Dare I Disturb the Universe? The Smile of Bion - A Tribute to James Grotstein

Artigo de Arnaldo Chuster [1]

During one of the breaks at the biennial EBOR meeting in Seattle, 2011, while walking along a path at Northwestern University, the venue for the event, I had one of many profound conversations with the extraordinary human being that was James Grotstein. In this conversation, always very humorous and kind, he told me about a session with Bion that was profoundly significant to him.

The topic of the conversation, which brought back the memory of this session, was about the technical proposal of Bion emphasizing the use of the unconscious to reach the conscious, and not the other way around, as is usually proposed in psychoanalysis. Grotstein pointed out that this represents a profound change in technique, as the use of intuition and imagination play a decisive role in the quality of the interpretation, and in the result it produces in the mental life of the analysand.

This transformation of technique is similar to what happens within an artist from the inception of a work of art to its realization, or the change of perspective similar to that which exists between the dreamer who embodies the dream, and the dreamer who tells the dream while awake. In the final result, it will be the skill of the artist or the dream narrator that is reflected in the quantity and quality of the meanings transmitted.

The same issues occur with the analyst when making changes of perspective to correspond to changes perceived in a session, until manifesting transformations in associations and interpretations.

I add that for intuition/imagination to find its time and place, the analyst must overcome the group dependency relationship with the couple memory and desire. Memory is feminine, desire is masculine. Memory seeks a desire to penetrate it, and desire seeks a memory to penetrate. Together, in the sensory bed, they produce a third, the need for understanding, which begins to decide on everything that happens, changing the direction of the analysis to various degrees of distortion of the observations.

In other words, this third element, an Oedipal baby produced by the couple of memory and desire, generates interpretations (transformations) that distort the observations made. Therefore, another pair must function, container and content, as free as possible from the Oedipal desires that constitute the analyst's blind spots, to create the vertex of a language of psychoanalytic reach (Chuster, 2023).

The modernism (T.S. Eliot) of expression without memory and without desire, can be replaced, as Bion (1970) did, by the expression derived from English Romanticism, negative capability (Keats), which achieves patience and detachment from the need for meanings, when facing mysteries, uncertainties, and doubts, or we can also replace it with the futurism of Nietzsche's expression, act of faith, which would be the willpower to put into play the ability to create something in the search for truth.

The fundamental characteristic of the language of psychoanalytic reach (Chuster, 2023), similar to the poetic, is to break with the vertex of everyday language and constitute itself as a source of semantic innovation (Bion, 1970; Chuster, 2023). It establishes a new vertex that is the thing-in-itself, the transcendent loving vertex of poiesis, a prelude to action, or words that incite the analysand to understand themselves. Understanding is part of the act itself, but the fundamental act is to help the analysand "become" themselves, or be able to inhabit the world with their possibilities.

Certainly, the vertex of instinctual conflicts that hinder psychic development remains present in the analytic work—as a possibility—among others, as well as the issue of anxieties produced by the concreteness of psychic reality. But the emphasis of analytic work in Bion is no longer on instinctual conflicts and object relations. The emphasis is placed on psychic functions, and on investigating the type of turbulence/transformations they cause. It involves a tragic ethic expressing itself at the vertices of failures or the successes of aesthetic and ethical values that regulate the quality of psychic life.

 In mythic-dreamlike-aesthetic terms, tragedy is the ethic that reveals the identity between God and Satan. It deals, as in Ancient Greece, with the idea that every god has a satanic side. In his quest to unite with God [2] (Bion, 1970), at-one-ment, an individual trying to be themselves inevitably comes into contact with their source of anguish, their deepest conflicts, because they realize that the gods have died, and humanity is abandoned near the edge of depression, in an empty space, whose only exit is to create their own universe of life.

In other words, all psychic functions always fail to some degree, causing various degrees of mental confusion whose pain deteriorates both internal and external life, but they can also produce an awakening that is a stimulus to think: as long as one learns to think from emotional experience.

Note that it is not about moral values, or judgments of what is right and wrong, nor about logics derived from determinism and positivism, but about ethical values that expand within the personality along with the aesthetic values associated through the language of psychoanalytic reach (Chuster, 2023). That is, psychoanalysts cannot in any way lead the lives of their analysands, but can help guide them according to their ideas and feelings, and thus, to know what those feelings and ideas are. (Bion, 1965, p.53)

The relationships between the two areas, aesthetics, as the quality of feelings, and ethics, as the strength of the ideas associated with these feelings, are embraced by the reverie/alpha function spectrum, whose action transforms into conceptions and the concepts by which the life of thought is expressed. It is essentially a complexity applied to psychoanalysis with the intent to expand the capacity to think.

