Bion Letters to Rickman

Documents and Commentary

WILFRED BION’S LETTERS TO JOHN RICKMAN (1939–1951)

INTRODUCTION

Dimitris Vonofakos and Bob Hinshelwood1

Manchester and Essex, UK

Wilfred Bion’s World War I experience cast a long shadow down throughhis life. He continued writing about it in many forms all his life which nodoubt was one of the ways in which he struggled to ‘contain’ theexperience. However, some 20 years afterwards, the cloud began to liftfor him. Prior to these letters, and to the psychoanalysis with Rickman(1938–1939) there were of course many people who influenced Bion’s ownthinking and development, not least were: H. J. Paton (1887–1969),the philosopher, when Bion was a student at Oxford, Wilfred Trotter(1872–1939) when he was training as a doctor; the colleagues at theTavistock Clinic after he went there as a trainee psychotherapist in 1934,including Hugh Crichton-Brown (1877–1959), J. A. Hadfield (1882–1967),

Psychoanalysis and History 14(1), 2012: 53–94

DOI: 10.3366/pah.2012.0099# Edinburgh University Press

www.eupjournals.com/pah

DIMITRIS VONOFAKOS PHD is a Fellow at the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studiesand a Research Fellow at the Nottingham University Business School. Address for

correspondence: Apt. 58, Princess House, 144 Princess Street, Manchester M1 7EP.[[email protected]]

BOB HINSHELWOOD is Professor in the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies,

University of Essex, a Member of the British Psychoanalytical Society, and previously

Director of the Cassel Hospital. Address for correspondence: [[email protected]]

1. We are grateful to the Honorary Archivist, Ken Robinson, British Psychoanalytical

Society, for permission to have these letters published and to the staff of the Institute ofPsychoanalysis library for help with finding them. We also thank Tom Harrison for

originally mentioning their existence and for comments on this introduction. We haveasked Francesca Bion, Bion’s widow, about the other side of the correspondence but it

appears to be no longer in existence. The archival and research work for this project wassupported by a grant from the Institute for the History and Work of Therapeutic

Environments (IHWTE) and Planned Environment Therapy Trust (PETT).

J. R. Rees (1890–1969), and probably the legacy of Ian Suttie (1889–1935).There is also the common speculation about what Samuel Beckett’sinfluence was when Beckett had some psychotherapy with Bion in 1935(see Anzieu, 1989). However, this introduction confines itself to the closerelationship between Bion and Rickman (1891–1951).

Introduction

From about 1938, when Bion decided to train as a psychoanalyst, until 1951when he married his second wife, Francesca, a slow process of turning hislife around occurred. There are probably many contributing factors in this,including his work as a respected (though querulous) veteran in World WarII, his first marriage in 1940, his two analyses and his second marriage.

Interestingly, it is between these two dates (1937–1951) that Bion hadan intense attachment to John Rickman, first as an analysand briefly for ayear and a half, interrupted by the war, and then as a colleague workingon the development of psychoanalysis as a tool for thinking practicallyabout groups. During that period, until Rickman’s death in 1951, Bionwrote a number of letters to Rickman. These letters show not only howBion’s thinking developed, but Bion’s slow emergence from his broodingunhappiness, as he moved towards a springboard for an enormouscreativity of his own. It is for a window into that process that we thinkthese letters belong in the public domain.

The 29 letters were written between 1939 (probably September)and June 1951. Twenty-seven were from Bion, addressed to Rickmanin increasing degrees of familiarity, while one is also addressed toMrs Rickman thanking her for an evening’s hospitality as well asreaffirming the blossoming relationship between the two men; and thereis one brief letter from Rickman to Bion.

The original handwritten letters were all held by John Rickman’s daughter,Lucy Baruch, at her house in London until being placed with the archive ofthe British Psychoanalytical Society some years ago. There, under a three-years cataloguing project funded by the Wellcome Trust, the original letterswere photocopied, properly catalogued and archived for further study.Far from being hidden or forgotten, parts of these letters feature in somerecent publications of the work of Rickman, Bion and their collaborationduring World War II (see Harrison, 2000; King, 2003). In addition, Conci(2011) has also examined these letters and concludes that a re-examination ofthe role of Rickman in Bion’s career and biography is necessary.

But, until now, this material had not been fully transcribed andpublished and, more importantly, closely studied in its entirety as ahistorical artefact in its own right. In a nutshell, such a study is particularlyrewarding as it vividly illustrates the first instances of where and whenthe character of Bion’s thinking becomes evident. The letters show his

54 PSYCHOANALYSIS AND HISTORY (2012) 14(1)

development from a man who, all but broken by his terrifying experiencesin World War I, had stumbled from unsatisfying and unproductive personaland professional relationships into the fearless, passionate and innovative‘wunderkind’ of the British psychoanalytic establishment and who left alasting legacy on every psychoanalytic study in which he was involved(see, for instance, Bleandonu, 1994; Mawson, 2010).

From these letters, in Bion’s vivid descriptions, innovative ideas andlong-lasting preoccupations, we can see that it was the War OfficeSelection Boards (WOSBs) and the work he was involved in and carriedout there that contributed to the turnaround in his life (Bion, 1946).He described that work with sudden confidence as having the ‘utmost’ and‘immeasurable’ importance, ‘the spearhead of an advance’ (12.7.42).Alongside this, the reader also becomes a witness to the growing beliefin his abilities and in the value of his work not only in the WOSBs but in hisbrief stint at Northfield Military hospital, as well as in his later work ongroups at the Tavistock Clinic.

Certainly what we, as readers, get from this material is mostly glimpsesrather than detailed accounts or long discussions between the two men.This is primarily because only one side of the correspondence is available,that of Bion. Rickman’s letters and replies would have most certainlyadded significant depth and insight into the working relationship betweenthe two men and the high regard they seemed to have had for each other.It is indeed a pity that Rickman’s input, ideas and reactions to the work thetwo were carrying out are not available to us. However, we do have beforeus rich, personal snapshots into Bion’s early, almost lost years: as a younganalysand, eager to progress with his training and pining for his absentanalyst removed by the sudden onset of war; as a newly-conscripted officerreturning to an organization (the Army) he felt most ambivalent aboutbut one which had also awarded him his highest honour to that day (DSO);as a particularly cynical and often disparaging trainee of the BritishPsychoanalytical Society who found listening to conflicting theoreticalconstructs a most challenging experience; and, lastly, as a man who,having experienced personal tragedy and loss, could once more be seen toenjoy the gifts of companionship and passion with his second wife, Francesca.

Historical Context

The Wilfred Bion of the 1920s and 1930s

The professional and personal association of John Rickman and WilfredBion lasted for exactly 14 years from 1937, when Bion started his analysis,until Rickman’s death in 1951. As is well documented, Bion initiallyapproached Rickman in his psychoanalytic capacity as he was looking forpersonal and training analysis. Francesca Bion (1985) tells us that ‘by 1924

DIMITRIS VONOFAKOS AND BOB HINSHELWOOD 55

it was clear to [Bion] where his interests lay – in psycho-analysis’ (p. 7).But even if this was so, it took him as much as 13 years to get started. Sowhat happened in the meantime?

In order to understand adequately this period in Bion’s life, we have tostart a few years earlier in the months following the end of World War I.Then, in 1919, Bion was discharged from the Army with the rank ofCaptain having been awarded the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) andthe Legion of Honour for his role in the Battle of Cambrai in Francetwo years earlier. Soon after, he entered Queens College, Oxford, wherehe read History. Like many of his fellow soldiers, the Bion of that time wasan alienated veteran who must have found the return to civilian lifeparticularly challenging, although in his case he was additionally burdenedwith a considerable sense of inferiority which it seemed was made worseby his wartime honours, ‘DSO, Mention in Dispatches, Legion ofHonour – all very fast-fading reassurances, which at best had faileddismally to convince me’ (Bion, 1985, p. 12).

Nevertheless he found Oxford an intellectually stimulating andwelcoming environment and, through the writings of H. J. Patton, hedeveloped a philosophical interest in the writings of Kant (Bleandonu,1994, p. 36). Even so, he failed to gain an Honours degree from Oxford andto get rid of his personal and wartime ghosts. By 1921, he saw himself as‘twenty-four; no good for war, no good for peace, and too old to change’(Bion, 1985, p. 16). To earn a living he returned to the familiar grounds ofhis old school, Bishop’s Stortford, to work as a schoolteacher. His timethere seemed to reaffirm his unsuitability for teaching and it soon came toan unglamorous and unsettling end when he was asked to resign underthe burden of accusations of sexual advances on a student – accusationswhich Bion vehemently protested against but could not find the strength tolegally contest. It was during those years that he came across a copy ofFreud and his interest turned to medical training and psychoanalysis.

It was this Bion who entered University College Hospital London topursue his medical training, once again more due to his military (andsporting track) record rather than his intellectual achievements. There hemet Wilfred Trotter, a neurosurgeon and author of Instincts of the Herd inPeace and War, with whom he was particularly impressed. Besides anypossible intellectual influences in his later writings, Bion seemed to admireTrotter for his attentiveness, ‘Trotter . . . listened with unassumed interestas if the patient’s contributions flowed from the fount of knowledge itself’,and unshakable confidence, ‘[Trotter] spoke with an authority, a mastery ofthe subject which was unmistakable’ (Bion, 1985, p. 38). And from hisrecollections of that time, it appears that these were the qualities that Bionfelt as terribly missing in himself.

Bion’s first contact with psychotherapy was during those years as amedical student when he sought treatment following anxiety about what he


perceived as academic and sporting failures as well as due to a particularlyhurtful, short-lived engagement. The process proved to have littlebeneficial effect on him. In fact, later in his life Bion would refer to thisfirst therapist as ‘my “Feel it in the past” analyst’ and considered he failedat it; as he wrote: ‘in contrast to my finances, the acquisition of a fund offailure seemed to be inexhaustible. So I stopped my attempts to be cured’(Bion, 1958, p. 34). From Bion’s autobiographical writings, one mayspeculate that that particular therapist’s approach relied too much onconscious thinking and intellectualization to penetrate sufficiently intoBion’s deep-held cynicism and self-depreciation.

