ABSTRACT
Bion (1962a, 1962b, 1992) proposed that the capacity to think first develops when emotional experiences without meaning (beta elements) are transformed by a hypothetical maternal function (alpha function) into mental elements (alpha elements). The latter, which are imagetic symbols (Langer, 1942), become linked to one another, bound to words and have the potential to generate new, more complex derivative forms of symbols, that represent reality when it is absent and generate and represent new emotional meanings for experiences. Little by little, infants introject the alpha function received from their mothers—or, better stated, they internalize a complex intersubjective relationship between baby and mother (Brown, 2011) that supports and facilitates their own emerging capacity to dream and therefore to think. This transformation of what might be called “biological facts” into mental facts is intimately connected to, dependent upon, and perhaps even identical to the process of representation and is a necessary preliminary step in the creation of symbols. It is what gives meaning to reality and makes us human. In the essay that follows, I would like to explore some of the vicissitudes of this process from a post-Bionian perspective.
