Philosophical assumptions in Freud, Jung and Bion: questions of causality

The historical development of concepts of causality in philosophy is descri bed. Since the Enlightenment and the growth of science, exponents of the tw o most important concepts, determinism and teleology, have been in conflict . At the inception of psychoanalysis at the end of the nineteenth century t his conflict was particularly intense. it was the cause of the first major schism in psychoanalysis between Jung and Freud. Psychoanalytic theorists h ave continued to disagree over this issue. Post-modernist philosophy has ab olished all metaphysics and therefore called into question concepts of psyc hic causality. Parallel to, but uninfluenced by this development, Bion has developed a psychoanalytic conceptualization which may be seen as transcend ing causality. The clinical and theoretical implications of these developme nts are described.