For most of the 1930s, following his award of a Conjoint Diploma inMedicine, Bion practised medicine in private practice, at the TavistockClinic, which he joined in 1932 as assistant doctor, and in the Maida ValeHospital for Nervous Diseases where he worked part-time to secure someadditional income. But it seemed that Bion was still somewhat lost, havingfound no particular field or work within which what was later to be knownas his distinguished intellectual abilities could engage and flourish. Thelonger this state of affairs continued, the more it intensified his distrust inhis abilities. He was now a man approaching 40 who ‘had not so fardiscovered any substance of which I should be glad to be composed. I was anothing. “Feel it in the past”, I used to say. But anything that I felt, I felt itin the present – and most unpleasant it was’ (Bion, 1985, p. 42, italics inoriginal).

Meeting John Rickman

In 1937, Bion’s personal need for further treatment as well as his 13-year,by then, interest in training as a psychoanalyst finally led him to the Instituteof Psychoanalysis and to John Rickman. Bleandonu (1994) tells us that Bionapproached Rickman as he was ‘one of the most prominent psychoanalysts’in the Society at that time (p. 46; see also King, 2003). The two men, althoughfrom very different backgrounds, developed a very productive workingrelationship and eventually a close personal one as well.

At the time of their meeting, Rickman was a mere eight years older thanBion but at a very different stage in his professional career. He hadcompleted his medical studies in 1916 and during World War I, due to hisQuaker faith’s adherence to pacifistic principles, he opted to travel toRussia and carry out Relief Work there, providing medical services to ruralisolated parts of the country. On his return, already married to Lydia, hespecialized in psychiatry and soon after left for Vienna to be analysed byFreud.2 He came back from Vienna two years later and took up a post at

2. Later in his life, and prior to his initial meeting with Bion, Rickman would have

further analytic sessions with both Ferenczi and Klein.


St Thomas’ Hospital in London and was elected a member of thePsychoanalytical Society. From that point onwards until his death,Rickman was integral to the workings of the Society in various roles andcapacities: in areas of training, education, publishing and, eventually, as itsthird President from 1947–50. But Rickman did not stop there; he hadnumerous other associations and posts throughout the three decades ofhis working life. Some of these were: assistant-editor and editor of theBritish Journal of Medical Psychology for 24 years from 1925, editor ofthe International Journal of Psychoanalysis (1948–49), a member of theeditorial team of the Tavistock Institute’s Human Relations, andauthor of several anonymous editorials in the Lancet where he appliedhis psychoanalytic thinking to everyday social phenomena. All in all,Rickman’s capacity for work was truly remarkable.

As a person, Rickman was a large, friendly man and a very attentivelistener. He was fascinated with the study of social phenomena and wasvery well read in psychoanalytic literature but also had the ability to writein very simple language and appeal to a wide audience. By the time of theirfirst meeting, and in contrast to Bion, Rickman had long been anestablished psychoanalyst and a well-respected social scientist.

The psychoanalytic treatment lasted for just under two years. It wasinterrupted by Britain’s declaration of war against Germany in September1939, when Rickman joined the Emergency Medical Service (EMS) as aCivilian Psychiatrist at Haymeads EMS Hospital, in Bishops Stortford.3

This relatively short period was enough to make a considerable impressionon Bion and for a strong positive transference between them to continue.In fact, his description of his time in analytic work with Rickman isstrikingly different from his previous, ‘Feel it in the past’, experience:

To my surprise [Rickman’s] interpretations appeared to me to be reminiscent ofcommon sense; they reminded me of real life. I was astonished because commonsense did not seem to be grand enough. Rickman’s interpretations and hisbehaviour stirred up the dead embers of the pile of rubbish which was all thatI could see . . . ashes . . . ashes . . . I thought Rickman liked me. (Bion, 1985,p. 46)

Analysis with Rickman seemed to stir up something deep inside Bion’spersonality for the first time. It was from that moment onwards that thenew Bion started gradually emerging from the ‘ashes’ of his previousexperiences and, for better or worse, rise to an almost cult-like status

3. Rickman saw fundamental differences between World War I and II thinking that in

the latter case the (Quaker) stance of non-participation would not suffice and was not

morally correct (Harrison, 2009, personal communication).


among the students, followers and practitioners of the psychoanalytictradition.

Bion’s Letters to John Rickman

As mentioned earlier, the letters below provide a brief but, at times, verypersonal snapshot of Bion’s process of gradual transformation and change.Mostly, Bion’s letters were formal and focused on the ideas they workedout together; however, the letters show a progressive relaxation until thefinal one, when Bion and his wife write together to thank Rickman for hiswedding present to them, where he closes the letter, for the first time, with‘love’ (though still signs ‘Wilfred Bion’). In that respect, the letters couldbe broken up into four phases: the analytic, the student, the collegial andthe path to independence.

The Analytic Phase (09.09.1939–15.03.1940)

The five letters included in this phase, four by Bion and one by Rickman,provide a view of Bion of the 1920s and 1930s and should be read with theabove description in mind. Although by now in his early 40s and enjoyingbenefits from his analytic treatment with Rickman, including his firstmarriage to Betty Jardine in 1940, he remained dependent, seeminglymissing his analysis and wanting to resume as soon as possible, a point thathe keeps coming back to.

The impression one gets is that he found the Army work he was at firstinvolved in fairly mundane and uninteresting, as he appears to preferwriting of his ‘miserable financial state’ and the difficulty in securingadditional income. And though once more quite cynical about it, in thisfirst phase of letters Bion is for the first time feeling confident enough toentertain the idea of writing a book chapter for a forthcoming editedvolume (07.12.39). This was to be Bion’s first published piece, ‘The war ofnerves’ (1940). By comparison with his later writing, this piece is poorlystructured and verbose, although it appears from the material in thearchive of the London Institute of Psychoanalysis that Bion had by 1943(when he published the joint paper with Rickman on ‘Intra-grouptensions’) learned a very different style and refined Rickman’s slightlyless clear draft (Harrison, 2000, personal communication).

His relationship with Rickman at this stage appears to be very muchcharacterized by their analyst–analysand relationship. Furthermore, inmost of these letters they address each other with their formal titles(Dr Rickman/Dr Bion). Bion is concerned that his analysis with Rickmanended abruptly. In November 1939 he asked if it would be possible toresume soon as he wanted to complete his training. Then he wonderedrather desperately, in January 1940, if he should transfer to someone elseand talked to Edward Glover and to Dennis Carroll for advice about what


to do. The one letter in the collection by Rickman is simply informing Bionthat he had no knowledge of his availability in next few months due to theunpredictable war situation at the time.

This is also the period in which he was courting Betty Jardine, whobecame his first wife in 1940. He says nothing in the letters to Rickmanabout the progress of this relationship, yet it may have been an enormouslyimportant achievement of the analysis.

The Student Phase (18.12.1940–14.12.1941)

In this second year of correspondence and as the hostilities were well underway on the Continent, the frequency of contact between the two menappeared to have intensified. Bion’s letters were now more regular and heseemed to be taking an active interest in the work Rickman was carryingout in Wharncliffe EMS Hospital where Rickman had been posted a fewmonths earlier (August 1940) to build on the work he started at Haymeads.He pleads with Rickman to ‘get him invited’ (04.02.41) to the hospital andhe starts forwarding his ideas to Rickman in the form of memorandafocusing on the development of rehabilitation wards for soldiers. Thesereferences can most certainly be seen as precursors to the Wharncliffememorandum and, even more so, to the later work of the two men carriedout at Northfield Military Hospital. But it is interesting how these lettersdemonstrate the degree to which Bion was a newcomer to this field as wellas the vital influence of Rickman’s experience and notable generosity withhis time in developing Bion’s interest and knowledge in therapeuticenvironments.

Moreover, the letters bear witness to the blossoming relationshipbetween the two men: Bion has progressed to ‘My dear Rickman’ anddiscusses personal matters such as the professional developments of hisnew wife’s, Betty Jardine’s, acting career.

The Collegial Phase (12.07.1942–07.12.1944)

This is the period when Bion and Rickman’s most famous work duringWorld War II took place. It is mainly characterized by their short-lived butvery influential work at Northfield Military Hospital. Prior to that, Bionwas involved in the War Office Selection Boards (WOSBs) where thedevelopment of leaderless groups as testing tools for the selection of futureofficers was pioneered. The 10 letters of this phase include severalconcerned with various editorial matters in preparation for their seminal‘Intra-group tensions’ article on their Northfield experience as well asBion’s letter to Rickman’s wife thanking her for an evening’s entertain-ment in their home in London.

In a letter dated a month or more after they left Northfield (07.03.43),Bion conveys to Rickman the latest news from Northfield regarding‘a good deal of discontent at the changeover’, largely due to their


‘unscrupulous friends in AMD II’; he then reverts to talking about thepersistent problem of the ‘self-selecting minorities’ that deserves furtherstudy.

But the letter that unmistakably stands out is Bion’s letter in the middleof 1942 (12.07.42), coming after a break of several months and containingan overview of his involvement in the WOSBs until that time. The style ofwriting is a marked departure from his earlier slightly offhand and wearymanner, as here Bion is considerably excited and engaged with the objectof his work. He takes particular pride in the fact that his views andsuggestions on leadership and officer selection methods have beenreaffirmed, and seems encouraged by the effectiveness of the work. He issufficiently proud that we can see him making plans for their peacetimeapplication, even suggesting the eventual establishment of similar SelectionBoards for members of parliament. Bion’s rising confidence in hisintellectual abilities is plain to see throughout this document as hecharacterizes the work undertaken there as of ‘utmost’ and ‘immeasurable’importance as well as ‘the spearhead of an advance’. This is a trulyremarkable change from his attitude in his earlier letters to Rickman(and to the ennui of the 1920s and 1930s). Bion’s work in the WOSBs inEdinburgh, which lasted for most of 1941, seemed to have left a lastingimpression on him, as he came back to it even after the end of theNorthfield experiment (January to February 1943).

Interestingly enough, while there is no explicit mention in all Bion’s talkof WOSBs of Leaderless Groups, he does refer to the principles behindthem, that is, candidates are put forward by their peers, soldiers thinkingabout leadership would lead to a growth of leadership, the minimizing ofinvolvement from the top command and the idea that leadership qualitieswere unconnected with academic and/or class background. These principlesformed the backbone to Bion’s groundbreaking, post-war work in groupdynamics at the Tavistock Clinic. It might also indicate that Bion’s primaryinput at Northfield was work with groups rather than the setting up of thera-peutic institutions that seemed to be more Rickman’s field of expertise.

So by that time, it had become a collegial relationship between the twomen, each one making their own contribution in equal measure andseemingly inspiring each other to produce very innovative work.

