Metabolism

Fundamentally, Bion suggests that the primary question should be reframed: 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. 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 convert 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.

According to Bion, two fundamental elements exist 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. These are Sapolsky’s imagined lions. Among the inside collective elements are the three widely acknowledged basic assumptions that underlie interpersonal and group functioning: dependency, fight-flight and pairing.

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. The basic assumptions themselves are likely to dominate critical interactive functioning if the elements of anxiety are not metabolized. Furthermore, if we engage Reich’s analysis of character, the sources of energy blockage and rigid character formation in a patient would be found in these beta elements.

Alpha and Beta Elements

For Bion, the metabolized elements—that he labels alpha—are those that we can readily think about and articulate. These metabolized alpha elements would include the identified and articulated cause of the anxiety, as well as the impact of anxiety on the critical functions we identified above. Perhaps most importantly, alpha elements are often valid perceptions of reality and processes associated with the capacity of patients to learn from experience—and to learn that the lions are imaginary.

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?

One way to approach this question is to note the critical role played by psychic containers. When being addressed in a psychotherapeutic session, the emerging anxiety is contained through the establishment of therapeutic ground rules and a compassionate and nonjudgmental stance taken by the therapist. Put simply, the psychotherapeutic session becomes a safe place where a patient can reveal anxiety-filled elements of their own thoughts and actions that they might consider “unacceptable” or at least alien to their own self-image.