Mind, Bion and Psychoanalysis: A Nonlinear Dynamic Systems Perspective Patrick J. Nalbone, PhD Presented at EBOR 2016 The Feeling Mind and Lived Experience: Clinical Transformations in Psychoanalysis Eleventh International Evolving British Object Relations Conference Sponsored by Northwest Psychoanalytic Society and Institute Seattle, Washington (USA) October 28-30, 2016 Mind, Bion and Psychoanalysis: A Nonlinear Dynamic Systems Perspective Patrick J. Nalbone, PhD EBOR 2016 - Seattle Introduction: Mind as a Nonlinear Dynamic System / W.R. Bion as Paradigm Shifter for Psychoanalysis This paper presents a model of the mind as a complex, nonlinear dynamic system that is subjectively and phenomenologically experienced by an individual human being. The mind exists both as a self-organizing whole and a subsystem in a larger context that includes the bioenergetic substrate of the human brain as well as a sociosymbolic, semiotic system of other minds, language and culture. The paper then explores how Bion’s ideas about mind and psychoanalytic theory/practice can also be seen through the dynamic systems lens. Bion was greatly influenced by his diverse readings in science, mathematics, philosophy and mysticism and his ideas changed dramatically over his career. This paper takes the position that Bion was also influenced by the over-arching metaphysical paradigm shift toward a nonlinear dynamic systems perspective underway in the middle of the 20th Century and continuing today. Writings by others in the psychoanalytic community after Bion, especially those emphasizing an intersubjective, bipersonal approach and post-Bionian Field Theory, demonstrate the gradual embrace of this information-based, process-oriented perspective compatible with the model of mind presented. This paper proposes that a psychoanalysis for the future might integrate Bionian theory and clinical methods with a nonlinear dynamic systems model also attentive to affective information and mind as an active experience of person- to-person engagement. Making It Personal My goal in this paper is to outline a theory of mind that is also compatible with the way I work clinically. I believe my efforts in this paper are somewhat similar to what Bion himself strove to do in his later life, i.e., make his theories compatible with how he later found himself working in practice and as reflected in his speaking in public. (Ferro 2007, p. 551.) So I am beginning this paper with remarks about my own approach to practice as it has developed as a far- from-traditional model of psychoanalytic therapy. I have been greatly influenced by the work of Wilfred Bion as well as by the many interpreters of his ideas and in particular, James Grotstein. I also have a background that includes my doctoral studies and my unpublished dissertation, Toward a Conceptual Model of Thinking from the Perspective of Structuralism and System Theory, completed in 1974. Both of these vertices are central to my thinking now. Nalbone 11-1-16 - Mind - A Nonlinear Dynamic Systems Perspective.docx Patrick J Nalbone – EBOR Seattle -2016 1 My clinical work looks something like this: starting each session without memory or desire, I listen to the other person and allow myself to interact in a fairly unfiltered way. This includes awareness of my own emotion, body sensations, free association, fantasy and an attitude toward connecting deeply with my client, allowing myself to be useful as an instrument of change and being open to being changed myself in return. I regularly and routinely make “mistakes” and aim to learn from them. As Ferro notes, “Bion does not hide the fact that, in terms of our mental life, we rarely move beyond early infancy and are unable to tolerate many truths, preferring to make ourselves blind and deaf to them”. (Ferro 2007, p. 552.) I also stay open to discovery and frequently a path emerges that is improvisational and playful and engenders the same in my client (Ringstrom, 2001, 2012). At times, I disclose information about myself, if requested and if I believe it might be useful to them. (Maroda, 2004). I expect at some point through the normal communication process of projective identification that re-enactment will occur and see it as a way of bringing the patient’s past into the present and changing what happens for the patient when it does. I am constantly struck by the frequent experience of moments of shared reverie, the emergence of meaning across levels of feeling, incidental actions and remarks, subtle nuances in tone and choice of words, all linked together or un-linked and re-linked as a conjecture/definitive hypothesis cycle readjusts what is the selected fact in the moment of the session. At risk of the perils of my own self-indulgence and unconscious narcissistic defenses, I also admit to finding pleasure in our engagement, often delighted in its reciprocity. I trust that the process itself is already a transformation in O and that each of our