Not surprisingly a tone of sadness and dejection creeps into the letters in1944 when his wife, Betty, tragically died three days after giving birth totheir first baby, Parthenope.

The Path to Independence (13.01.1945–17.06.1951)

This last phase is one which begins after Rickman’s first heart attack in thelast months of 1944; although he fully recovered some time later, it wouldonly be a few years until his second episode proved fatal in July 1951.His death would come a few days after he received Bion’s last letter


thanking him for a ‘really lovely’ wedding present for Bion’s secondmarriage, to Francesca (17.06.51).

In these final eight letters, a new Bion has emerged from the ‘ashes’ ofhis previous self. The tone of his writing in these letters looks increasinglyfamiliar as he discusses ‘the nature of the human animal’ and thecontradictory characteristics with which human beings are endowed.He also considers the friction between society and the individual as wellas the new, tentative concepts he is coming up with in an effort toconceptualize human relationships (13.01.45). Here we are provided with asnapshot of how his novel theory of group behaviour was gradually beingbuilt. We are also afforded a close look at how he conceptualized the‘essentials’ of group therapy and how all this was run through and discussedwith Rickman in concise but considerably detailed letters (27.11.45,02.01.46, 28.01.46). The close relationship between Bion and Rickmanseemed to have continued undiminished after the end of the war. AsBion was using the early Tavistock groups to build a comprehensive,psychoanalytic view of group dynamics, he still drew inspiration andcourage from his relationship with Rickman. The last few letters arepersonal in nature, expressing his wish that Rickman soon meet his newfiancee and later on attend their wedding.

The 14-year journey of the two men was coming to an end. Bion,previously consumed by his cynicism and self-doubt, now emerged as atowering figure amongst the Tavistock staff, in contrast to the shadowyfigure he had been before the war; and Rickman was there to see it.

The Letters and the Autobiography

Probably during the 1970s when he was in Los Angeles, Bion wrote twovolumes of autobiography, The Long Week-End (1982) and All My SinsRemembered (1985), both published by his widow. The first records hischildhood impressions and up to his World War I experiences. The secondcovers the period following World War I, up to the end of his analysis withMelanie Klein (in 1952), and thus deals with the period of these letters; it isan impressionistic survey without a strong chronology of the experiencesthrough Oxford, medical school, and the next war which brought back thejumble of memories of the first.

The availability of these published books makes them the primary sourcefor understanding Bion’s life. However, these letters, we believe, offer amonitoring function on Bion’s own recollections. For instance, the lettersdo not confirm certain impressions that the 1958 autobiography conveys.They are contemporary and therefore likely to be more authentic accounts.

The letters seem to show a progress in Bion’s experience of himself andthe world. In the late 1930s and early 1940s his characteristic mode is acynical despair about those around him, and their lack of grasp of the truth


of the matter that he and Rickman share. This lofty attitude towards othersis gradually replaced by an increasing confidence in the work he andRickman are doing. For instance, he could not praise the work in OfficerSelection more highly. One could say there is a transition in his prevailingmood from an attitude that tends to denigrate others towards a highevaluation of himself and Rickman. Interestingly, when he later wrote hispaper on arrogance (Bion, 1958), he described arrogance as a reaction toan underlying catastrophic sense of a ruined self. One could speculate thatBion was here confiding consciously or unconsciously something of his ownreaction to the catastrophes in his life, being sent to boarding school asa child, the tank battles of World War I and, most recently, in 1944,when he suffered a disastrous bereavement when his wife, Betty, died threedays after giving birth. This too was not mentioned to Rickman in theletters, as if Bion had found some means of keeping that side of hislife unexpressed.

In the autobiography a different picture emerges. The hindsight gainedfrom having achieved a position of eminence later in life allowed him tocreate a memory of a different kind of experience. He is, he says, ‘tryingto tell the story of my business – part of which was the problem of existing’(Bion, 1985, p. 33). The cynicism of the letters, often focused onincompetent authorities, is replaced in the autobiography by a crucifyingself-mockery and the most abject descriptions of his worthlessness. Forinstance, in the autobiography, he described his interview at UniversityCollege Hospital, where the dean of the Medical School ‘was againwondering if the unprepossessing mass of ineptitude before him concealedsome possibility that had not so far emerged. So did I, though even lesshopefully’ (Bion, 1985, p. 19). The self-description makes the reader wince,either because of the truth of the pain, or because of embarrassment at theliterary exaggeration. But the self-deprecating humour also emergeselsewhere. For instance, after the war:

I cannot remember being awarded a Victory Medal, but I am sure that a gratefulestablishment would have inflicted one on my completion of so many years ofundetected nothingness. (Bion, 1985, p. 62)

And his attitude to others is no longer as irascible, but an affectionatejocularity that went for their whimsical oddities:

The two Colonels to whom I was subordinate were as civil as their station in lifecalled on them to be. But in war there is no particular reason for joyfulanticipation of the prospect of prolonged co-operation. They suggested a billetin Whip-ma Whap-ma Gate. No, they didn’t know why it was called that. I wasmade aware that that was the kind of idiotic remark, a display of irrelevantcuriosity typical of a psycho-analyst – or more exactly of me. (Bion, 1985, p. 51)

The quality of the cynicism he demonstrated in the letters and thedryness of his humour in the autobiographies are very different. The tone


of the letters does change in the course of time from the 1930s to the 1950s,whilst the self-mocking humour of the autobiographies remains constant,most likely because the texts were probably completed at a single point intime. We have the interesting phenomenon that memories in the later textsare reconstructions of the past presented to us in the contemporary letters.What we make of that in terms of Bion’s own personality, and his owngrowth/development, is for the reader to ponder for him- or herself. Butseeing into the writer is part of the purpose of publishing these letters.

In conclusion

In her study of another collection of Bion’s letters (1951–72), those to hisfiancee and wife, Francesca, Sayers (2002) argues that it was their loveaffair which altered his perceptions of himself and the world. The evidenceof these letters to Rickman is that the metamorphosis from Bionthe troubled to Bion the creative was a slower process; it took place duringthe evolution from being an analysand to being Rickman’s colleague andperhaps assisted by the impact of his analysis with Melanie Klein (1945–52).Indeed, one might wonder if the capacity for his obvious passion forFrancesca was a result of the early transformation due to Rickman.

These letters are an intriguing source of speculation about the formativeyears of Bion’s career from which he emerged as one of the most influentialpsychoanalysts to the present day. Whilst these letters have not beencompared with other correspondence of Bion’s at the same time, there isstrong evidence of Rickman’s immense presence presiding over Bion as hemade his remarkable turnaround, throwing off the effects of hisexperiences in World War I.

THE LETTERS

1.

London County CouncilPublic Health Department

National Scheme for Disabled MenSt. Mary Abbots Hospital

Marloes Road,Kensington, W.8

9.ix.1939Dear Dr. Rickman,

Many thanks for your letter which I meant to answer much earlier butmy plans were too chaotic.


I’ve now landed as group psychiatrist and am trying to find out just whatthat means. It ought to mean something really important but it feels atpresent as if “passive defence” has eaten its way into the mentality of theservice and become a complete lack of initiative.

I’m anxious and got in touch – and have already made first contacts –with the A.R.P4 and Public Health departments as well as our own. Theyseemed at first inclined to think that I was only one more amiable nit-witand I hope to disillusion them.

The A.R.P. chief is, appropriately enough, named Col. Trench; I want topersuade him that if his crowd are properly organised sg.5 will be done tohave set in train prophylactic measures before a crisis.

The syrens are, as foretold, damnable. I’m convinced that the nearer weget to no air raid warning (other than gun fire or bombs falling) the soonerwe shall achieve a psychological re-adjustment to meet real dangers – justas the soldier did. This however is perhaps only one problem.

I’m trying to get all our people in this group to organise an exchangeof any ideas or practices that have proved, or might prove, efficacious indealing with casualties.

Carroll6 is at Isleworth. I’ve only had chance of a word with him over thephone so far. All of us are in a frantic mess financially as far as I can see butI suppose at such times this has to be lumped.

I will not take up more of your time. I hope it will before very long bepossible to do something about the analysis but obviously it has to wait atpresent.

With my very best wishes,Yours sincerely,

WR Bion.

2.

7.XI.3997, Harley Street

W1Dear Dr. Rickman,

I am writing to ask you if there is any chance of continuing with myanalysis sometime fairly soon. I hesitated to write earlier as the war

4. A.R.P. is the abbreviation for the British Air Raid Precautions Service, set up in

1935.

5. something.

6. Dennis Carroll (Lt. Colonel) was one of the Tavistock Psychiatrists drafted into theRAMC (Royal Army Medical Corps). He had worked at David Wills’s Hawkspur Camp

and was Commanding Officer at Northfield. After the war he was Director of the

Portman Clinic.


situation seems as obscure as ever and furthermore I am left in a miserablefinancial state – two paying patients and nothing I can do will make theM.O.H7 pay me 1/- for my part time post. However I can’t see how this isgoing to get any better simply by waiting and I may as well have a flingwhile I can if I can.

I am glad to say I have been getting on very happily with my work andthe analysis I have been doing has, I think, been fairly good although Iknow this can be very deceptive. I’ve been particularly glad to find thatI seemed to be able to draw on quite early bits of my own analysis whichI thought I had forgotten. In fact, with one or two exceptions alas, I havefelt that I seemed to have reached a stage where my contacts with patientswas profitable for them and was helping me to open up my own mind too.Still I felt I would like to press on by hook or crook with the whole of mytraining as, although I have felt very pleased, I have also been able to feelI know enough now to know how much I am still missing.

Furthermore, (I) Miller8 has asked me to write a chapter of a joint bookon war neurosis or some such thing and I don’t want to write more drivelthan I can help.

With every good wish,Yours sincerely,

W.R. Bion

3.

4.12.39Dear Dr. Bion,

I should have replied to your letter earlier even though I had nothingdefinite to say about my return to London for the continuation of our work.All I can say about that is that at the moment I am here and may be movedat any time and anywhere. If I get shifted to London I will certainly let youknow.

You give good news of your own work, and it does not surprise me.With kind regards

Yours sincerely,John Rickman

7. Ministry of Health.

8. Emmanuel Miller (1893–1970) worked at the Tavistock Clinic as a child psychiatrist

in the 1930s, edited the book The Neuroses in War (Miller, 1940), which included the

chapter (‘War of nerves’), Bion’s first published written work.