The session Grotstein reported, occurred the day after the sudden death of a very close colleague, still quite young, with whom he worked. Jim recounted that he was very sad when he arrived at the session with Bion, and with tearful eyes, he reported the tragic event, adding that he felt inhibited from writing the obituary at the family's request. He also felt that day a lack of desire to conduct analysis.

He added that words did not come easily, and when they did, they seemed merely commonplace, a politically correct speech, that is, what everyone expected to be said.

Bion said, "Besides a kind of blindness that may come from your tears, call no man happy until he is dead."

Bion's interpretation caused him emotional turmoil, feelings of perplexity and outrage emerged, making him think that Bion was undergoing a transformation into hallucinosis, being sarcastic and cruel by praising death as being better than life, or being cynical about life. Those were the words he managed to say to Bion.

Bion countered by saying,

"By no means has your judgment, wounded by the unjust death, turned me into a restricted and cruel person. This phrase is not originally mine; it was once yours, as you have brought it up in a session before. At this moment, I don't know to whom it belongs—me, you, or both of us. I cannot decide on that. It was once spoken by Solon, as reported by Aristotle at the beginning of his book on Ethics [3], with whom you identified that day."

He continued:

"I think there is hope in the phrase because there is no wisdom in making judgments about a person's life based on a single incident, or even a set of incidents. They may be good or bad, happy or sad, they have their own particular reasons, but they do not provide reliable criteria for accessing the whole of a life (of which they are mere parts).

To properly judge a person's life, we need a broad narrative from the beginning to the end of a life. Death does not serve as an index, nor does birth. They are fleeting moments. We cannot say whether a life was truly good or bad, genuinely good or bad, genuinely valuable or worth living, or even pleasurable or horrific, unless we can know the whole.

That day, Grotstein added, as he left the session, he noticed one of the rarest things about Bion, both as an analyst in his office and in his institutional life: Bion, who was always very serious and usually said goodbye in the same manner, said "see you tomorrow" with a smile.

The emotional account equally moved me, and we spent a brief time in silence walking, but both of us were smiling. The day was clear, the vegetation on the campus was at its best moment of the year, a gentle breeze was blowing, leading the conversation in another direction.

At this point, my work takes two directions that may be related. The matter of Bion's smile, of smiling in general, and the possibility of discussing the Ethics of Psychoanalysis through its interpretive aesthetics.

Before proceeding, I must say that Jim Grotstein was an exemplary human being in every sector he passed through. In the bond I had with him, up until close to the day of his death, there was always wisdom conveyed to me with kindness and a smile. At no point could you see him depreciating any idea; he exercised full awareness that we can only access aspects of a personality, which are aspects of an ultimate reality that evolved until it intercepted the personality of the observer.

Since 2000, at least three times a year I went to Los Angeles, most of the time I met with him, and if not in person, at least I spoke by phone. There was also a frequent exchange of emails since 1997. On my way to board one of these trips, I received a message from an American colleague, asking if I knew about the worsening of the illness that would take him away at any moment. As soon as I landed in Los Angeles I called him. His secretary answered, and informed that he was no longer able to speak on the phone. Distressed, I just identified myself. I didn't know what else to say. I left a Hello! Thinking of the Beatles' song:

I say no, you say Yes. You say Stop and I say Go, go, go. You say, goodbye and I say hello, hello. 

Five minutes later, surprisingly, he called me. I noticed his voice was very weak and he struggled to speak, yet with humor, he said: 'I am on my deathbed, but I could not miss talking to you,' and then he jokingly quoted Shakespeare from Julius Caesar: 'Cowards die many times before their deaths, but the valiant taste of death but once.' Sorry I can’t talk much more... I said goodbye, and with a choked voice, all I could say was, 'thank you for everything you taught me, you’re the Man.' He softly replied with humor: 'don’t spread it out.'

I think that any quotation from Shakespeare seeks to show the effects of time on humanity, and how it can understand and respect it. Shakespeare's work is an intense reflection—in the deepest sense—namely, a reflection in motion, a tragic quest for truth, expressing the symmetry between feelings and the existence of a mind that seeks meanings. As Keats said, Shakespeare’s work is the speech of a Man of Achievement on human beings facing one of their greatest obstacles, time, and its offspring, namely: death, memory, and life. That's why it has become immortal, of infinite reach. Adding, Guimarães Rosa: language is a door to the infinite.

