Alpha Function, Alpha Elements, Beta Elements
From "Bion's theory of containment", by Ruth Riesenberg-Malcolm:
In working with psychotic patients, Bion came to the realization that they had sensations, perceptions, or mental states that they could not process in themselves. They could neither feel them in themselves nor be conscious of them. Bion recalls feeling under certain pressure to 'take those states in', that is they were projected into him and it was for him to experience them
In examining his own experience and action in such situations, Bion came to realize that he was doing something with what had been deposited in him, that to sense it and to make sense of it, he had to transform it into a different category of mental element. For example, apparently incomprehensible words, grunts or strange movements became bits of possible understandable material. He called the product of this mental activity alpha-elements.
Bion calls these raw sensations, which need to be dealt with, beta-elements. Beta-elements are only fit for expulsion, or action; they cannot become thoughts or develop in the way they are.
Alpha-elements are created by a special function that is called by BIon alpha-function. It is a function only aimed at creating certain alpha-elements. The understanding of alpha-function is based on the extension and application of Klein's ideas of projective identification.
The full essay forms Chapter 12 of Kleinian Theory: A Contemporary Perspective, edited by Catalina Bronstein.
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