Containment and Metabolism
What does it mean to manage and transform anxiety? To use Bion’s term, what does it mean to metabolize anxiety? The term “metabolism” was borrowed by Bion and other psychoanalytic theorist from the field of biology. Beginning with Sigmund Freud’s “scientific project” – eventually becoming psychoanalysis—there was a strong affinity among practitioners and theorist in this domain of the healing arts (and sciences) with human physiology and the broader biological sciences.
In the case of biological metabolism, we find a process concerned with chemical reactions in the body of all mammals (and many other living organisms). Through metabolism we covert food to energy that is needed for many cellular operations (creation of proteins, lipids, nucleic acids and carbohydrates as well as the elimination of waste). A similar process is described by Bion – though metabolism now involves the conversion and redirection of psychic rather than physiological elements from an “unhealthy” (maladaptive) to a “healthy” (adaptive) state.
Bion’s Own Version of Metabolism
We begin a description of the psychological metabolism process by turning to that offered by Bion. Two fundamental elements exist, according to Bion, in human consciousness and thinking. One of these elements is labeled beta. These elements are the unmetabolized thoughts, emotions and bodily states that we always experience—whether they come from the outside world or from inside our individual and collective psyches.
Among the inside collective elements are the three widely acknowledged basic assumptions that underlie group functioning: dependency, fight-flight and pairing.[xix] The basic assumptions themselves are likely to dominate group functioning if the elements of anxiety are not metabolized. These basic assumption elements along with many other beta elements (such as dreams and collective myths and fantasies) are associated with anxiety. They represent some very important and often maladaptive elements in the human psyche that need to be transformed.
Alpha and Beta: For Bion, the metabolized elements—that he labels alpha—are those that we can readily think about and articulate. In the case of anxiety operating in an organizational setting, these metabolized alpha elements would include the identified and articulated cause of the anxiety, as well as the impact of anxiety on such critical organizational functions as personnel management, conflict-management, problem-solving, and decision-making.[xx]
Perhaps most importantly, alpha elements are often valid perceptions of reality and processes associated with the capacity of individuals and organizations to learn from experience.[xxi] Today, in an organizational setting, we often describe this latter alpha state as the establishment and maintenance of a learning organization.[xxii] This setting is one in which there is an ongoing testing of reality and a desire to learn from organizational mistakes – and we would add organizational successes.[xxiii]
From Beta to Alpha: This is all well and good—we move beta elements to alphas individually and collectively. This is a valid description of successful metabolism among individuals and in organizational settings, based on observations and analyses offered by Bion and many other object-relations oriented therapists and group facilitators. However, this description doesn’t tell us much about how metabolism takes place. How do we turn Beta elements into Alpha elements?
We would suggest that Bion tends to focus on the fundamental strategies of psychoanalysis in his writing about metabolism. These include such ego-based processes as the slow and careful introduction or re-introduction of unconscious (beta) elements into consciousness, so that they might be tested against reality and either isolated or transformed into productive action (sublimation).
These also include a focus on dreams, fantasies and childhood memories, with the therapist helping their client not only gaining access to this material but also determining its accuracy and more importantly its impact on current perceptions of relationships and reality, and its impact of current decisions that are being made and actions that are being taken.
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