All My Sins Remembered: Another Part of a Life and the Other Side of Genius - Family Letters

252 Pages·2009·4.18 MB·English

by  Wilfred R. Bion

ALL MY SINS REMEMBERED
and
THE OTHER SIDE OF GENIUS

ALL MY SINS
REMEMBERED
Another Part of a Life
and
THE OTHER SIDE
OF GENIUS
Family Letters
WILFRED R. BION
EDITED
BY
FRANCESCA BION
KARNAC
0 The Estate of W. R. Bion 1985
First published by Fleetwood Press, 1985
Reprinted 1991 Kamac Books
By arrangement with Francesca Bion and Mark Paterson
Au rights mewed. No put of this pubhotion may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any
fonn or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of
Fleetwood Press.
ISBN 978 185575 8452
Bion family crest
Nisi dominus Jrustra
‘Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain
that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the
watchman waketh but in vain.’
Psalm 127. i
FOREWORD
The first volume of Wilfred Bion’s autobiography, The Long Week-end,
covered the period up to 1919 when he was demobilized from the
army and for the first time had to face civilian life as an adult, unqual-
ified for any profession, or indeed for any occupation by which he
might earn his living. Although incomplete and only in first draft, I
wanted to publish the remainder of what he wrote; but it leaves us
with a thirty-year blank and, even more unfortunately, an abiding
impression of unrelieved gloom and profound dislike of himself.
This sad, self-searching testimony would on its own present a
false picture of the life of a man who came to derive great happiness
and reward from his marriage, family and work. The clearest evi-
dence of this is provided by his letters to us, written with no audience
in mind and no need to lay stress on his sins of omission, confident
of our love and understanding. Almost all his creative thinking and
writing were done during these years when he was at last released
from the confines of war, bereavement and a sense of hopelessness.
We make public some of these private communications because
they tell the reader so much-not about us, his wife and children,
but about him, the husband 2nd father. We are proud to have beer?
his family and the recipients of his love.
Francesca Bion
Abingdon, Oxfordshire.
1984
6
FOREWORD TO THE LONG WEEK-END
Wilfred Bion was born in Muttra, in the United provinces of India,
in 1897. Many generations of his family (of Huguenot descent) had
served in India-as missionaries, in the Indian Police, and in the
Department of Public Works, At the age of eight he was sent to
England to attend preparatory school, never again to return to India.
All his life he retained a strong affection for the country of his birth;
he died in November 1979 two months before a planned visit to
Bombay.
His autobiography was left unfinished, but the years covered by
this book form a distinct period which ended with demobilization
just before he went up to Oxford to read History. He felt then that
he had to start life again, building on unsure foundations. He re-
garded himself as uneducated, out of touch with the world outside
school and the army, and demoralized by his experience of war.
Nevertheless his outstanding athletic ability in rugger and swim-
ming saved the day-just as it had done during his schooldays.
Although he felt that the war had left him unable to take advantage
of the opportunities offered at the university, he always recalled
with gratitude the talks he had with H. J. Paton, the philosopher. By
1924 it was clear to him where his interests lay-in psycho-analysis.
He started medical training at University College Hospital, London,
won the Gold Medal for Surgery, qualified in 1930, and then went
on to psycho-analytic training. At University College Hospital he
had contact with another outstanding man, Wilfred Trotter, the sur-
geon and author of Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War. Both Paton
and Trotter played a very great part in his intellectual development.
After the Second World War, during which he served as the Senior
Psychiatrist on the War Office Selection Board, he devoted the rest
of his life to the practice of psycho-analysis. He became one of the
foremost original thinkers in this field, and also in that of group
behaviour, lecturing widely and writing prolifically-many papers
and some fourteen books, most of which are now required reading
in training institutes.
He was Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Tavi-
stock Clinic, London, in 1945; Director of the London Clinic of
7
ALL MY SINS REMEMBERED
Psycho-analysis from 1956-62; and President of the British Psycho-
analytical Society from 1962-65.
In 1968 a request that he work in Los Angeles provided the oppor-
tunity to escape from what he called 'the cosy domesticity' of
England. The vast open spaces of the western United States awoke
in him memories of his childhood in India: the culture, however,
was altogether new to him. It released him from the confines of
traditionalism and enabled him to entertain his 'wild thoughts'; his
mind was as wide open to new impressions during the last decade
of his life as it had ever been in youth. So it was that in the alien,
vital, dangerous but superficially idyllic environment of California
he was stimulated to write the trilogy, A Memoir of the Future, a
psycho-analytically oriented autobiographical fantasy-the most
controversial and least understood of his works.
The qualities of courage and leadership, already evident by the
time he was twenty years old, stood him in good stead as a psycho-
analyst. He made plenty of enemies, as original thinkers always do,
but no amount of hostility ever deflected him from his determin-
ation to be true to himself and to his beliefs.
Although he originally intended to stay only three or four years
in California, he did not return to England until 1979. He died two
months later in Oxford, with the 'dreaming spires' visible from his
hospital bed.
Those who were fortunate enough to be touched by his wisdom
and affectionate concern were never quite the same again. We who
knew him well will carry something of him with us for the rest of
our lives.
Francesca Bion
Abingdon, Oxfordshire.
1982
8
ALL MY SINS
REMEMBERED
Another Part of a Life