Main description:

Draws together Bion's scattered writings on dreams and dream interpretation * Offers a Bionian theory of mind * Offers a framework for psychoanalytic practice that is free of the need for certainty

Contents:

Part 1: On the Unknown, the Unknowable and the Unthinkable 1. Freud's Dream-Thoughts: An Uninvited Step into the Unknown, the Unknowable and the Unthinkable 2. Bion's Theory of Contact-Barrier: A Winding Road Into the Mysteries of the Human Mind 3. New Remarks on the Structure: And the Workings of the Contact-Barrier 4. The Conscious Mind and the Unconscious Mind: New Remarks on the Structure and the Workings of the Contact-Barrier 5. A Brief Historical Survey 6. Alpha-Function as a Cluster of Dreaming Functions 7. Mother's Reverie and the Mystery of Introjection 8. What is a Dream? 9. Bion's Theory of Dream-Work-Alpha: Part I 10. Bion's Theory of Dream-Work-Alpha: Part III 11. The Enigmatic Fabric of Mental Life 12. The Dreaming Ego 13. How Conscious is Conscious, and Unconscious Unconscious? 14. Freud's Wrestling with "The Fact of Consciousness" 15. What, Then, Is a Dream? 16. The Soul and the Stone 17. Still Unregistered Disorders 18. I Don't Know 19. What is Hearing? Part 2: 20. The Fundamental Basic Assumption of Psychoanalysis 21. The Myth of Interpretation and the Role of the Ineffable 22. The Slippery Word Understanding 23. Knowledge as a Privileged Path to Intimacy 24. Passion and the Wonder of Unmeasure 25. The Misfortune of Explanation 26. "Thinking with Passion is the Unconscious Thing" 27. The Inspiring Light of Perplexity and the Emerging Experience of Mystery: A Note Conclusion