Contexts,Polarities, and Pluralism. Discussion of Slochower’s “Going Too Far: Relational Heroines and Relational Excess”

In her searching paper “Going Too Far: Relational Heroines and Relational Excess,” (this issue) Slochower finds the potential for excess as inherent in any psychoanalytic theory. I argue that context is key in understanding this phenomenon within relational psychoanalysis; what she describes may not be the case for other theories. The beginnings of relational theory as a movement, generational and radical, could lead to therapeutic overconfidence or certainty around countertransference insights and disclosures. Slochower sees an abundance of certainty in this stance, as well as pressure for premature mutuality. As a complement or balance to this intense mode of interpersonal engagement, Slochower elaborates her own work on holding, wherein the analyst “brackets” her experience and respects the patient’s need for privacy and nonimpingement. Uncertainty is an affirmative stance in letting the patient’s inner life come into being. There are a number of polarities in Slochower’s paper—between mutuality and privacy, certainty and uncertainty, and in the origin story of relational psychoanalysis between relational and classical theories. I argue that pluralism offers a path forward from polarities to a rich complex world of multiple possibilities and recognition of different minds and theories.     

The Coparticipant Field: Commentary on a Paper by Juan Tubert-Oklander

Psychoanalytic field theory is integral to relational praxis. In his study of the analytic field and its interpersonal complexities and relational intricacies, Tubert-Oklander emphasizes its clinical promise. Tubert-Oklander's field orientation, however, is a conservative and limited one. This commentary proposes a new, more radical coparticipant theory of analytic praxis.

As a unique form of clinical participation, coparticipant inquiry is marked by an emphasis on patients' and analysts' relational mutuality, coequal analytic authority, and dyadic uniqueness. Coparticipant inquiry represents both a one-person and two-person psychology—an integral of classical individualism and the social emphasis of the interpersonal/relational viewpoint. Coparticipant analysis calls for a new, multidimensional concept of the self that reconciles the seeming paradox that we are simultaneously communal and individual beings—from birth embedded in a series of social field, yet always uniquely individual. This psychoanalytic dialectic between personal, nonrelational selfic “I” processes and an interpersonal “me” pattern brings into relational play such concepts as will, self-determination, and agency. Coparticipation promotesatechnically freer, more self-expressive, and spontaneous inquiryandemphasizesthecurativeimmediacyofnewrelationalexperience.

I have believed for a long time that human

nature is a reciprocity of what is inside the skin

and what is outside; that it is definitely not

“rolled up inside us” but our way of being one

with our fellows and our world. I call this field

theory.

—Gardner Murphy     

Deepening Psychoanalytic Listening: The Marriage of Buddha and Freud

Freud (1912) delineated the ideal state of mind for therapists to listen, what he called “evenly hovering” or “evenly suspended attention.” No one has ever offered positive recommendations for how to cultivate this elusive yet eminently trainable state of mind. This leaves an important gap in training and technique. What Buddhism terms meditation—non-judgmental attention to what is happening moment-to-moment—cultivates exactly the extraordinary, yet accessible, state of mind Freud was depicting. But genuine analytic listening requires one other quality: the capacity to decode or translate what we hear on the latent and metaphoric level—which meditation does not do. This is a crucial weakness of meditation. In this chapter I will draw on the best of the Western psychoanalytic and Eastern meditative traditions to illuminate how therapists could use meditation to cultivate “evenly hovering attention” and how a psychoanalytic understanding of the language and logic of the unconscious complements and enriches meditative attention.     

“The Gift of an Apple or the Twist of an Arm”: Negotiation in Couples and Couple Therapy

This paper explores the role of negotiation in couples and couple therapy from a relational perspective, situated at the interface of psychoanalytic and systems theories, that emphasizes intersubjectivity. We consider the clinical processes through which members of a couple may be helped to develop competence in basic elements of intimate communication and negotiation, including reflective listening, mentalization, and recognition. Clinical examples illustrate therapeutic movement from projective-introjective “transference” repetitions within a couple's relationship toward a growing ability to transcend the intrapsychic “demons” that haunt the couple. Specific technical measures are described, including the use of communication “exercises” and “homework” in the context of analytic couple therapy—what we term working from the outside-in and the inside-out—as well as the potential functions of a cotherapist team for particular couples.     