4.

30.1.40Abbey S.M.P.

no contradindicns9

29.i.3910

97, Harley StreetW1

Dear Dr. Rickman,I am writing to ask you if you think there could be any objection to my

trying to get a little further with my analysis by transferring to someoneelse for the time being? I hate the idea of it and I do not even know if itis practicable financially; but I should feel happier if I had a talk, say withDr Glover11, about the business if you think something might be gainedand nothing lost by doing so.

I seem to feel every conceivable reluctance to do anything at all aboutgoing on – except on a purely objective level where it is seriously prudentto push on if I can. Carroll very kindly had a word with me about it aboutten days ago and he seemed to think that a change over might bepracticable although no one could say, except yourself, if there were anyimmediate contra-indications. For my part I have a nasty feeling that I shallput up a really remarkable series of resistances but I suppose one can learnmuch even from that.

We had a very big meeting, considering all things, on Wednesday; itmay be unkind to say so that I thought the Collective Unconscious12

has a striking resemblance to what might be said by an undiscriminatingdoctor who had forgotten most of Frazer13 and had never heard of

9. This appears to be a censor’s comment. If so, it indicates that Bion mis-dated theletter as 1939, and it should probably be 29.i.1940. Hence we have placed it here.

10. Bion is asking about the future of his own analysis, and this is likely to be because it

has been interrupted by the war when Rickman joined the Emergency Medical Service.Hence we place the letter as if it were January 1940 – a common mistake in dating

letters at the beginning of a new year.

11. Dr Edward Glover (1882–1972) collaborated with Grace Pailthorpe in thedevelopment of the Institute for the Study and Treatment of Delinquency, the

forerunner in the 1930s of the Portman Clinic. He was a senior psychoanalyst atthe time in the British Psychoanalytic Society, and Chair of its Training Committee. He

was therefore someone who could advise Bion on the problems of training as apsychoanalyst in the war.

12. The collective unconscious is a key concept in Jungian psychology.

13. This is a reference to James Frazer’s anthropological classic, The Golden Bough.


pre-Homeric myths. Carroll said he had forgotten to mention the patienttoo.

With all best wishes,Yours sincerely,

W.R. Bion

5.15.iii.40

97, Harley StreetW1

Dear Rickman,Many thanks for your note. I think the committee are going to try to

stick to the peace time arrangement of fourth Wednesday in the month asthe day for Sectional meetings – the next one is to be in May.

Both Glover’s paper and Mannheim’s14 seemed to me to be sound andperhaps valuable because they refused to be drawn, at this early stage, intofacile conjecture. Unfortunately this also means that they were notcontributing anything particularly new as far as more responsible workerswere concerned. Nevertheless, as Glover laid down some lines of possibleresearch – rather as he did in his “War, Sadism and Pacifism”15 – thepublication of his article might do something to steady the wilderenthusiasts. But I think it would be the kind of repetitive material thatyou hoped to confine to the Review section of the journal.16

Baynes17 I find hard to criticize because I have always found, and foundagain last time, that when they talk of either history or myth the Jungiansseem to me to do so with a very inadequate historical or mythologicalequipment whatever, according to their own lights, their psychologicalcredentials may be. And when I detect quite serious inaccuracies in the firsttwo I begin to suspect the last as well.

It occurred to me that this topic might be reflected at intervals throughthe war – the same title each time. If this were done the papers might havea documentary value at a later date as a kind of sampling of the reactionsof psychologists to the events in which they were taking part. But of course

14. Bion is referring to a discussion organized by the British Journal of Medical

Psychology on 3 March 1940 (see Glover, 1940; Mannheim, 1940). Karl Mannheim(1893–1947), the Jewish-Hungarian founder of the sociology of knowledge, was lecturer

in sociology at LSE from 1933.

15. See Glover, 1933.

16. Rickman was at the time the editor of The British Journal of Medical Psychology.

17. H. G. Baynes (1882–1943) was a leading Jungian analyst in Britain and translator

and commentator on Jung.


this means a deliberate inclusion in the journal of matter chosen forreasons that are not always considered valid in selection. Speaking formyself I might like to have Glover’s paper for reference but it may be tooclose to his “War, Sadism and Pacifism” to be worth a reprint.

I look like being swept into the army. I have been offered a consultant joband as my practice will not come back – I have only seen one new patientsince the war and have never had more than two – I can see no othercourse.18 I can’t pretend to feel pleased about this but it may after allpresent a very useful opportunity to get work done of which I ought to knowmore than I know at present. The serious blow is to have to postpone furtherthe continuation of analysis and training. Perhaps I can drop you a line later.

With kind regards,Yours sincerely,

W.R. Bion

6.

The Military Hospital,Moston Hall,

Upton,Chester18.xii.40

Dear Rickman,I am sorry not to have replied to your letter earlier – it came to me first

before I was due to set off on leave, my first since the pre-war summerholiday, and I have lazily neglected answering.

I shall be very glad to come over to Wharncliffe19 and think I canmanage it all right. It will be a relief to hear talk which is backed by somepsychological knowledge for once. This job I have is terrific – if you readBowlby and Soddy’s20 letter21 in the Lancet you will have an idea why.

18. Up to this point, Bion had been giving his time to the Emergency Medical Service,

set up at the beginning of the war to deal with civilian casualties, whilst he tried tocontinue to make a living as a doctor in Harley Street.

19. In 1939 Rickman joined the Emergency Medical Services, intended for civilian

casualties, going first to Haymeads Hospital, Bishop Stortford, and then to WharncliffeHospital, Sheffield. A now lost manuscript, the so-called Wharncliffe memorandum, was

written by Rickman and Bion based on Rickman’s unit at Wharncliffe, and apparently ablueprint for their Northfield experiment in 1943.

20. John Bowlby (1907–90) was an early child psychiatrist who was appointed to the

Tavistock after the war and eventually developed attachment theory. Kenneth Soddy(1911–86) was Consultant to the London Child Guidance Clinic before the war, and

later in charge of The Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, UniversityCollege Hospital, London.

21. See Bowlby & Soddy, 1940.


I have been thinking a lot, ever since my first few weeks in the army,about the single interview technique but I have not made much headway;that, and the training of progressive aggression will be very interesting.I wrote a memorandum on a scheme for a special hospital training whichI sent to my D.M.S.22 and Rees.23 It has not had one single commentmade upon it except that Rees said the style was “too diffuse”. So wetake our psychotherapy fairly lightly here. If I can dig up my copy I’llbring along in case some if it is sense. Also a few scraps on the singleinterview.

With all good wishes,Yours very sincerely,

W.R. Bion

7.


Upton,Chester

9.i.41Dear Rickman,

Just a line to thank you for making me so very comfortable atWharncliffe last weekend. I enjoyed seeing you again very much indeedand it was most refreshing to get somewhere where at least a sane attemptwas being made to get work done.

I dug out my memorandum when I got back here and was pleased to findthat it did seem to suggest something like the scheme you are in factcarrying out. Not the least value of a parallel military training course seemsto me to be that a patient is given a world to adjust to that is nothing like sosevere as the isolated unsupported world which is presented to him bythe bed-ridden existence, aimless and disoriented, which he has to face inthe special hospitals I have seen so far. But I am still doing a lot of thinkingabout this. I think you have given me some ammunition with which toginger up this psychiatric service here.

22. Defence Medical Service.

23. Brigadier J. R. (John) Rees (1890–1969) was an early psychiatrist at the TavistockClinic, and the first Director of the Clinic after Hugh Crichton-Miller in 1933 (see Dicks,

1970). He was Director of Military Psychiatry for the army during World War II, andresponsible for the cohort of Tavistock psychiatrists joining the RAMC. He was also

responsible for the care of Rudolf Hess. He wrote the definitive, The Shaping of

Psychiatry by War (Rees, 1945).


I write this with the guns firing and the crumps24 crumping around – notvery near at the moment but quite near enough. I hope I shall have achance of coming over again. In the meantime I wish you will have everysuccess and happiness.


WR Bion

8.


Upton,Chester

4.ii.41Dear Rickman,

Many thanks for your letter. I am sorry McCall turned out such anunpromising case. He was in hospital for a day and I am afraid thepossibility that he was schizoid did not enter my head he was so “normal”while he was here (and in the interview with myself).

I enclose the memoranda. They look pretty indifferent and out of dateon going over them but I send them unchanged. It is a comment on ouroutlook that although Rees has had them in his pocket for 7 mths there hasnever even been a breath of discussion during that time except for yourcomment that they drew attention to the importance of military training.

I have been working on another mem. to the same effect which I shallsend to you. But I find it unsatisfactory churning these things out withoutever having the opportunity to put the ideas to the test of experiment. Itsmostly reminiscence of training in the last war.

I hope I shall be at the next meeting you have at the Wharncliffe.Please get me invited! At present it looks as if I may get transferred toNorthern Command if Rees has his way but this is still in the air and notofficial.

With all good wishes,Yours sincerely,

WR Bion

24. ‘Crump’ was a word coined in World War I to describe bombardment with heavy

shells. Bion is using it here to describe the same sort of menace in World War II.


9.

The Old George Hotel,Whip Ma Whop Ma Gate

York.27.VII.41

My dear Rickman,It was very kind of you to take so much trouble over my report; it was

most helpful and I should have written to thank you much earlier. I havemade one or two additions and one or two alterations which, I hope, haveimproved it still more. But I must send it in now or I shall never be finishedwith it. The difficulty is that each try brings in some new point, almost, andI find it difficult to be content to send in an incomplete report and leave thefresh points for a later screed.

The powers that be are suggesting I should go and do the same job with anew division. I would like to get back to something nearer psychiatry butthat seems to be off the map at the moment. And the job itself has somecompensations, contact with combatant units and so forth.

Betty and I were very glad to see you again. Our attempts to have you asour guest in a private party seem fated to end up as adjourned meetings ofthe “Conference” instead but we shall persevere!

With very good wishes from us both,Yours very sincerely,

W.R. Bion

10.

attd 42nd DivisionHome Forces

24.ix.41My dear Rickman,

I enclose a copy of the report I sent to G.O.C.25 11th Armoured – slightlyexpurgated at Esher’s26 suggestion but otherwise very like the one youkindly vetted for me. The modal charts are an innovation, quite interestingin a way, but I doubt whether they really justify the sententious parablewith which I ended the report!

Esher may like to see it when you’re finished but in any case I shall notwant it back and other people might care to see it at Wharncliffe.

