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to be thought, they must undergo transformation. In this regard, transformations of raw experience ( beta elements ) are required so that they may be thought about or stored—this process occurs through the alpha function . In his Theory of Thinking (1962a), Bion asserts that when the innate preconception or expectation of the object (the breast) is unmet and encounters frustration, the result is a thought (or alpha element ). If the capacity to tolerate frustration is sufficient, then the "no-breast" within is transformed into a thought, and a mental apparatus for thinking develops. However, if the capacity to tolerate frustration is insufficient, what should become a thought instead becomes a bad object , indistinguishable from a thing-in-itself , and is only fit for evacuation ( beta element ):“What should be a thought, a product of the juxtaposition of pre-conception and negative realization, becomes a bad object, indistinguishable from a thing-in-itself, fit only for evacuation” (Bion, 1962a, p. 307). From this passage, one may infer that an alpha element or thought is precisely a representation , insofar as it is differentiated from the thing-in-itself (the breast) and can therefore represent it in its absence. The beta element , by contrast, being indistinguishable from the thing-in-itself , is incapable of representing it in its absence and can only be expelled. Initially, emotional experience is intersubjective in nature; in the infant, it requires the maternal function to give meaning to the experience so that it may be transformed into a storable form. In this context, Bion refers to the maternal reverie as an introjectable function, essential for transforming raw emotional states into a form that allows for psychic storage and later use by the mental apparatus. Here, the entire theory of transformations seeks to account for the representability of experience—from beta elements , which are raw emotional states, to alpha elements , which have undergone a transformation that enables psychic storage via the alpha function . Beta elements cannot be stored; they serve only for evacuation, even though they also fulfill an intersubjective communicative function (when the mother receives the infant’s beta elements , she receives the infant’s emotional communication and is thus able to transform it, contributing to the infant's emotional regulation.) In this sense, Bion proposes a series of transformations he designates as transformations in K (Knowledge), a process which enables understanding and learning from experience. Later, in “Transformations”, Bion (1965) addresses another type of transformation, referred to as transformations in O , which involve a transformation without the mediation of a prior mental representation. Rather, this transformation is linked to intuition , where contact is made with ultimate reality or the thing-in-itself , without the intervention of representational processes. In this context, it can be argued that beta elements are not properly psychic elements, but rather emotions situated at the somato-psychic interface , which, when transformed into alpha elements , become stored within the psychic apparatus and thus represented. Only once beta elements are transformed into alpha elements – i.e., once they have become psychi c – they can achieve saturation of meaning, acquire symbolic status , be linked together with other
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