Wilfred Bion
The middle decades of the twentieth century saw psychoanalysis establish itself as a significant clinical discipline across the English-speaking world, drawing practitioners from varied backgrounds into its orbit. Wilfred Ruprecht Bion was one of those practitioners, a British psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who worked in English and brought a dual professional identity to his career.
Born on 8 September 1897 in Mathura, Bion was a citizen of the United Kingdom who went on to be educated at The Queen's College and at University College London. Among the documented markers of his public record is the Distinguished Service Order, a decoration he received at some point during his life. His career encompassed both psychiatry and psychoanalysis, two related but distinct professional fields, and he worked in English throughout.
Bion died on 8 November 1979 in Oxford. His authorized name, as recorded in bibliographic sources, is "Bion, Wilfred R. (Wilfred Ruprecht), 1897–1979." That formal cataloguing entry, alongside the Distinguished Service Order, stands as one of the concrete, documented facts of his record.
Quotes by Wilfred Bion
Of all evil things the least quantity is to be borne, but of learning and knowledge, the more a man hath, the better he can bear it.
Misers take care of property as if it belonged to them, but derive no more benefit from it than if it belonged to others.
If a new result is to have any value, it must unite elements long since known, but till then scattered and seemingly foreign to each other, and suddenly introduce order where the appearance of disorder reigned.
It is too often forgotten that the gift of speech, so centrally employed, has been elaborated as much for the purpose of concealing thought by dissimulation and lying as for the purpose of elucidating and communicating thought.
