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Thinking Under Fire: Bion for Today

Celebrating the Publication of the Complete Works on PEP

A UCL Psychoanalysis Unit conference in collaboration with Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing

Saturday 27 – Sunday 28 June 2026

Location: In person at UCL’s Bloomsbury Campus, and Online

About

The publication of Bion’s Complete Works in 2014 was a milestone in Bion scholarship and its appearance on PEP Web in January 2026 creates further exciting opportunities for exploration of and dialogue with his work. The presentations at this conference will seek to develop new lines of thinking about the significance of Bion’s contributions in the spirit suggested by his provocative final challenge to his colleagues in the British Society in one of the last papers he gave before his death: ‘Will psychoanalysts study the living mind? Or is the authority of Freud to be used as a deterrent, a barrier to studying people?’

Join us in June 2026 to explore the ways in which engagement with Bion’s work can facilitate psychoanalytic inquiry.

Speakers

Bion’s Cogitations 1958-1979: Six Crucible Moments In His Private Notes
Nicola Abel-Hirsch (British Psychoanalytical Society)
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Evolution and Turbulence in Bion’s Thought
Giuseppe Civitarese (Italian Psychoanalytic Society, American Psychoanalytic Association, and International Psychoanalytic Association)
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The Living Thread: Hope and aliveness in the work of Wilfred Bion
Jani Santamaría Linares (A-Santamaría Psychoanalysis Mexico Association)
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Bion and Mawson – Memoirs of the past, present and future
Tobias Jenkins (King’s College London) and Donna Savery (Tavistock Clinic, IGA, Daseinsanalytic Institute Zurich)
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Intuitions as Evidence: Bion’s valedictory paper ‘Evidence’
David Taylor (British Psychoanalytical Society)
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Exploring Bion’s model of the mind from an infinite-finite perspective
Rudi Vermote (Belgian Psychoanalytical Society, and KU Leuven)
Call for brief contributions

The Saturday programme will include a segment devoted to short contributions on aspects of Bion’s work. These presentations should be planned to last a maximum of 15 minutes.

Colleagues are invited to submit proposals for brief contributions. Submissions should include details of your institutional affiliations, the title of your proposed presentation and an abstract of 500 words maximum.

Proposals should be submitted by Friday 30 January 2026 to events.psychoanalysis@ucl.ac.uk

Recordings

After the event a recording of the conference will be available to registered participants (on request) for 6 weeks.

Further Information: If you have any queries please contact us at events.psychoanalysis@ucl.ac.uk

Photo by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash

Find out more about PEP on: PEP | Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing