Bion’s Emotional Links

‘This outstanding book connects the reader to Judy Eekhoff’s ongoing explorations of thoughtful ways to help patients who are not able to benefit from more conventional psychoanalytic treatment. Most psychoanalytic explorations depend on engaging the person in a verbal analytic process, and the patient who has no words available to reach their inner world presents a major challenge for the psychoanalytic thinker and practitioner. The challenge of understanding patients who have no language for their inner experiences calls for an expert translator, such as Judy Eekhoff. In the process of her own clinical experience, she discovers and rediscovers the language to access the deep pain of her patients.

Her work with the not known, although vividly experienced is put in a theoretical context. Ferenczi’s pursuit to bridge the discontinuity between the wordless world of the very young child and the world of the adult, is brought to mind. Bion’s advice on the crucial role of listening helps Dr. Eekhoff and us to appreciate the darkness of primitive states. The burden to understand falls to the analyst who intuitively creates safety and space for the potential to enter into the unspoken world of early childhood trauma, before speech, a world of undifferentiated, never formulated formless, meaningless experience.

This remarkable volume is a gift for all who are interested in finding a way to understand and work with such difficult to reach patients.’

Giselle Galdi, Editor-in-Chief, The American Journal of Psychoanalysis

‘This new book by Judy Eekhoff is a gift for anyone interested in the origins of the psyche. The book brilliantly delineates the author's understanding of the elements, processes, and media that form the foundation of mental life. It is as though the author examines mental tissue with the precision of an electron microscope, while we usually do so with an optical one. Dr. Eekhoff's capacity to express psychoanalytic experiences is extraordinary, with a passion for psychoanalysis evident throughout the book.

Psychoanalytic theories and concepts receive a sophisticated and comprehensive treatment, which the author presents in a uniquely insightful way. For example, the emotional links of love, hate, and knowledge are approached from a personal, ontological-experiential framework.

The author's appreciation and respect for the analysand's autonomy and individuality seem to serve as a guiding compass, bringing to the forefront the "late Bion" proposal of being at one with the analysand. Dr. Eekhoff's treatment of these parameters in the book is admirable.’

João Carlos Braga M.D., PhDis a full member, training, and supervising analyst at the Brazilian Psychoanalytic Society of São Paulo and Psychoanalytic Group of Curitiba, Brazil.

‘Writing is a solitary exercise from which we transform words into emotional experiences to bring warmth and passion to the author-reader encounter. In this creative dialogue, letters are precise, but silence must also speak. This book, "Bion's Emotional Links: Love, Hate & Knowledge" by Judy K. Eekhoff, beautifully promotes this intimate dialogue and takes up a wide range of concepts Eekhoff has been developing over the years; she explores the primordial affects and emotions that power intrapsychic and intersubjective relationships and expands them through her vast clinical experience. In fourteen chapters, the author achieves narrative harmony in rhythms, images, and sequences. This book constitutes an original and unique contribution to the great themes of contemporary psychoanalysis.’

Jani Santamaría Linares, Director A-Santamaría Association, A.C.; Editor of Bion, Dreamwork and the Oneiric Dimensions of the Mind (Routledge, forthcoming) and Co-editor of The Bion Seminars at the A-Santamaría Association: Clinical and Theoretical Explorations. Routledge, 2024.