Unforgettable also was the time when Jim invited me, along with my colleague from Berkeley, John Stone, to dine at La Dolce Vita restaurant. Jim warned us that it was one of Frank Sinatra’s favorites. We sat at the same table Sinatra used to sit at, where behind on the wall there is a plaque and an oil portrait of the singer, and we ate his favorite food and drink [4]. Jim, always surprising, knew Sinatra like few people did. That day he mentioned that a song sung by Sinatra had a lot to do with analysis; the song is 'Dancing in the Dark.' He hummed the lyrics:

"Dancing in the dark, till the tune ends. We’re dancing in the dark and it soon ends. We're waltzing in the wonder of why we’re here. Time hurries by and we’re gone. We dance in the question of why we are here. Time passes quickly and we depart [5]."

He added that in analysis we can follow the lyrics up to a point, but there is always a space beyond lyrics, which lies in the sonic composition of feelings, in the rhythm itself (he often played with this expression "beyond" when referring to Bion).

I associate Grotstein's comment with what Bion said (1970, p. 97): in any object, material or immaterial, resides the ultimate unknowable reality, the thing in itself. Objects produce emanations, or emerging qualities or evolving characteristics that almost impose themselves as phenomena on the human personality. Of these qualities, the personality is aware, either consciously or unconsciously; they differ from the ultimate reality. And so, we go beyond.

That is, wisdom, whatever it may be, arises from this inquiry into the dark and unknown parts of ourselves, when we dance with our deepest questions, and even though knowledge also brings the inevitable mourning and pain of leaving ourselves behind, there is still beauty because there is music in life, or an aesthetics that we can salvage. This is the aesthetics of the true smile.

I expand the question: When does a person express through smiling the aesthetics of happiness in meeting? The reason for this question comes from the fact that there are countless people who are capable of laughing but not capable of smiling, as there are many people who live smiling because it is politically correct, like an advertiser, a product seller, or like a facade journalist who only gives news that agrees with his ideas, or people who smile simply as a disguise for their internal pursuit, or smile without any meaning as a movement of the sympathetic nervous system's contraction of the perilabial musculature.

Wisdom is not merely an addition of knowledge; wisdom is thought, and therefore it can bring happiness—Nietzsche said this (thinking is a celebration)—and happiness is a fleeting feeling because we need to keep thinking, however, in thinking we exercise the freedom and the right to pursue happiness. As the poets [6] tell us:

Sadness has no end,

Happiness does—

Happiness is like a feather

That the wind carries through the air,

It flies so light,

But it has a brief life,

It needs unending wind.

As a psychoanalyst, I believe I can place all our questions on the plane of Oedipal configurations and sufferings, for which only a language that has a loving matrix for truth can reach the necessary transcendence, that is, in the effort to create something new, we will try to rescue the enchantment of life.

In line with the above ideas, I suggest that in the endeavor of poiesis to find a language of psychoanalytic reach, we can find the analyst enchanted with their work.

At this point, I wonder if we can investigate through psychoanalysis the experience of happiness from wisdom using the Greek concept of eudaimonia. Literally, the word eudaimonia means 'good spirit,' which far from being simply an emotional state, translates more accurately as 'blessed.'

I will rescue this word from its religious appropriation, and try to free it to be able to speak freely about the language of psychoanalytic reach that allows the transcendence of the Oedipal configuration. In other words, the analyst needs to be free from these undue appropriations of words, to be able to focus on the Oedipal mental state that lies behind. If an analysand, to explain or justify their difficulties, uses words like blessed, or cursed, if they use correlatives like luck and misfortune, if they explain with astrology, magic, witchcraft, spiritualism, and charms, if they speak of orixás, if they use chemistry to explain relationship difficulties, etc., we can change to the psychoanalytic vertex.

I emphasize that we 'moderns' do not use the word 'blessed' well, because the immediate tendency is to understand it related to an external act of power, as is the case of blessing as a religious and magical pass. Any word, I insist, can be hijacked by non-psychoanalytic disciplines, no matter how sophisticated they may be, and often end up leaving it moribund. There are even societies of dead words.

In Ancient Greece, although the blessed had a connection with the gods (daimones), meaning 'approved by the gods,' or 'favored by them,' this did not mean an advantage. On the contrary, the gods only approved the individual who endeavored to be virtuous, who was a seeker of wisdom, more courageous in confessing his ignorance, and who stood out from worldly concerns. Thus, being blessed by the gods carried a commitment to live being responsible according to the potentiality that each one has. It was somewhat a mission in life, a defined direction, while living in a world where the most common is deviation to inconsequence and the ease of simplistic, moralistic, and positivist explanations.