Innen, Außen, Zwischen

The so-called “intersubjective turn” (or “relational turn”) in psychoanalysis is closely associated with the work of Winnicott. It was him who added a new dimension to the psychoanalytic theories of a separate inner world, a dimension focussing on the mediating processes between the separate spheres of psychic and external reality: a space between subject and object, drive and civilisation, Ego and reality — the “potential space” that unconsciously connects our self to the Other as well as to a shared physical and social world we live in. Winnicotts paradoxical notions of the self are traced in this paper and unwrapped from their often enigmatic, developmentally and epistemologically confusing veils: the infant who does not exist without a holding mother; who is not aware of his/her being held because of its evidence, and only has an experience when falling; who him-/herself creates that reality which is already there; who must destroy the object in order to use it; who can only be alone when another person is present. The author, starting from apparently narcissistic phenomena of the media society, rehabilitates the term of “in-between” in contemporary psychoanalytic discussion which for a long time was considered as suspect, as being part of a “non-psychoanalytic” superficial social psychology (as the intersubjective, the interpersonal or the interactive). Under the strong influence of Winnicott, and overarching the different schools, contemporary psychoanalysis is focussing on intersubjectivity and relationality. The paper is an appeal for reformulating classical intrapsychic concepts — including the theory of the unconscious—in intersubjective terms, thus unfolding a relational approach inherent in Freud’s metapsychology.     

Discussion: The Analyst's Involvement in the Creative Aspect of Analysis

Recent formulations on the psychology of creativity in the analytic context, such as Albert Rothenberg's “homospacial thinking,” Arnold Modell's “unconscious metaphoric thought,” and Thomas Ogden's “transformational thinking,” are discussed. These concepts enable previously unconnected experiences to be combined within the mind, while emphasizing interpersonal imaginative processes such as identification and empathic knowledge; the dual cognitive features of these formulations permit awareness of the complexity of feelings in oneself and others, essential for psychoanalytic creativity. Further, the articles in this issue are synthesized, highlighting the importance of the analyst making creative (new and valuable) use of his or her entire life experience, feelings, attitudes, and fantasies in treatment. From this dicussion, it is evident that the analyst's creative use of self should be more systematically incorporated into psychoanalytic theory of technique.     

Rationalizing flow: agency in skilled unreflective action

In recent work, Peter Railton, Julia Annas, and David Velleman aim to reconcile the phenomenon of “flow”—broadly understood as describing the “unreflective” aspect of skilled action—with one or another familiar conception of agency. While there are important differences between their arguments, Railton, Annas, and Velleman all make, or are committed to, at least one similar pivotal claim. Each argues, directly or indirectly, that agents who perform skilled unreflective actions can, in principle, accurately answer “Anscombean” questions—”what” and “why” questions— about what they do. I argue against this claim and explore the ramifications for theories of skilled action and agency.     

“Crunches,” “(K)nots,” and Double Binds—When What Isn't Happening Is the Most Important Thing: Commentary on Paper by Barbara Pizer

This discussion compares Pizer's concept of “relational (k)nots” with “crunches” and double bind impasses. It argues that all of these constructs capture what happens when conventional analytic method—the exploration, elucidation, and interpretation of transference—fails to work. In this context a “last-ditch effort” emerges, a necessary crisis of treatment. The situation is a plea that something must occur “now or never” or the “charade of therapy is over.” This plea is extraordinarily challenging since it embodies contradictory elements wherein the patient's very call for involvement with the analyst is embedded in a process that obfuscates their connection. Notably this sets the stage for the “damned if one ‘gets it’ and damned if one doesn't” experience that is a part of the paradox of recognition/mis-recognition that befuddles many analyses.

