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Bion’s concept of the psychoanalytic object. The psychoanalytic object is the object that psychoanalysis is concerned with, just like a mathematical object is the object studied by mathematics. According to Bion, the psychoanalytic object is unknowable, it can only be intuited and needs at least three Grid categories to be apprehensible at a representational level. It can be compared to the unknowable Kantian noumenon which may be reflected in numerous phenomena. The psychoanalytic object is a ‘constant conjunction of invariants’. In Bion’s view, analysts should focus on the intuition of these constant conjunctions, and refrain from a cause–effect approach and reasoning. In other words, analysts should focus on pattern recognition, which happens in a relaxed, open way, leaving logical deductive thought behind. Psychoanalytic objects are invisible, colourless, odourless and shapeless. It may be patterns of relationships, of behavior, of attraction, of attachment, of personality and so on. They are constituted of fixed links and appear indirectly in the stories and behavior and thoughts and feelings in the sessions and clearly in the transference–countertransference. According to Bion’s (1965) discussion of Transformations, the appearance of a psychoanalytic object can be very different according to the level of transformations that it undergoes. II. Fb. Four Types of Transformations Bion discerns four kinds of transformations: three transformations in Knowledge (K) at the level of representation of the psychoanalytic object and then the transformations in O, which is a new changing experience that alters the psychoanalytic object – a change that eventually may be grasped at a Knowledge or representational level. To differentiate and describe the three different transformations in knowledge or T(K), Bion uses projective geometry (Vermote, 2019). Here, the image of a triangle as a constant conjunction of the invariants A, B, C (the points that triangle connects) is instrumental. The triangle is used as a metaphor for a psychoanalytic object consisting of a constant conjunction between elements (Vermote 2019). II. Fba. Rigid Motion Transformations Rigid motion transformations are transformations within a (two-dimensional) plane like in Euclidean geometry; they do not entail much deformation of the psychoanalytic object. When one projects or glides a triangle from one plane to another, as from one piece of paper to another, it remains the same triangle. For Bion this is a metaphor for what happens in the classical transference of whole objects in psychoanalysis. The repetition of Oedipal rivalry in transference would be an instance of such a classical situation. In a rigid motion transformation, the relationship between invariants can easily be perceived during the transformation.
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