Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

session found within a British Kleinian trained analytic context, rather than a genuinely
intersubjective encounter as seen in my meeting with JB, PM, AP, AL or as we shall now
examine, JG.
Jim Grotstein (JG)
Based in west Los Angeles Jim Grotstein is a pioneer of Kleinian and Bionian ideas and,
following an analysis with Bion, has spent his career promoting and developing Bion’s
ideas. JG dedicates A Beam of Intense Darkness to Bion when he writes ‘My gratitude to
you for allowing Me to become reunited with me - and for encouraging me to play with your
ideas as well as my own’ (Grotstein 2007: v). These ideas are uniquely adapted by JG
Grotstein drawing on his work with psychotic and borderline patients (Grotstein 2009a,
2009b). He also explores Bion’s O, linking the unconscious, the numinous, and the
mystical linked in subjective engagement (Grotstein 2000, 2001). JG has been influential as
an original thinker, clinical practitioner, inspirational colleague, supervisor and author with
over 250 articles to his name.
Meeting Jim Grotstein
This account begins with the end of the interview rather than the beginning. We are
standing on Jim’s drive in west LA in the late afternoon on a warm blue-sky November day
- waiting for a taxi to arrive. Our meeting in this interview had felt profound, a human-to-
human encounter at a depth that Buber would have described using the terms I-Thou. As I
proffered my hand Jim pulled me towards him and gave me a big hug saying that meeting
225