Extrication from such impasses requires the analyst's recognition that she is colluding in a kind of avoidance or distraction from recognizing their disconnection. Her second act involves meta-communication about their process. That is how their “relational knot” both binds them together while negating their connection. While this observation may be necessary it is recognized as insufficient on its own. Thus her third move out of the impasse requires her to enter into a state of improvisation. That is, to use some part of herself that must surrender from the one-up one-down impasse position of “either your version of reality or mine.” Instead, she must cultivate through her action a third way in which both she and her patient can think about their impasse and do something about it, including something different from what either one might have imagined before.     

The therapeutic relationship as a paradoxical experience

The therapeutic relationship exists within multiple levels of reality—including that of ordinary life and that of the therapeutic frame. This interplay between these two levels of reality gives rise to paradoxical experiences for both participants. Certain “principles”; or “rules”; of technique can be understood as a means of enabling the therapist to cope with what is usually referred to as “boundary”; issues. It is essential that the analyst or therapist demonstrate capacity to shift playfully from one level of reality to another. The “rule”; of abstinence and the asymmetry of desire that exists between the two participants are discussed. Gratification within the therapeutic frame is paradoxical in that gratification at one level of reality leads to privation at another level of reality. These paradoxical experiences for both patient and analyst are examined in relation to projective identification and to the analyst's countertransference.     

“I'll Have What She's Having”: Commentary on Paper by Karen E. Starr and Lewis Aron

This discussion utilizes a feminist discourse originating in the 1970s to reconsider Freud's famous question, “What do women want?” and from there explores some hidden dimensions in Starr and Aron's paper concerning female agency, sexuality, and the twists and turns of psychoanalytic theory and social conventions. Highlighting Rachel Maines's researches into the use of vibrators in medical treatment in particular, the discussion illuminates how social conventions function as powerful determinants that legislate what is seen and not seen, what is questioned and what is accepted—and ultimately what is considered psychoanalytic “bedrock.”     

PSYKOANALYYSIN URANUURTAJAT SUOMESSA

This article discusses how the individual, on different levels of relating, connects towards the otherness of other persons. In Winnicott's theory, this may be seen as a fundamental issue in child development, psychoanalysis, and in psychoanalytic psychotherapy as well. In “holding”, the otherness and subjectivity of the caretaker is implied, but not recognized by the individual—care is taken as a given. In “mirroring”, the otherness of the other person is implied and dimly recognized by the individual, but only appreciated within an omnipotent frame. The full recognition of otherness comes through the “destruction of the object”, a process that also opens up for a relation to a “third” other, and for oedipal themes. In this article, these different levels of relating to otherness are viewed as a search for a “meaning bearing other”. That is, someone who allows the possibility of meaningful thoughts and feelings, either through his or her actual communicative presence, or as an unconsciously-imagined communication partner. This postulate is discussed and illuminated through a case study of a 6-year-old boy in psychoanalytic psychotherapy.     

Vulnerability by Marriage: Okin's Radical Feminist Critique of Structural Gender Inequality

The central thesis of Susan Okin's Justice, Gender, and the Family—that the ideology of the traditional family is the linchpin of contemporary gender inequality in the US—remains significant more than a quarter‐century after the book's publication. On a political register, Okin's insistence on structural analysis of gender inequality is an important corrective to recent mainstream feminist emphasis on individual women's choices. On an academic register, her work reveals the incoherence of scholarly classifications of feminist theories as “liberal feminist” or “radical feminist” by confounding such distinctions. I argue that her thesis is best understood in relation to the early radical feminism of Juliet Mitchell's Woman's Estate, a book Okin praised. Placing Okin's work in the context of its radical roots clarifies her “linchpin thesis,” but also reveals the limitations of her argument: in her emphasis on what Iris Young has termed the “distributive paradigm of justice,” Okin unnecessarily adopts a much narrower definition of the family than did Mitchell, and overestimates the influence of economic vulnerability after divorce on women's capacity to exit marriage. I suggest modifications to her theory, and conclude by showing the continuing relevance of her argument for analyzing recent legal, policy, and demographic shifts.     

