The seventh servant
The implications of a truth drive in Bion's theory of ‘ O ’
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8970915 |
|---|---|
| Authors | James S Grotstein (522 Dalehurst Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90024‐2516, USA, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2004 |
| Volume | 85 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 1081-1101 |
| Publication date | 2004-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The International Journal of Psychoanalysis (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0020-7578 • E-ISSN: 1745-8315 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1516/ju9m-1tk1-54qj-lwtp |
| PMID | 15509333 |
| OpenAlex | W2055896982 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 35 |
| References cited | 3 |
Drawing upon Bion's published works on the subjects of truth, dreaming, alpha-function and transformations in 'O', the author independently postulates that there exists a 'truth instinctual drive' that subserves a truth principle, the latter of which is associated with the reality principle. Further, he suggests, following Bion's postulation, that 'alpha-function' and dreaming/phantasying constitute unconscious thinking processes and that they mediate the activity of this 'truth drive' (quest, pulsion), which the author hypothesizes constitutes another aspect of a larger entity that also includes the epistemophilic component drive. It purportedly seeks and transmits as well as includes what Bion (1965, pp. 147-9) calls 'O', the 'Absolute Truth, Ultimate Reality, O' (also associated with infinity, noumena or things-in-themselves, and 'godhead') (1970, p. 26). It is further hypothesized that the truth drive functions in collaboration with an 'unconscious consciousness' that is associated with the faculty of 'attention', which is also known as 'intuition'. It is responsive to internal psychical reality and constitutes Bion's 'seventh servant'. O, the ultimate landscape of psychoanalysis, has many dimensions, but the one that seems to interest Bion is that of the emotional experience of the analysand's and the analyst's 'evolving O' respectively (1970, p. 52) during the analytic session. The author thus hypothesizes that a sense of truth presents itself to the subject as a quest for truth which has the quality and force of an instinctual drive and constitutes the counterpart to the epistemophilic drive. This 'truth quest' or 'drive' is hypothesized to be the source of the generation of the emotional truth of one's ongoing experiences, both conscious and unconscious. It is proposed that emotions are beacons of truth in regard to the acceptance of reality. The concepts of an emotional truth drive and a truth principle would help us understand why analysands are able to accept analysts' interpretations that favor the operation of the reality principle over the pleasure principle--because of what is postulated as their overriding adaptive need for truth. Ultimately, it would seem that Bion's legacy of truth aims at integrating finite man with infinite man
Consciousness · Epistemology · Function (biology · Intuition · Psychoanalysis · Unconscious mind · Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology · Philosophy · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Psychology · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications
“Thus far and no further”
Psychoanalytic Study on the Xylella fastidiosa Conspiracy Theory
Integral Relational Practice of Dreaming the Caesura
Truths, Reveries, Internal Moments of Meeting
Healing dynamics of psychosis
Reflections, and relative examples, regarding countertransference, empathy, and observation
Authenticity as an aim of Psychoanalysis
Premonition
On Bion’s Concept of Truth in an Extra-Moral Sense
A Special Learning Experience About Transference and Countertransference Dynamics at the Beginning of My Psychoanalytic Training
Strangers among us
On Grotstein’s ‘Truth’ in Bion’s Theory of ‘O’
Truth and lies
The Haunting of Hill House
Bion and Mysticism
Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Sources on the Life, Work, and Ideas of Wilfred Ruprecht Bion
Putting the “Trans” Back in “Truth”
Journeying and the experiential gaze in research
The ‘work group’
Attacks on Linking or a Drive to Communicate? Tolerating the Paradox
Bion’s Transformations and Clinical Practice
On Dreaming One’s Patient
The Wish for Revenge
Bion’s Ego Psychology
A ‘quantum’ of truth in a field of lies
The use of child drawings to explore the dual↔group analytic field in child analysis
Semiotic transformations in psychoanalysis with infants and adults
Existential crises in two religious patients
The emotional experience of K
The concept of time in Bion's “A Theory of Thinking”
Truth as a way of developing and preserving the space for thinking in the minds of the patient and the analyst
Projective trans identification’
Bion’s discovery of alpha function
Kairos and chronos
Finding Freedom
| Unique citing works | 35 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,67 |
| Citation span | 2005 - 2025 (21) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 35 |