I ask, for coherence of the theme, if the one who lets himself be carried away by deterministic and moralistic facilities, who rejects complexity, would not be the opposite of blessed, that is, cursed, or from the psychoanalytic vertex, a prisoner of their Oedipal configuration, or still, a prisoner of their inability to transcend it through language.

The responsibility assumed by the blessed implied living not to seek glory, nor to seek euphoria—the supreme mistress in producing with 'drugs' the difficult fleeting happiness—nor to achieve power. The pursuit of euphoria, of power for power’s sake, are acts that have the opposite meaning, that of the cursed, or the one who cannot be consequent with himself.

Whenever we observe phenomena using the Oedipal theory and its variations, we can assert that it always deals with the most psychoanalytic of all questions, the origin of all our intuition/imagination. Certainly, this varies from individual to individual, but the Oedipal configuration is present in any communication, any word that is used.

The one who has not managed to transcend their Oedipal destiny through self-knowledge, the one who has not managed to speak about themselves through creative metaphor, but only discourses in the manner described by Shakespeare in Macbeth: full of sound and fury, signifying absolutely nothing—this person is cursed.

The problem of becoming a prisoner of the Oedipal configuration lies, in summary, in being able to choose only two paths (Grotstein), that is, feeling like a victim of parents with all the reason in the world to claim rights and reparations, or making the parents the victims, and negotiating reparations and rights on their behalf. These are two facets of a spectrum that socially manifests in extremist political preferences and other fundamentalisms. These boil down to two positions, either constantly demanding reparations for victims even without knowing who is responsible, or always blaming the victims for not being able to make reparations, creating a false responsibility.

This problem appears in extremist science groups like the neo-Dionysians and the neo-Apollonians (Holton [7]) (Bion, 1970), who rigidly defend opposite positions, apparently fighting each other, thus becoming more rigid and more full of certainty, but those who end up suffering from the crossfire of misinformation and hatred towards knowledge are the majority who are in the middle.

When Oedipus goes to the Oracle he wants an answer to the question 'who am I?' The Oracle advertised that in that place one could find the answer: it placed on the portal the words: know thyself. However, the arrogance of the Pythia provides only a half-answer, therefore, she utters a half-truth, which is nothing more than a good lie. Finally, with a discourse of hatred, full of sound and fury, she says that Oedipus is cursed, terrifying him and inducing him to his tragic fate. The Oracle broke with the Ethics of human knowledge, keeping the truth to itself.

Being that the unknown can lead through turbulence to pre-catastrophic states.

The corruption of words, through impatience, by the submersion of the subject, and by the mutilation of the essential of communication, only serves to misinform, and it is a way to stop creativity, freeze words in the face of the unknown, idealize them, mystify them until they take the path of lies [8].

Certainly, all these aspects have existed since the world is world, and can be found in the broad view of the myth of Oedipus. Freud, the blessed one, showed us this. But it depends on us psychoanalysts to adopt a spectral vertex including everything possible coming from the plots of Sophocles, he who like Freud, was able to see the Oedipus inside and outside of himself, distributing this knowledge to humans.

Bion (1970) says that certain elements of the development of psychoanalysis are not new or peculiar to psychoanalysis, but in fact have a history that suggests they transcend the roots of race, time, and discipline, and are inherent to the relationship of the mystic with the group. In other words, these are Oedipal issues, as Oedipus in his search for truth encounters in the institutions in his path—Oracle, Laius, Sphinx, the city of Thebes—rejection of his quest. It would have been a blessing if he had found it in the first institution he sought, the Oracle, but he was the target of a half-truth that even calls him miserable (cursed by the gods), words that he himself utters when he goes into exile.

The cursed does not have the protection of the ethical contact barrier, and thus cannot avoid their hatred, nor stop being a target of the hatred of others, and thus needs to discharge it on someone or on the group. I affirm that the breach with ethics produces and proliferates feelings of guilt, which in turn are responsible for acts of destruction and terrorism, both on the private and public planes.

The concept of eudaimonia is like a pregnancy, it has many unfoldings. In Aristotle, the unfoldings appear in his analysis that a blessed person needs to show diligence in life (arête) by practicing moral discernment or wisdom in relation to practical actions (phronesis). Here comes an evaluation that true eudaimonia, the whole of a life, when exposed needs to show that it has reached the highest degree of correct functioning.

Concepts such as good enough mother may have arisen from distant winds blown by this vision of the ethics of quality of life, not failing to warn that a good enough mother can only be for a moment in the life of the child; the real results of an individual's life need to add the attitude of many other people, whose role played over many years show that that life is achieving arête.

