Learning from the Experience of Reading Bion’s Autobiographies | The Debbie Bellman Memorial Lecture

Online via Zoom & In-Person

The Debbie Bellman Memorial Lecture
Learning from the Experience of Reading Bion’s Autobiographies

Friday 5^th June 8-10pm
Saturday 6th June 2026 12 - 4pm (BST)

FRIDAY 8-10 PM (ONLINE ONLY)

Meg Harris Williams | Introduction
Film showing The Becoming Room

SATURDAY 12 - 4PM (Hybrid)

12 – 1.30pm Meg Harris Williams:

Learning from the Experience of Reading Bion’s Autobiographies
In her talk Meg will describe some key elements that emerge from Bion’s presentation of his ‘self’ in his autobiographical works, and how, as with creative fiction, identification with these becomes a passionate learning experience for the reader, by encouraging or even demanding that further symbolic transformations are made.

1.30 – 2.15pm Break. Light lunch provided, followed by a film by Mércia Fagundes and Thais and Miguel Marques and the song ‘Chega de saudade’ (‘No more longing’) by João Gilberto

2.15 – 4 pm Panel Discussion: Vera Montagna, Vivienne Pasieka, Annelise Scappaticci, Alison Vaspe

The Work Group: Bion’s autobiographies as inspiration for introspective associations in clinical work.
The panel will explore individual experiences in the light of Bion’s autobiographical thinking.

Tickets:
Lecture, film & panel discussion - £45
Online only - £40
Candidate/student ticket - £35
(contact lukeperry@psychoanalysis-bpa.org)
*A recording will be made available for 30 days after the event*

Meg Harris Williams offers a particular perspective not only on the genesis of Bion’s ideas as reflected in his autobiographical writings, but on the way in which we may read and identify with them to enrich our own personal experience. Proof of the life of an idea is that it can enter into other people and their ‘becoming’. The theme of this lecture and conference is to illustrate how ‘meeting oneself’ can be, as Bion says, a passionate learning experience.

A film based on Bion’s autobiographies, The Becoming Room, written and directed by Meg Harris Williams, will be shown online on Friday evening. This will form the starting point for her lecture on Saturday, followed by a panel discussion with Vera Regina Fonseca Montagna, Vivienne Pasieka, Anne Lise Scappaticci and Alison Vaspe, who will each present their own review of specific clinical situations as filtered through both the film and Bion’s ideas, in a way which clarifies their autobiographical significance. A book is forthcoming using these ideas and experiences, entitled Our Eternal Home: Bion’s Idea of the Self, published by Routledge.

Biographies:

Meg Harris Williams is a writer on literature and psychoanalysis and a visual artist. Her books include The Aesthetic Development: The Poetic Spirit of Psychoanalysis, Bion’s Dream: A Reading of the Autobiographies, and The Becoming Room: Filming Bion’s Memoir of the Future.

Vera Regina Fonseca Montagna is a Clinical Psychologist with pre-clinical training at the Tavistock Clinic (1975-1976) and experience as a Child Psychotherapist at the Epson Child Guidance Clinic, Surrey. A Full Member of the Brazilian Psychoanalytic Society of São Paulo (IPA), she teaches at the Institute of Psychoanalysis and maintains a private practice. Additionally, she is a visual artist and has published essays on psychoanalysis, aesthetic experience, and creativity.

Vivienne Pasieka is a psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist in private child and adult practice. Trained in Ireland and Canada, she is a member of the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society (IPA), faculty member of the Toronto Psychoanalytic Institute and Chair of Between Hours: Inter-disciplinary Dialogues, Toronto Psychoanalytic Society, and Freud Café Canada.

Anne Lise Scappaticci is a clinical psychologist trained at La Sapienza University of Rome, a Full Member and Training Analyst of the Brazilian Psychoanalytic Society (IPA), and former Editor of IDE (2021–2024). She holds a PhD in Mental Health from EPM-Unifesp and completed postdoctoral studies in Clinical Psychology at IP-USP. Her publications include Bion and Child Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalysis: An Emotional Experience (Blucher, Brazil; Alpes, Italy).

Alison Vaspe is a fellow of the BPA and chair of its Scientific Meetings Committee. She is a psychoanalyst in private practice, contributing editor of Psychoanalysis, the NHS and Mental Health Work Today (2018) and author of a children’s book, Edie-Puss and Me (2026).

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The opinions and views expressed are entirely those of the speaker in a personal capacity and do not necessarily reflect the policies or opinions of the BPA.