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because the part-object relationship is not with the anatomical structures only but with function, not with anatomy but with physiology, not with the breast but with feeding, poisoning, loving, hating” (p. 146). In sum: ongoing mental functions and processes served by emotions and emotional experiences became objects of psychoanalytic observation, and Bion provided a model for their always-evolving nature with the theory of transformations. The theory of thinking preceded Bion’s model of transformations. He presented it in, “The psycho-analytic study of thinking” (Bion 1962a, VI, pp. 153-161; retitled “A theory of thinking” in 1967), and his first book, Learning from Experience (Bion 1962b, IV, pp. 261- 365). The theory of thinking proposes a developmental scheme originating with emotions in which the mind develops its processes of thinking in order to modulate those emotions. He proposed the signs L, H, and K, to stand for emotional linking qualities related to loving, hating, and knowing. Learning From Experience also introduces Bion’s associated theory of functions (pp. 263-266; pp. 269-271). His second book, Elements of Psychoanalysis (Bion 1963a, V, pp. 7-86), continued these investigations. It contains an instrument he named “The Grid” (first introduced in Learning from Experience ), which has particular relevance for the theory of transformations (see below, “Transformations, The Grid, and Lateral Communication”). Ultimately, Bion derived his theory of transformations from the theories of thinking and of functions (see below, “Transformations” and the “Theory of Thinking”). Bion uses the term “transformations” in two related ways, one as the name of a theorized model of observation, and the other as a term describing a form of ongoing evolutionary mental change. The basic, mathematized form of the theory is: O ➔ Tα ➔ Tβ This may be applied to Bion’s first example of a painter in a field of flowers. To recap, a path and a field of poppies exists; a painter arrives, develops emotional experiences that evolve, and creates a painting reflecting those emotional states. Bion emphasized that this process preserves some essence or qualities of the actual field of flowers and the painter’s emotional states from start to finish. Regarding the painter in the field: — The total situation of the painter’s presence in actual path and field, and his initial emotional states, may be represented by the sign O — The painter’s evolving emotional experiences in the field are represented by Tα, in which the sign T stands for transformation; Tα indicates the processes of transformation of the original experience — The sign Tβ indicates the product, or result, of the painter’s transformed emotional experiences, and in this instance represents the painting and its emotional qualities
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