For Aristotle, each person has a specific potentiality that is built in the depths of their being or singularity. This potentiality in Bion is the pre-conception, but it is also the realization, and the conceptions and concepts that it manages to give birth to.

Regarding the specific potentiality (singularity), and its importance for psychoanalysis, I will mention another experience that was related to me by an analysand of Bion.

Don Marcus in his first interview for analysis with Bion, encountered a man whose seriousness was uncomfortable to him. He had had contact with Bion from a distance, attending his conferences at the Veteran Administration Hospital, but judged that the seriousness was part of his institutional persona. However, he came with the expectation of finding a welcoming Bion in the office.

At the moment of this perception of discomfort, it crossed his mind that he was entering a battlefield full of dangers, with little possibility of survival [9]. He felt before a Warlord. Occurred to him, given the tension caused by the persecutory feeling, to relax himself by telling picturesque and amusing facts about his family environment. Bion, very serious, showing astonishment in his gaze, raised his thick eyebrows and asked if he was in some way trying to impress him, and if there was something violent at that moment that he was trying to hide.

Without waiting for a response, Bion said; know that having lived up to today, which includes having been directly involved in two world wars, and other risky fights in institutions, little in this life can impress me. Why did you seek analysis? Everything so far seems very fine with you. Perhaps you should take another path.

Don Marcus [10] said he was perplexed by Bion's intuitive capture of the battle he imagined he was avoiding. But, he added, it was a delightful perplexity, and said: Bion worked using the unconscious to reach the conscious; it was not a matter of making the unconscious conscious, but of working on the transfer respecting the communication from unconscious to unconscious—always privileging the link.

The so Aristotelian principle of singularity implies that there are no people with accidental origin or by chance of fate. Instead, each individual is created according to what Aristotle called telos—a purpose. Only someone who seeks at-one-ment, harmony with themselves, without being carried away by the splitting that affects us all from the beginnings of life, is achieving their telos... Then, and only then, can we talk about having added possibilities of achieving some happiness, which would already be a true blessing for improving the quality of life.

To conclude I quote Bion at the Paris Conference (July, 1978):

It is very important for you to be aware that you will never be satisfied with the analytical career if you feel that it restricts itself to what is strictly called the “scientific” approach. There must be a chance to feel that the interpretation you offer is a beautiful interpretation, or that you obtain a beautiful response from the patient. This aesthetic element of beauty makes a very difficult situation tolerable.

It is extremely important to dare to think or feel whatever you feel or think, no matter how little, or not at all, scientific it may be.

Jim and Shirley Gooch from Los Angeles recount that at the airport, before boarding for London, unknowingly on his last trip in life, Bion smiled and said: continue the adventure [11].

I hope that those who have been able to listen to me so far have been able to share with me my adventure and my enchantment of working with psychoanalysis.

Notes

1 Full and Teaching Member of the SPRJ, Full Member of the Newport Psychoanalytical Institute, California, Honorary Member of the W. Bion Institute, Porto Alegre.

2  In English Romanticism, poets say that the development of the human being depends on new ideas that have never been adopted before and on their gradual assimilation. Scientists discover these ideas, artists are inspired by them. Both are correct, and perhaps we should not, in the case of the analyst, make a distinction between science and art. Union with God would be the pursuit of truth, which is part of the work of scientists, artists, and psychoanalysts.

3  Lives do not fit into obituaries; lives are bigger than them. They are not collections of incidental traits or fleeting circumstances; nor are they about good or bad decisions that were made at one time or another. Thus, to say that a life was worth living, it is necessary to know it as a whole, and to realize that there are no more chapters to add. Then, we will be in a position to know what kind of life it really was, whether it was joyful or sad, or something more thoughtful.

4  Tuna tartare, eggplant caponata with almonds, gnocchi with veal meatballs, Prosecco.

5  And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. - Nietzsche.

6  Tom Jobim/Vinicius de Moraes.

7  Holton, Gerard, "The Scientific Imagination," Zahar, 1979.

8 Those corrupted by the speech of the corruptor of speech may experience euphoria and sensations of triumph typical of hallucinosis, all brought about by the fleeting, worldly comforts of acts, lies, and empty bravado. However, those who support them fall into the ditch of frustration and bitterness, and may, in revenge, support all perverse forms of hypocrisy, hatred, and racism.

9  He later admitted that data from Bion's biography in World War I may have influenced him to think about this. Marcus's family came to the United States fleeing the effects of this War: famine, unemployment, decay of political systems, disillusionment.

10  Personal communication.

11  Personal communication.