25. General Officer Commanding.

26. This is probably Captain Oliver Brett (3rd Viscount Esher, 1881–1963).


We have been whisked off here (42nd Divn27) for the same job. Amusingbut it may become monotonous if I do it for the rest of my army career!

Betty joins me in sending our very best wishes and we hope we shallmeet again soon.

Yours very sincerely,W.R. Bion

11.

c/o Barclays Bank,Langham Place,

London W.1(To be called for)

14.XII.41Dear Rickman,

The copy of my report on the 11th Armoured turned up after muchwatering just a day or so after I came back here (Hobart House). Curiouslyenough I had just been writing out some notes for Wilson suggesting repliesto precisely the sort of attack you envisaged in your note on post-wardevelopments – only this came from the D. of H.28 and Col. Riddoch. Thisegregious document is so deadly secret that I gather neither Hargreaves29

nor myself are supposed to have seen it so perhaps what I say should beregarded as confidential.

Briefly, the Director of Hygiene, and Riddoch, deplored the activities ofthe psychiatrists “many of whom are without active service experience”.They asked, now that two psychiatrists were attached to the D.S.P.30

“Who was responsible for the mental health of the army?” and repudiatedany suggestion that they were; they also repudiated any responsibility forthe effects, good or ill, that might follow from the intervention ofthe psychiatrists in army affairs. They said that intelligence tests were “byno means infallible” and suggested a committee consisting of D. of H.,Riddoch, and Cairns to enquire into our activities.

27. 42nd Armoured Division.

28. Department of Health.

29. Ronald Hargreaves (1909–63) joined the Tavistock, just before the war, and wasthen an influential member of the Directorate of Army Psychiatry at the War Office.

In 1948 he set up the Mental Health Section of the WHO.

30. Directorate of Selection of Personnel at the War Office, in charge of the WOSBs

which included Hargreaves (see Anstey, 1989).


You may be interested to see a copy of the notes I jolted down, by way ofammunition, which Wilson31 could use, or not, in his brief for Rees. Theyare not of course intended to go forward just as they are!

In one sense I think the position of the Maudsley32 people, and of othersin the same line of business in the army, extraordinarily weak. I thinkI mentioned to you that one of my strongest impressions during thissecond dose of the army has been the feeling of amazement at the lackof elementary knowledge of hygiene (mental) in the layman and acorresponding misgiving, to use no strange word, that the psychiatrists hadfailed very seriously in their education of the public. Fortunately, theresponsibility for this must rest with people who hold an official place,supported by public funds, as the Maudsley people do. If the general publicfear and trust, as they appear to do, psychiatrists and psychiatric treatmentsand psychiatric tests, the blame for that can only belong to those who nevermake any attempt to tackle those latent anxieties. The Maudsley-mindedlook askance at the psychiatrists who do tackle those fears – but donothing themselves.

In fact, as I suggest in my notes to Wilson any criticism of our work thatcomes from those who have done no work at all, may react as a verydangerous boomerang. And should be made to so react if we know ourbusiness.

Unfortunately the fate of genuine psychiatry and psychotherapy seemsto me to be wrapped up very closely with the fate of practically every freemental or cultural activity. If “we” win this war then the position of theMaudsley-minded will not I think be very important. But if the fascist-Nazi-outfit wins then the Maudsley wins and it will be goodbye to any realhope of human advance for many a long years. It’s a pity that we can winthe war and still lose the essential battle in our own field. But I can’t sayI feel very pessimistic about this at the moment.

Thank you very much indeed for sparing so much of your time when Idropped in at the Wharncliffe the other day. It was very kind of you andthe talk was most helpful. I enclose (yet another memorandum!) somenotes I handed in to the D.S.P. on getting back. You will see I have made apush for interviewing the retentions. My reward has been to be taken offTanks and put on to something much more flighty but this is a big

31. Dr A.T. Macbeth (Tommy) Wilson (1905–78) was a researcher funded by theoriginal Rockefeller research grant, in 1936, to the Tavistock Clinic, working on

psychosomatic conditions. He was one of the Tavistock psychiatrists to join the RAMC,and later Director of the independent Tavistock Institute.

32. The Maudsley Hospital was the centre of academic psychiatry, where Professor

Aubrey Lewis (1900–75) displayed an ambiguous set of attitudes towards the Tavistock

and to psychotherapy.


compliment so I am not complaining. It’s true they still want me to see therejected but I think I shall succeed in wangling out of this.

Betty is dropping her part in Priestley’s33 play; I think wisely. It has notbeen very well handled and Priestley himself said he was surprised she tooksuch a small part and would have written a better one if he had known.And now we both hope he will do so!


W.R. Bion

12.

28 Gilmore PlaceEdinburgh 3

12.VII.42Dear Rickman,

I am writing this to tell you something of the work I have been on duringthe last six months and suggest that you should think of coming in to it.

The first point about selection, as it has worked out in practice, hasbeen the emergence of the psychiatrists as the leg on which the wholeorganisation hangs. This does not mean that our judgement on anyparticular case has been a deciding factor but rather that the presence ofthe psychiatrist in the unit has exerted a quite unmistakable influence ininducing a sane and fairly balanced approach to the problem of the unit asa whole. We first taught our lay colleagues, by refusing to be certain whenwe were not certain, that in the selection of potential officers there reallywas a problem. Thus we paved the way for an absence of dogmatism in ourapproach to the selection. Our influence in this direction has I think beenas invaluable as it is difficult to measure. But some hundreds of officersstrange to this work here have seen it and have been unmistakably struckby its importance.

Then, here as elsewhere previously, we have been responsiblefor investigating reforms which I am sure are of quite fundamentalimportance. But before I come to that I must say a little about the influencewe have had in checking quite dangerous pessimism and doing somethingto change it into suitable activity. In this respect I felt myself to have playeda big part; because when I first met the A.G.34 he was saying that officermaterial was bound to deteriorate and indeed this had been published in an

33. Bion’s fiancee, Betty Jardine, was an actress, and verging on a West End career.

She had been contemplating a play by the playwright, J. B. Priestley, with whom she hadworked previously.

34. Adjutant General.


official document circulated to all boards and elsewhere. I tackled thispoint at once and pointed out that it was quite fallacious. I said that by allprecedents officers should not deteriorate in an army at war and that on thecontrary the army, if all were well, should sprout officers. I said that if it hasnot doing so it was because the climate was wrong and that as soon as anew atmosphere was abroad one could expect the new shoots to come ininstead of being frozen off. My gardening metaphor has had to do muchservice since I first produced it but I flatter myself that I was the first personto put this view and that I almost instantaneously reversed the direction ofthought about officer production. And the results since then have helped toshow my statement was not a piece of dialectic.

The next statement I made was that as soon as new selection methodscame into operation the number of candidates would go up by leaps andbounds. This too they disbelieved but after being unable to produce morethan 20 candidates a week for the first weeks they are now sending us up120 a week and we are still losing ground as more candidates are comingforward the faster we deal with them.

But the thing about which I am keenest is to come to the touchtomorrow. I have been saying that no candidate should be allowed tocome forward unless he has been voted for by his platoon or company.Tomorrow the army commander here is going to look at the detailedinstructions which Trist35 has drawn up for implementing this idea. Themen vote for some of their fellows to go up to the W.O.S.B.36 for testing.The officers also vote and where the votes correspond the man is sentup. Every officer I have mentioned this to, including many hard bakedregulars, have been thrilled by the idea. I am quite convinced myself thatonce it is established everyone will wonder how it ever came about that aman could have been sent up under any other title. I pointed out to theA.G. that if this privilege of election was granted as a sort of regimentalprivilege to the best regiments a great increase of keenness was to beexpected. Furthermore officers and men would be compelled to thinkseriously about the problem of leadership and this fact by itself would lead

35. Eric Trist (1909–93) was a major influence in the Tavistock Clinic and later theTavistock Institute. He had worked as a psychologist in Dundee and then St Andrews

before the war, then been taken on by Aubrey Lewis at the Maudsley Hospital in1939–41, before shifting to become Senior Psychologist on the WOSBs at Edinburgh. He

had already worked with Kurt Lewin in the USA in the early 1930s and after the war wasinstrumental, with Tommy Wilson, in effecting the link the Tavistock had with him until

Lewin’s death in 1948.

36. The War Office Selection Boards were established to revise the traditional office

selection on the basis of the old school tie.


to a growth of leadership. Finally the responsibility for the quality ofofficers would now no longer rest on a few shoulders at the top of themilitary hierarchy but would be broadly based in the body of the armyitself. There have been many difficulties in pushing this to the present pointand I have learned the power of the mediocre mind as a really obstructiveforce. But I am hoping that now, though we can be still further delayed, wecannot be stopped.

So much for some of the immediate, more important issues. But in allthis there has been much to make me think. We have had up here men with“E” quality “officer intelligence”. [E means too low for officers at all.A = 5%, B = 20%, C = 50% and D = the last 25%.] who have got 3rd classhonours at Oxford in law, who have scraped through their first two medicalexams, who have taken solicitors finals and who have slipped through toexams entitling them to positions of trust. Conversely we have had peopleof A. intelligence who have had very poor personalities and have wonscholarships and so on of which they have made negligible use. And wehave had quite first rate men who have left school at 14 and haven’t had achance since. In other words in this country the filter of examinations,selections etc is so defective that there is nothing to choose between thefiltrate and the original liquor. Now this litany is I think of first rateimportance – or rather the discovery of the reason why there is nothing tochoose between governors and governed is of first-rate importance. And itseems to me that the work that the army does in this matter of selection issomething which will have to be applied, when peace comes, by allexamining and selecting boards in this country, whether for Universities orScholarships, or Civic Service, or, most formidable strong-hold of all, forParliament itself.

I have already written far too much but I was most anxious to give yousome idea of why I consider this work to be of the utmost importance.I have not mentioned research because that is implicit in the wholework from top to bottom. But the point I am really anxious about is toengage your interest in the matter and beg you seriously to considerapplying to come into it. Your help would be quite invaluable and I believeyou would be able to ensure success for a job of work that, by itself, isof immeasurable importance, but which will also lead to still furtheradvances which we cannot at present see. It is the spear head of anadvance.

I will write no more now; Hargreaves and Rees have been down hereand I’m hoping to see Rees this afternoon. Please think over this and comein if you can possibly manage it.

With all best wishes,Yours sincerely,

W.R. Bion


13.

