do it first with yourself. I wanted to grow within a psychoanalytically oriented framework, and I was aiming to achieve what I believed was the best realisation of that endeavour — by becoming an analyst.

Bion pays a lot of attention to the discerning of what is genuine and essential in the analytical function. He is at pains to demonstrate the difference between what this entity called psychoanalysis really is, and what it only purports to be when it relies not on its "essence" but on tokens, shibboleths and other derivatives of the craft, that can replace or obscure "the real thing".

One of the major obstacles to becoming an analyst, is, paradoxically, according to Bion, a strong urge to prove that one is, or is called, an analyst. This can restrict the capacity to function really analytically.

I believe that even when one is endorsed as an analyst, this is only the beginning. The analytical life is a continuous process of being, learning and becoming. And this is not equivalent to acquiring a title or a status, however prestigious it might be, and neither should it lead to "resting on your laurels".

Initially, that certainly was not a problem for me. Becoming an analyst in Poland would not lead to an elevation in professional status, increased prestige nor to financial gains. I could very well continue to practice as a psychotherapist. But I chose the analytical path.

The fact that my training took place outside established training structures influenced me in several ways. Firstly, it highlighted for me the importance of personal analysis. Mine was conducted in Prague, in Czechoslovakia, by one of the few direct members of the IPA who somehow managed to continue practising psychoanalysis, one could say, underground. I stayed in Prague for prolonged periods, then travelled there, on what would be now called a "shuttle basis".

I considered personal analysis the central part of my analytical development. It was not just a treatment tool nor a training requirement, but a meaningful endeavour, combining the need for personal and professional growth. I felt that one flowed from the other, in "mutual interrelatedness.

As the result of my experience of "the real thing", I had to revise many idealisations of psychoanalysis but I indeed found a confirmation of my initial supposition that there was something special and worthwhile about it.

I highly valued any opportunity for analytical supervision, the more so that my access to it was limited and difficult. I tried to use thoroughly and extract as much as I could from every supervision hour and continued that work on my own.

Probably in the result of those experiences, in my approach to supervision I rely on the premise that the supervisee should not be offered a super-vision of someone who "knows best" but be encouraged to appreciate understanding that she derives from experiencing her own work and learning from it — thus becoming her own supervisor.

I consider it very important in the development of an analyst not only to continue with self-analysis but, regardless of the level of his experience, to have an opportunity to compare and contrast one's own work with that of others. During my training, I was missing contact with other candidates. I compensated for that deficiency by using every opportunity to take part in analytical meetings and conferences. Later, throughout my whole analytical life, I participated in peer groups as well as in clinical meetings, like those organised by the EPF, in which analytical work is explored in detail and in-depth.

I have been reading psychoanalytical literature long before embarking on the defined analytical path. Obtaining it required, of course, a considerable effort. Later, the psychoanalytic interest group which I founded in Warsaw had access to the literature thanks to donations received via the IPA. It helped me in conducting regular psychoanalytical seminars.

I have continued reading throughout my analytical life out of my own interest, for the reasons of self-learning and teaching. My diverse reading has led me to see psychoanalysis as a "broad church", encompassing various theoretical orientations and different approaches to practice. At the same time, I have not been committed to any particular "denomination", even though I might identify myself periodically with one or another.

My misgivings about accepting any dogmatism or doctrine have led me naturally to a more eclectic perspective from which I feel free to use various theoretic approaches. From this perspective, they can be considered to represent different ways of describing the same thing— an analytical object. For example, a "Kleinian" baby, a "Winnicottian" one, and the one described let's say, by Lacan, are still referring to the same infant whose condition and "nature" we try to elucidate.

At the same time eclecticism can suffer from a certain lack of consistency, and liberalism, when taken too far, may become an acceptance that "anything goes". I have seen examples of questionable or even dangerous developments when the pursuit of such "freedoms" was disguising entitled omnipotence; when scrutiny was avoided and self-reflection became absent.

Perhaps we may consider narcissism as an occupational hazard for the analyst, not so much in its more benign self-comforting and self-affirming aspect but one associated with grandiosity and righteousness. This form of narcissism may arise from various sources but can be fuelled by insecurity and anxiety which are intrinsic to our difficult profession.

If it is associated with omnipotent and entitled overreach, it can lead to boundary encroachments, sometimes with disastrous consequences. But the fear of transgressions can also breed a self-centred attitude in which the analyst may see himself as righteous and superior—paternalistically, as a source of all wisdom, or, maternally, as a source of all goodness. Primary maternal preoccupation or primary paternal contribution can be replaced primarily by narcissistic inclination. When such an attitude becomes uncritically entrenched there is not much room for acknowledgement that the patient not only takes but contributes, and that the analytical candidate can useful insights. A dualistic perspective can be distorted and the dialectical approach becomes one-directional.

Bion helps us to understand that there is always a need for a container—but it should not be like a straitjacket; the boundaries are necessary—but they need to be adaptable. There is always a dialectic tension between a creative "wild" idea and the need for its "taming". He elucidates it clearly when he talks about the relationship between the mystic and the establishment, which is relevant not only for the group but also for intrapsychic processes. (Bion, 1970)

Claiming allegiance to a doctrine or to "the best way to practice the proper analysis" can be reassuring but at the same time, it can pave the way to an ivory tower where psychoanalysis may only vegetate and stagnate rather than vigorously grow.

Notwithstanding the importance of a debate between various viewpoints, such a debate can become problematic when it ceases to be a potentially productive contest of ideas and become an expression of sectarian allegiances, which Bion dismisses with the following,

" ...it does seem to be rather ridiculous that one finds oneself in a position of being supposed to be in that line of succession, instead of just one of the units in it. It is still more ridiculous that one is expected to participate in a sort of competition for precedence as to who is top. Top of what? ... I am always hearing ... that I am a Kleinian, that I am crazy; or that I am not a Kleinian, or not a psychoanalyst. Is it possible to be interested in that sort of dispute?"

Difficulties of being an analyst