From countertransference to "passion"

Bion's ideas may be extended to describe an emotional phenomenology of the analyst's subjectivity and a methodology which helps differentiate countert ransference enactments from fuller emotional participation. Bion called the process of integrating and utilizing one's most basic and important emotio ns to make meaning, "passion." The analyst's primal feelings--of love, hate , and curiosity-serve as a central organizer of meaning in the analytic int eraction. These feelings involve pain, and to the extent the analyst uncons ciously decides to evade or foreclose the evolution of the feelings, such t hat they remain unintegrated in the thinking process, the analyst is liable to become mired in repetitive transference-countertransference experiences without establishing fresh meaning. A case example illustrates the relevan ce of "passion" to contemporary relational theory and practice.