23A Pont St.,London,

S.W.1.

1.3.43Dear Mrs. Rickman,

I am writing this note to thank you very much for the very pleasantevening you gave Betty and myself and to tell you how much we bothenjoyed it; I hope we shall some day be able to return your hospitality inour home.

It is very disappointing to think that for the time being I shall have tobe working without Major Rickman but short as our collaboration atNorthfield37 was I felt I had learned an enormous amount and that therewill yet be an opportunity of putting it into practice. I wish you had beenable to see the enormous admiration that was felt for him by the staff,students and course at Northfield. His departure came to them as a blow sosevere that the men remained awkward and embarrassed from the timethey heard the news until the moment the students course saw him off onFriday morning; for me it was pleasant to see that even in these days hisworth could strike such deep roots.

Betty joins me in sending our love and very best wishes.Yours very sincerely,

Wilfred Bion

14.

7 W.O.S.B.9 Christchurch Road

Winchester7.III.43

Dear Rickman,I’ve been trying to struggle with the memo. in spare time but not very

successfully. Partly I think because the Northfield affair has required agood deal of readjustment of ideas and this has not been easy. I had a notefrom Doyle to say the wing had produced a good deal of discontent at thechange over and some leaders “to safeguard democratic principles”. If so

37. Bion and Rickman worked together at Northfield, Bion running the ‘training wing’during January and February 1943, along lines he and Rickman had discussed in these

letters and personally. The result was written up in the Lancet paper in 1943, ‘Intra-

group tensions in therapy’.


I can see they may provide further ammunition for our unscrupulousfriends in AMD II38.

The more I look at it the more it seems to me that some very seriouslook needs to be done along analytical and field theory lines to elucidatethe problems underlying the promotion of leaders and governors and thepresent system by which those people are recruited from the “self-selectedminorities”. But I haven’t got very far with this myself. I have no furthernews of Northfield than is contained in the one sentence. I am howeversure that AMD II are sufficiently afraid of myself not to spare any pains todiscredit me and my work as much as they can. Butler told me he “hadheard” that there was a good deal of “personal intrigue” at Northfield andthat that made it unpleasant.

This place seems very pleasant and has a likeable C.O.39 and DeputyPresident . The C.O. knows personally most of the big noises such as the C.in C.40 and the AG. The Deputy President is a very intelligent man and agood fellow. If I am left alone I should get a chance of recuperating anddoing some very hard thinking.

I hope you will have a good leave and will also find time to clarify yourideas; I am certain a great deal depends on how people who think with ustackle our problems for the next year or so and whether there is anybackbone in liberal minded people in the rest of the country.

I’ll send on some notes as soon as I get a bit further with them. With allbest wishes to yourself and Mrs. Rickman.

Yours sincerely,W.R. Bion

15.

[Text below typed]Major W.R.Bion D.S.O

No. 7 War Office Selection Board,9 Christchurch Road,

Winchester.

24th August, 1943.Dear Rickman,

Herewith my revised version. I have tidied up the beginning of the bitabout the Training Wing and I think improved it. The rest of it I have onlymade slight alterations.

38. The second division of the Army Medical Directorate.

39. Commanding Officer.

40. Commander in Chief.


It was a sore temptation to revise the whole thing, but I think this wouldbe a mistake.

I hope all goes well with you,Yours sincerely,

WR BionMajor, R.A.M.C.

Psychiatrist. 7 W.O.Selection Board

Major J. Rickman. R.A.M.C.No. 6 W.O.Selection Board,Officers’ Mess,Brockham Park,Betchworth,Surrey.

16.

[Text below typed]Major W.R.Bion D.S.O

No. 7 War Office Selection Board,9 Christchurch Road,

Winchester.

Friday, 12th Nov ’43.Dear Rickman,

I have sent the proofs to the Lancet and I am returning Fox’s41 letter to you.I felt very dis-satisfied with my part and the alterations seem to have

made it worse, but I could see no way now of dealing with a contributionwhich is to me six months out of date, except by rewriting it, which wouldbe out of the question.

Maine42[sic] said he was going to suggest a meeting with yourself andmyself on Saturday night, but I am [not] clear what about.

With kindest regards,Yours sincerely,

WR Bion

Major J. Rickman,Brockham Park,Betchworth,Surrey.

41. This is Sir Theodore Fox, Editor of The Lancet at the time Bion and Rickman wrote

and published their joint paper in the Journal in 1943.

42. Tom Main was responsible for the second Northfield experiment. See Harrison

(2000) for a detailed account of the ‘experiments’ at Northfield, and the major players.


17.

7 WOSB[Undated, Society Archive dates it as 1st Jan. 1944, looking at other letters ofthat year we think this is possibly written some time between Spring andAutumn 1943 – Eds]Dear Rickman,

I enclose your two letters.Would it be possible for you and Mrs Rickman to dine with Betty and

myself on Saturday evening – we could talk about the paper then if itsuited you.

Betty will drive you off on Sunday as I do not suppose I shall get up till late.With all good wishes,

Yours sincerely,WR Bion

18.

[Text below typed]21 W.O.S.B.

Selsdon Court Hotel,Sanderstead,

Surrey.

13.1.44Dear Rickman,

The Lancet have sent me along a bunch of reprints of the article and as theyhave not sent a bill with it I assume that they have sent it to you; so I enclose acheque for £2.4.6 which I imagine to be my share but if this is not in orderplease let me know. I do not think it likely that I shall be called on for all thislot so if you are short at any time let me know and I can send some of mine.

The Prisoner of War business here fell through, or at least did so as far asany attempt at doing what was originally planned was concerned. They puta prisoner of war Colonel into the job and took it out of the hands of theW.O.S.B altogether; so beyond making amiable remarks to them andpicking up what one could in mess and that sort of thing one has not hadmuch to do with them. But I have of course been able to get a good idea oftheir morale and outlook.

I have dutifully visited the war office but of course since one has beendoing ordinary appeal Board there has not been much to say. Doyle seemsfairly fed up; the remainder ask my opinion from time to time. LastSaturday Wilson, Hargreaves and Rodger43 had a sort of confab with me

43. T. Ferguson Rodger (1907–78) was later Professor of Psychiatry at the University of

Glasgow.


about the P. of W.44 and I gave my views. The result is that Wilson nowsends me a memo with a covering letter saying, You will I hope recogniseyour own comments from Saturday’s discussion. And he asks me to addsome more. Unfortunately this is difficult to do as I think he fails to realisethe nature of resentment that exists amongst the repatriates and thereforehardly gets to the point of seeing the cure, or even the preliminary stepsin that direction. But I begin to see the supreme merits of not seeingtoo much. At the end of his memo he makes the rather rash suggestionthat a selected part of these men should be dealt with on principlessuggested by recent work on a low morale group at Northfield MilitaryHospital.

Work of the appeal board is not very exciting as it is difficult to get pastthe point that most of the people we have seen have had their chance andhave failed to take it. In view of the large numbers involved in the Octus asa whole it is hardly relevant to bother why they have failed – the real pointis that it is somebody else’s turn. But we salvage a certain number whohave undoubtedly been sent to the wrong arm.

With all good wishes,Yours very sincerely,

WR Bion

19.

[Text below typed]Telephone No: - Dawes Green 266.

No.6. War Office Selection Board,“Brockman Park”,

Betchworth,Nr. Redhill,

Surrey.Major W. R. Bion, DSO.,No.21 War Office Selection Board,Selsdon Court Hotel,Sanderstead, Surrey.

18th July, 1944.Dear [No name]

Thank you very much for the opportunity of seeing your report to WarOffice on “The Officer Reception Unit”.

I hope it will be possible for you to come here for a weekend whenwe could discuss this and some other matters which are developing.

44. Prisoners of War.


For instance, if Saturday/Sunday 5–6th August would be possible for youI will try and fix it this end.

With kind regards,Yours

[Unsigned]Major, R.A.M.C.

JR/RLC.

20.

21 W.O.S.B.27.VIII.44

My dear Rickman,Many thanks for the enclosures I am afraid there is no chance of my

being able to come over to Guildford next week-end. If I am not boggedwith routine I hope to get on with two memos which have been ordered butneither of which I have time to do outside the week-ends.

I think I perfectly know what the interesting developments are. If onlyI could believe in them or their sponsors!

With kind regards,Yours v. sincerely,

WR Bion

21.

21 W.O.S.B.Sanderstead

7.XII.44My dear Rickman,

I do not know whether to be sorry or glad at your news; sorry onlyI think if it means that at some time it may not be easy to meet if I ammoved from here, but glad from every other point of view. I don’t believethere is much more that can be done in the army, in fact I think that thework here is on the whole going to be hard put to it to escape entailmentunder the continued assault of its enemies and some of its friends. But I dothink that it is time that we took a forward looking view and the realdevelopments are going to be in civil practice. For this reason I welcomeyour departure as the first of the advance party (if I may still use militaryterms to so distinguished a soldier!) who are to map out the future of thework. When I saw Sutherland about a month ago we both thought that youwould have an immense amount to take back to the Institute when at lastthe time came for you to be free to do it. Personally I am glad that timecame so early though I deplore the cause.

I have been struggling with the Northfield thing but unfortunatelyI find the present job very tiring. The work is dreary, largely because one is


seeing officers 90% of whom have never been much use and are nowdefinitely a menace but the W.O. doesn’t like to be told so. As a resultI have hardly the energy or mental freshness necessary for the task. Still itmoves slightly.

Army psychiatrist is I think now settling down – down is the operativeword – to the banal and fool proof level of all R.A.M.C. activity. Thewhole principle of proper testing and selection is under fire at the highestlevels and I doubt whether anything but the civilian taxpayer can save itand so ensure that the officering of the army doesn’t become again theprerogative of the wealthy unemployable. It seems to me that psychiatricwork is at a standstill except for the activity of the Tavistock group in itsattempts to snatch some glittering prize of publicity with which to deckitself in civil life.

I am very glad you mean to devote time to reading and writing. I hopeyou will find it as stimulating and interesting to do as we shall find it toread. I do not know why you say you owe anything to my performances; itis quite clear to me that the indebtedness is all the other way and I, incommon with all others who have had the good fortune to have yourcriticism and help, have felt that anything I have done springs time andagain from a stimulating and productive line of thought suggested byyourself. If you tried to dispute this I could easily master an overwhelmingnumber of votes against you!