inter-related thoughts without a thinker and the emergence of the unexpected in affect, meaning and insight will bring about a positive change over time. These ideas are mine only as I have thought them repeatedly through learning from experience. I also wish to acknowledge that as I began my research for this paper I discovered the works of many others who have presented models of mind and psychoanalysis that reflect similar views as my own. My encounter with this work, notably that of Robert Stolorow, William Coburn, Robert Galatzer-Levy, Donnel Stern, Antonino Ferro and Giussepe Civitarese, reinforced my belief in the value of this effort and encouraged me to revisit my past work and articulate my own ideas. Of course, they are not all my own ideas, so I hope you will bear with me. As Bion has noted, “it’s a novel paper because it has been written by a particular person.” (Bion, in Aguayo and Malin, 2013, p. 42.) And if there is a “vague feeling of dissatisfaction that one has heard this sort of thing before”, my hope would be that what you have heard this time will be somewhat digestible. (Cf, Bion.) Nalbone 11-1-16 - Mind - A Nonlinear Dynamic Systems Perspective.docx Patrick J Nalbone – EBOR Seattle -2016 2 Space, Time and Reality: From Classical Metaphysics to the Age of Nonlinear Dynamic Systems When Freud proposed his Project for a Scientific Psychology in 1895 he adhered to a metaphysical model that viewed Reality as dependent upon the existence of irreducible units of three-dimensional matter propelled by forces of energy, travelling along linear pathways in space and time. For Freud, first a neuroscientist, this meant that mind could be explained in terms of the human brain being an organic form of matter, and that neural action, instinct and drives were the primary source of mental experience and behavior. This Newtonian-Euclidian model has also been the prevailing model of science throughout the 20th century. It remains the hallmark of research conducted today, although we are in the midst of a period when a more encompassing meta-theoretical paradigm shift is changing the conversation. This shift is pertinent to a new perspective of mind in that it challenges the classical model as “a privileged, hegemonic master discourse...built upon a fantasized objectivist epistemology and reductionist framework that is far removed from the human condition.” (Mills, p. 24.) The roots of this change actually go back to the late 19th century, most notably with Henri Poincaré’s (Poincaré, 1908) mathematical modeling of nonlinear dynamic systems equations and formulations by others seeking to rectify shortcomings in classical metaphysics. One result was the replacement of the traditional notion of three-dimensional space and time as the fourth dimension, with a model that combines them into a single continuum known as spacetime. (DiSalle, 2006). This allows uniformity in calculations applicable both at supergalactic and subatomic levels while probabilistically accounting for uncertainty. However, it requires the additional factor that these calculations are dependent on the relative position of an observer and implies that the existence of time, space and physical reality may altogether not be provable, but are bi-products generated by the mind of the observer. This reversible perspective is a radical departure from the more widely accepted belief about Reality. Using our binocular vision we can now imagine as well that mind is not simply generated one-directionally from physical reality, but perhaps the other way around and back again. From a phenomenological point of view, perception is a primordially intentional process by which the organism acts upon the world as an object itself among objects interacting continuously and reciprocally. This was the view of Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1964), who also considered consciousness an emergent phenomenon of an integrated mind-body “becoming” a “being in the world” (Heidegger, 1927), and a self as an operational gestalt (Kohler, 1947) or whole among other wholes in the world. Now the questions we must ask at this point is “what is it that is being perceived” and “what is being done by the mind that is co-acting upon this ‘what’ of objects, the ‘qualia’ that is the ‘stuff’ of the world?” The answer seems to elude us because there is no separation of perceived and perceiving, no observable “outside” completely separate from the observer. Nalbone 11-1-16 - Mind - A Nonlinear Dynamic Systems Perspective.docx Patrick J Nalbone – EBOR Seattle -2016 3 Instead we have an integrated, reciprocal process that produces a perceived or registered binary difference (Derrida, 1973). It is not static, but an active process that reveals a difference in figure vs. ground (a caesura) and generates a gestalt or whole distinguishable from its parts. It is the registration of influence from one part of any system to another part resulting in a causal change.