Chapter 3: Wilfred Bion: A Piercean Semiotic Reading

Wilfred Bion was a British psychoanalyst in the Kleinian object relations tradition who has become quite influential in recent years for his innovative use of projective identification and his theory of nonverbal psychic development. His writings are dense, often aphoristic, and lend themselves to multiple interpretations. I will suggest that a semiotic reading of Bion will help us clear up some inconsistencies. In particular, I will focus on Bion’s theory of thinking, which develops out of a primeval formlessness through a series of steps toward symbolic thinking. Piece’s triad of index, icon, and symbol will help us to order this progression. What is the nature of our most primitive thoughts? How do these primitive forms of thinking influence later behavior? Bion, in turn, will give a developmental theory to Peirce’s semiotic theory. Interestingly, both men struggled with the question of how to conceive of a mind that understands finite sequences when semiotic series have no potential starting and ending points. This is the question of pragmatics. How do we practically fit in a world of infinite possibilities and make finite choices? Peirce’s discussion of infinite series of semiotics will help us to unpack Bion’s concept of the infinite. I would emphasize that Bion and Peirce are writing in totally different domains. Bion is applying psychoanalytic theory to understand clinical phenomena and is loosely using theory from philosophy and theology as metaphors to illustrate his clinical points. Peirce is a philosopher of science and logic who developed a semiotic theory of signs and symbols as a means of communication. Communication, then, is the bridge between the two theorists, as Bion is trying to explain how the ability to communicate develops.