It is very kind of you to invite visits; I shall certainly take any opportunity Ican, lawful or not, to call in. In the meantime I hope you will find yousteadily become fitter, and that return to civil life has relieved you of aserious incubus; I am sure that as far as I am concerned there is a great dealless of opportunity than of frustration in it now. I hope to ring you up soon.

With every good wish to yourself and Mrs. Rickman,Yours ever,

Wilfred Bion

22.

[Text below typed]21 W.O.S.B.

Selsdon Court Hotel,Sanderstead,

Surrey.

13th January 1945.

My dear Rickman,I had hoped to reply to your interesting letter long before this I seem to

have had little time for anything but the short note.


On the whole your information makes me think that the real troublewith Schichallion45 is what you have always said it was – it got too near theknuckle. Sutherland46 described the nature of most of those procedureswhen he said that they were barge poles for not touching the patient with.Schichallion was intended to get close contact and it was for it’s [sic]success not it’s [sic] failure47.

Personally I don’t think anything much can be hoped for in the way ofSchichallion from the sort of psychiatrist we can expect at present. In warthe constant officer is compelled to come to grips with his men and theresult is that the genuine combatant is a better psychiatrist, in someessential respect, than the people we had at Northfield at any rate. If Ithought there was the least chance of raising the morale of the psychiatristI would not despair, but I don’t. I can see nothing for it but a new attemptin peace time with a properly trained and determined team who areprepared first of all to apply the Schichallion scheme themselves, and thenapply themselves to the Schichallion scheme.

As I see it there are two main threads in society which are tolerablyclearly defined: it seems to me that it is the nature of human animal tocombine two contradictory characteristics. He is, for want of a better word,extremely ambitious and he is also physically very poorly endowed. Thelatter characteristic forces him into close associations which the formermake him unable to tolerate. He reacts very sensitively to anything, such asbeing taken prisoner, that reminds him of his fundamental insecurity.Combination with others removes his feebleness – a man by himself couldnot make a railway engine but if he forms groups he can. But once he hasformed his combination he does not want any inquiry into it’s [sic] natureas that re-awakens his anxiety about this helplessness as an individual.

The second thread seems to me to be the way in which society lends itselfto the progress of the very ambitious solitary. He cannot admit hisdependence and cannot tolerate equality; as a result he goes into politicswhere he hopes to achieve predominance for himself. The aggressivesolitary thruster pushes himself to the top. Having reached that eminencehe cannot rest till he has asserted his authority over similar types in other

45. Schichallion is a mountain in Scotland where Newton’s theory of gravity was first put

to the test empirically, by Nevil Maskelyne in 1744, and resulted in a calculation of theweight of the earth.

46. John (Jock) Sutherland (1905–91) worked with Bion in the WOSBs and

subsequently was a psychiatrist at the Tavistock Clinic of which he was Director for21 years. On retirement he founded the Scottish Institute of Human Relations. He wrote

a biography of Ronald Fairbairn.

47. One of Bion’s extremely rare errors. It should be ‘its success not its failure’. The

same mistake occurs again twice in the next two paragraphs.


nations or communities. As a result communities are always controlled bythose sections of the populace which are the most cantankerous andquarrelsome. This kind of man, Authorities in other words, are not going towelcome inquire into group tensions either. As with the individual patientI think society itself will in the end be driven into an investigation for it’s[sic] tensions by its distresses. How many wars on the present scale will berequired to bring men to this pitch I cannot imagine. But I fear that everypossible obstacle will be put in the way of any procedure that is likely tobring home to men a discovery of the impotence and insignificance ofsociety itself. The P.W.48 attempt every time to reassert his control bytelling himself that either he or his general or his nation is to blame, asmuch as to say that they could have prevented his plight if they had willedto do so. And I remember one or two patients whose reaction of anxietywas tremendous when they thought that perhaps others were not moreanxious to take a part in the war than themselves, that the war effort in factdid depend on the capacity for combination of thousands of people likehimself.

However all this is mere hypothesis and though I think there is a gooddeal in it I cannot see any chance of confirming it until one gets down toapplying Schichallion to small groups.

I have been pondering something which for want of a better word I havecalled Duality in human relationships but though I feel there is somethingI am getting at I haven’t yet reached a stage where I can describe whatI mean with enough clarity to myself to discuss it with anyone else. But ifthere is a chance of talking in the near future perhaps by that time I maybe; or it may be a blind alley.

Work here is much the same as usual. The work with surplus officers ismade a little dull by the fact that the army will not do the only thing thatwill clear up the situation and that is – send them out. They are the biggestcollection of morale busters you can imagine. It is a dull struggle anyway asall that can be said on the subject has already been said years ago when thefight was on about clearing out the mental defectives.

I hope that you and Mrs Rickman and Lucy49 are all fit and not too muchtroubled with pops and bangs. I look forward to seeing your work ongroups. I am unfortunately without any books on group theory but I thinkby the time I have time to read any thing I may also be able to get thebooks.

48. It is sadly unclear to what or whom Bion is referring to here; the best guesses areeither Prisoner of War or Psychiatric Wounded.

49. John Rickman’s daughter.


I am not sure when I am likely to be able to get down to see you andI expect that you can by this time call very little time your own; but I shallring up to see if you are free at a time when I am.

[Text below handwritten]With all best wishes,

Yours sincerely,W.R. Bion

23.

99 Harley St.W1

27. Nov. 1945Dear Rickman,

Many thanks for your note. I am sure you are right about a paper on theIntra-groups tension idea but I feel singularly unable to produce anythingworth while. Anyhow – I have to give one to the Social Psych outfit and I mayas well have a cut at the other. So I shall tell Strauss I am prepared to do so.

I think that it will require a great deal of thought and my problem is toknow how to put it over that we are really after something definite and notmerely seeing aggregates of individuals. Just out of hand it comes to methat the essentials are:–

1. A psych. who really can make clinical observations (this seems to meto be practically synonymous with “psycho-analytically trained” butI don’t want to provoke a reaction to what will sound to some to bebigotry)

2. Interpretations must be directed to the common factor in thebehaviour of the group at any moment.

3. The individual must be allowed to go hang in the sense thatinterpretations are primarily directed to that aspect of his associationswhich are significantly shared by the group, and not to the aspectwhich is relevant to his relationship with a given individual.

4. The group always consists of x people+y empty chairs (optimum,probably expressed by x+ y = 10.

I can think of several more but I might rather discuss them with you andSutherland before putting them out. The problem is to give a few simpleindications which will launch the psych into a situation from which he canonly extricate himself and the group by developed a purposively bettertechnique. Slap and tickle won’t involve psych or gp50 in any situationlikely to lead to creative work.

50. Bion’s abbreviation for ‘group’.


Ezriel51 is badly bitten by it and I see possibilities.Sutherland told me Rice wanted him to become psych to the I.W.S52

– 1700 times. So I agree with you that probably we did something.I am starting a fresh group – if any turn up – on Friday next at 6.30.

If you are free you may care to come and we should have a huddle later.Yours ever,W.R. Bion

24.

[Text below typed]

FROM Dr. W. R. BIONWELBECK 2383 [6400 handwritten next to it]

99 [97 crossed out] HARLEY STREETW.1.

29th November 1945.Dear Rickman,

I enclose another cheque for £6.2.0, which makes a total of £12.6.0. up todate, and this is 3

4 of the £36.18.0. which is being paid over to me.They still owe us £13/10, and when this turns up I will send you a cheque

for £4/10. Please do not trouble to acknowledge it.Yours,

WR Bion [Handwritten signature]

25.

99 Harley St.W1

Jan. 2. 1946My dear Rickman,

In some ways I was glad to hear you had gone back to hospital as itmeans you will get this business dealt with but I am sorry you have had theattention of it.

51. Henry Ezriel was a refugee from Berlin who trained with Anna Freud in Londonand became a staff member of the Tavistock after the war, developing group therapy

research there.

52. This is The Industrial Welfare Society, founded in 1919, a charity devoted to

improving conditions and relations in industry.


I have been getting my paper licked into shape and I hope before long tohave it typed out when I shall let you see it. Paula Heimann53 wants to seeit as well so I shall be glad to have it back when you have done with,or perhaps you could send it on direct. I think your additions ought[to] go with it as they seem to me to raise points that I ought to have anddidn’t.

We had our first Staff group meeting yesterday and I must say I thoughtthe Tavvy came out of it very well. I think about 30 people showed up; thisincluded psychiatrists, technical lay staff (P.S.W54s and such like) and laystaff (clerks) – also Maberly55 and Leonard Browne56 who do not quite fitinto any of the other categories.

I opened the discussion by saying I wanted to know how manypeople would like to form a guinea pig group and what hours wecould appoint for meetings and what fee we should pay the Clinic. I thenstopped.

Everyone seemed a bit sheepish and then a few people started talking toease the tension. Leonard Browne said, could you give any indicationsabout how groups behave? To which I replied, Just like this.

Another awkward pause followed. And then further questions to all ofwhich I responded with non-committal grunts. The group hunted round abit and then Dr. Stein57 took the floor to explain, since I wouldn’t, what hethought Dr. Bion wanted. The group fell on this with gratitude andDr. Stein took over the group. Then they petered out again. Then thetopic of Dr. Bion cropped up, but without much assistance from Dr. Bion.A certain amount of heat began to be generated at this point and I thenintervened to point out that they were angry with me because it wasbecoming clear that when I had said “group therapy” I meant “group”therapy and not therapy by Dr. Bion. I said that when I hadn’t taken the

53. Paula Heimann (1899–1982) was a psychoanalyst and a close collaborator withMelanie Klein for many years.

54. Personal Support Worker.

55. Alan Maberly (1903–69) was analysed by Stekel in Vienna. He was part of the

Tavistock psychiatric contingent in the RAMC, but returned as temporary director ofTavistock Clinic during the war. He was Medical Director of the Child Guidance

Council after the war.

56. Leonard Browne (1887–1960) was one of the early group of psychiatrists at theTavistock Clinic, serving in the RAMC in both World Wars. In WW II, he was command

psychiatrist of the Eastern Command.

57. Dr Leopold Stein (1893–1969) was a refugee from Vienna, joining the Tavistock justbefore the war. He was one of the earliest originators of speech therapy in this country.

