On Using Bion’s Concepts of Point, Line, and Linking in the Analysis of a 6-Year-Old Child

Abstract

In Transformations Bion deals extensively with the concepts of point and line. Investigating their origin and nature, he explores the process of symbolization that leads to the birth of the psyche—and to the continuous re-birth that occurs (or should occur) in analysis—as well its failures in psychosis. His thesis is that the point is equivalent to the perceptual and emotional experience of the no-breast, the line to the temporal evolution of the point. Here we attempt an introductory reading to these rich but difficult pages in the light of Bion’s concept of attacks on linking and of clinical material.