Article
On Holding and Containing, Being and Dreaming
Ogden observes that Winnicott's holding and Bion's container-contained, though among the most important contributions of each, are often misunderstood and confused with each other. He sets out what he takes to be the essential features of each and illustrates how he uses them clinically. Holding, in his reading, is an ontological concept, concerned above all with being and its relation to time: at first the mother safeguards the infant's continuity of being, in part by shielding the infant from the 'not-me' quality of time, and as the infant matures this holding of continuity through time and emotional change is gradually internalised. Container-contained, by contrast, concerns the processing, or 'dreaming', of thoughts that derive from lived emotional experience: it describes the interplay between thoughts, mostly unconscious (the contained), and the capacity to dream and think them (the container).
Main ideas
- Winnicott's holding and Bion's container-contained are often misunderstood and confused; Ogden sets out the essential features of each.
- Holding is an ontological concept, concerned primarily with being and its relation to time.
- The mother safeguards the infant's continuity of being, partly by shielding the infant from the 'not-me' aspect of time; the maturing infant gradually internalises this holding.
- Container-contained concerns the processing, or dreaming, of thoughts derived from lived emotional experience.
- The contained are thoughts, largely unconscious; the container is the capacity to dream and think them.
What it shows
- 2004
Thomas H. Ogden developed Container–contained
Ogden read Bion's container-contained as concerned chiefly with the processing, or dreaming, of thoughts and feelings, and set it beside Winnicott's holding, which he read as concerned with being and with the experience of time.
- 2004
Thomas H. Ogden developed Holding environment
Ogden distinguished Winnicott's holding from Bion's containing. On his reading, holding is the ontological work of sustaining the patient's continuity of being over time, while containing is the work of processing experience.
Wilfred Bion influenced Thomas H. Ogden
Bion's theories of reverie, container-contained, alpha function and dreaming are the main foundation of Ogden's work from the late 1990s on.