He became a Jungian analyst and wrote a widely, though not well, reviewed book on

‘loathsome women’.


lead they had first fallen back on themselves and had then squeezedDr. Stein into the job since I wouldn’t. After this things followed prettyconventional lines with Maberly’s hostility and anxiety becoming more andmore marked every minute. I may be wrong but I am pretty sure Maberlywas present as a spy from the enemy’s camp. That is to say he spoke withthe assurance of me who felt he had allies both in and outside the group.Dicks took what I thought a very good and illuminating point I believe hehad great private relief when I gave my interpretation that gp. th. meanttherapy by the group and not by Dr. Bion. Nor was he the only one. At theend I pointed out there were two opposite anxieties – that they were allgoing to be treated as patients and another anxiety that they were notbeing treated as patients. Dicks58 at the end said that speaking for himselfhe felt that the group had been therapeutic to him and that he thought,judging by the atmosphere, that it had been so to all of them.

Anyhow, for better or worse it is launched.Now the important thing is that many people want to join the group and

I am all for allowing this to develop spontaneously. The same happens withpatient group and I think the thing is to cut out all our damned waiting listsand other nonsense and make the group available to all comers who arevouched for by someone in the group – this precaution to cut out Pressnarks and such like – on the payment of a stock fee. Some patients havesaid they have friends they want to bring along. I raised it with thecommittee and mentioned that you had been and that Adrian Stephen59

wanted to come. I said we ought to throw it open to all genuinelyinterested. They agreed to this so I hope that we can get some tie-up withthe psycho-analysts that will enable them to come and enable us to getsome valuable recruits. Or perhaps I shouldn’t say ‘tie-up’ but just a quiteinformal spontaneous interchange. We could do with some sound initialadvice and co-operation.

The patient group still seems to be jogging along and I think the sessionsare really very stimulating and thought provoking. But I’ll tell you moreabout this when I see you.

Well, I trust you won’t have too rough a passage with the op. and thatyour stay in hospital will be even more profitable than the last ones.

Yours ever,Wilfred Bion

58. Henry (H.V.) Dicks (1900–77) was an early psychiatrist at the Tavistock Clinic, whoeventually wrote its history, 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic (1970).

59. Adrian Stephen (1883–1948) was one of the first British psychoanalysts to qualify

from the Institute of Psycho-analysis in 1927; he was the younger brother of Virginia

Woolf.


26.

99 Hartley St.W.1.

Jan 28. 1946My dear Rickman,

How very nice to hear from you again. You speak easily of what musthave been a very unpleasant time indeed but I gather now that there isevery chance of really being able to have a happy and fit New Year.

I am interested in what you say of the wards. I suspect that group therapymay one day have a good deal to say any about the factors making forhealth, or continued dependence, in a hospital for physical ailments.

I think I am still learning a good deal and to this extent there must bea lot in the gr.th. technique. I am certain we must have a study group. Thisbusiness needs studying. I find that one important thing with patients –dreadfully important and I kick myself for not having seen it before – is theneed to let them make their own experiments and approaches howeverhard and sterile they may appear to be. This time they need to feel in afamily in which their sprouting curiosity and intelligence is not frosted off.

But I really must not go on about this. No letters are any use: they justbecome ineffective papers. In the Tavi staff gp. one of the interesting thingsis the way in which the group jibes at my interventions but then rapidlyfinds all other contributions sterile, and comes back to them.

I have to start at the Institute on the 5th with the 1st year course; I’m stilltrying to get the hang of it with Melanie60 a bit but at first time she seemedto take up transference less strongly than you did. But maybe this is in partbecause its [sic]61 at a different stage. Anyway I believe I shall benefit. Thetime element is the problem. I seem to do a hideous amount of work butget very little pay. Incidentally the Rockefeller62 have anti’d up £22,000.We shall have to earn it now and that may be a good deal more difficultthan our gestapo would like to think.

Excuse haste. And pl63 write soon. I hope to see you. Hope you set off toBrighton.


60. Melanie Klein (1882–1960) was Bion’s analyst from 1945 to 1952.

61. Should be ‘it’s’, of course.

62. The Rockefeller Foundation had previously given a grant in 1936. This new one in1946 was for ‘work in social and preventive psychiatry’ (see Dicks, 1970). As external

funding it precipitated the separation of the independent Tavistock Institute from theNHS Tavistock Clinic.

63. Bion’s abbreviation for ‘please’.


27.

FROM Dr. W. R. BION.WELBECK 3295.

99, HARLEY STREETW.1.

April 19. 1951Dear Rickman,

Thank you so much for your note – your two notes. Needless to say Ishould like very much to introduce Francesca to you and look forward tothe time when we may meet. At the moment we are trying to do everythingat once, chiefly house hunting.

Your second letter also was very welcome. Not only for the news itbrings, but because it comes from you with whom I started my first steps onthe path to this goal. There must be a great many who have you to thankfor that and I hope it makes you as pleased to know it as I think it should.


28.

The HomesteadIver Heath

Bucks.

May 15th 1951Dear Rickman,

Just a line to let you know that Francesca and I mean to marry on June9th and that you should have an invitation to a reception at Brown’s Hotelat 3.00pm on that day. I say this because heaven alone knows if they willhave the invitations ready to send out in time and I thought this would giveyou a bit more warning in case you feel able to come.

Mrs. Ransom64 does not seem disposed to come to Redcourt65 with us. Itmultiplies our immediate difficulties but I don’t know that it will be a badthing in the long term. There have been many times in the last year or sowhere I have felt her influence a bit too ignorantly dominating andpossessive for the good of the child. Do you by any chance know of anyone

64. Mrs Ransom was Bion’s long-standing house-keeper who had helped so much withParthenope whilst Bion was looking after his daughter following the death of Bion’s

wife, Betty.

65. Redcourt was the house Bion moved into with Francesca and Parthenope in

Croydon, South London.


who could be recommended to look after the child and do her share ofchores in housework? Board and lodging and £2.0.0 a week. If by anychance you hear of one I would be very grateful if you could let me know.I think you have felt that Mrs. R’s departure would not be an unmixed loss.Personally I don’t think she can now adapt to a new situation. CertainlyI haven’t been able to make her see the light. I think she has realised shehas a tough opposition in Francesca.

We think you will have to get ready your pipe and some slippers and atoothbrush all ready to storm East Anglia as soon after June 9th as possible.It was very kind of you to ask us both the other evening and we muchenjoyed it.

Yours ever,WR Bion

29.

17. VI.51FROM Dr. W. R. BION.WELBECK 3295.

99, HARLEY STREETW.1.

My dear Rickman,Just a line to thank you for the really lovely bowl. I have now received its

plinth and looks extremely beautiful; it will look even better when we canget the table sufficiently polished to be worthy of it.

We are getting into shape here and hope very soon we shall have youhere to declare the building open. It wouldn’t be completely Ritz-likeluxury but it will be better than Russia.

With love from us both,Francesca and Wilfred Bion

[John Rickman died on 1 July 1951.]

References

Anstey, E. (1989) Reminiscences of a wartime army psychologist. The Psychologist2: 475–8.

Anzieu, D. (1989) The Skin Ego. Trans. C. Turner. New Haven, CT: YaleUniversity Press.

Bion, F. (1985) Foreword to The Long Weekend. In: All My Sins Remembered.Abingdon: Fleetwood Press.

Bion, W.R. (1940) The war of nerves. In: Miller, E. and Crichton-Miller, H. (eds),The Neuroses in War, pp. 180–200. London: Macmillan.

Bion, W.R. (1946) Leaderless group project. Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic 10:77–81.

Bion, W.R. (1958) On arrogance. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 39: 144–6.


Bion, W.R. (1982) The Long Week-End. Abingdon: Fleetwood Press.Bion, W.R. (1985) All My Sins Remembered. Abingdon: Fleetwood Press.Bleandonu, G. (1994) Wilfred Bion: His Life and Works. London: Free Association

Books.Bowlby, J. & Soddy, K. (1940) Letter to the editor (14 Sept.): Treatment of war

neuroses. Lancet 239, No. 6107: 343–4.Conci, M. (2011) Bion and his first analyst, John Rickman (1891–1951).

International Forum of Psychoanalysis 20: 68–86.Dicks, H.V. (1970) 50 Years of the Tavistock Clinic. London: Tavistock.Glover, E. (1933) War, Sadism and Pacifism. London: Allen & Unwin.Glover, E. (1940) Uber die durch den Krieg verursachten Anderungen in unserer

psychischen Okonomie, trans. Freud, L. Internationale Zeitschrift fur Psycho-analyse und Imago 25(3/4): 336–45.

Harrison, T. (2000) Bion, Rickman, Foulkes and the Northfield Experiments:Advancing on a Different Front. London: Jessica Kingsley.

King, P. (2003) No Ordinary Psychoanalyst. London: Karnac.Mannheim, K. (1940) Uber die durch den Krieg verursachten Anderungen in

unserer psychischen Okonomie. Internationale Zeitschrift fur Psycho-analyse undImago 25(3/4): 346–55.

Mannheim, K. (1943) Diagnosis of Our Time. London: Kegan Paul.Mawson, C. (2010) Bion Today. London: Routledge.Miller, E. (1940) The Neuroses in War. London: Macmillan.Rees, J.R. (1945) The Shaping of Psychiatry by War. London: Norton.Sayers, J. (2002) Darling Francesca: Bion, love-letters and madness. Journal of

European Studies 32: 195–207.

ABSTRACT

This is a collection of 29 letters, 27 from Wilfred Bion to John Rickman, oneaddressed to Mrs Rickman and one from Rickman to Bion. These letters have beenfully transcribed, annotated and published for the first time and offer a rare glimpseinto the blossoming relationship between the two men and the gradual emergenceof Bion’s intellect through his work in War Office Selection Boards (WOSBs),the Northfield Military hospital and the exploratory groups at the TavistockClinic.Through this material it becomes evident that Bion’s fascination with thework undertaken at WOSBs had more to do with the social ramifications of theprinciples and ideology applied there rather than with particular techniques per se,such as ‘leaderless groups’. Furthermore, the reader becomes witness to Rickman’sprofound influence on Bion’s analytic work and in cultivating his interestin therapeutic institutions, ultimately leading to their groundbreaking work atNorthfield Military hospital. While Bion’s descriptions of his post-war group workat the Tavistock Clinic offer the first signs of his unique theory and techniqueon the exploration of group dynamics. The continuation of their correspondenceuntil Rickman’s untimely death is a testament to their strong collegial andpersonal relationship which transcended analytical work and other professionalengagements.

Key words: Bion, Rickman, group dynamics, therapeutic institutions,psychoanalytic theory, World War II