Narrative as a hermeneutical relationship to the unconscious

In this article, what seems to have been two central tenets in contemporary psychoanalytic narrative theory are challenged. The one—propounded by Roy Schafer—is that the goal of psychoanalytic work is to furnish the analysand with an alternative narrative. The other—propounded by Donald Spence—is that any story will do, if only it is coherent, consistent, persuasive and encompasses the known “facts”. Basing his critique of the mentioned standpoints on an intersubjective understanding of psychoanalytic work and a concept of interpreting inspired by the existential hermeneutics of Martin Heidegger, the author discusses the nature of the analytic dialogue and the role of transference together with the ethical basis of truth in the analytic project. Finally, it is indicated that there is a limit to analytic working-through, where the analysand's narrative activity must come to a halt and room be left for a resolve, where the analysand may undergo a fundamental transformation.     

Psychoanalysis: The Sacred and the Profane

Colleagues from a variety of perspectives have written about the propensity to enshrine psychoanalytic theory. The meaning of the word “enshrine” is to cherish as sacred an idea or philosophy and protect it from change. In other words, the way we view psychoanalysis, our theories of mind and technique, become holy writ and we have divided the world of theory into the sacred and the profane. This is the kiss of death for theory, which must constantly evolve and change, but comforting for the analyst who believes he is on the side of the right, the sacred. In this paper I will discuss how our propensity to enshrine theory has had a debilitating effect on the development of psychoanalysis and, in particular, as a treatment for the most vulnerable people who seek our help. I also address the idea that movement away from enshrined positions allows us to construct different versions of reality. In this context, the notion of “action at a distance” is presented along with the attendant idea of psychoanalytic entanglement.     

Revisiting the Concept of Time: Archaic Perplexity in Bergson and Heidegger

Though the claims they make about temporality are markedly different, Henri Bergson and Martin Heidegger agree that time is a philosophically foundational phenomenon; indeed, they agree that time is, in certain respects, the basis for all discursively representable beings. This paper focuses not so much on their theories of temporality (i.e., their respective answers to the question “what is time?” and their justifications for these answers) but rather on the challenges involved in talking about this phenomenon at all. Both thinkers are highly sensitive to these challenges and to the problems involved in any attempt to represent time in a discursively straightforward manner. I will show that: (1) Bergson’s and Heidegger’s respective claims about time can be fully understood only if we keep this sensitivity in view and carefully note what they are—and aren’t—doing in “talking about time”; and (2) what is ultimately at stake in their analyses is not just the phenomenon of time but what it means to engage in rigorous philosophical praxis.     

SPONTANEOUS “CURES”: NORMAN REIDER'S FORGOTTEN PAPER,PART II

Part I of this paper combined an introduction to Norman Reider's original 1955 paper with a republication of the paper itself. Part II is a discussion of the complexities of a comparison of past and present psychoanalytic literature. The concept of enactment is proposed as one of many possible alternative views in considering Reider's notion of spontaneous “cures.” A careful consideration of these spontaneous cures within the ordinary ups and downs of any psychoanalytic treatment sheds important light on our continuing confusion about how we define the term cure, and therefore about the nature of change during psychoanalytic treatment. This alternative perspective is only one of many plausible ones for present‐day readers. The purpose of this republication is not to propose an explanation for “what really happened” with Reider and his patients; rather, it is to reconsider the fallacy of evaluating his paper outside its historical context and thereby failing to appreciate his courage in presenting what at the time were radical views. Questions about the complexity and confusion regarding cure and change require reexamination of the neglect of epistemology on the part of psychoanalysis in prolonging the confusion about distinguishing psychotherapy and psychoanalysis.     

On the role of simplicity in science

Simple assumptions represent a decisive reason to prefer one theory to another in everyday scientific praxis. But this praxis has little philosophical justification, since there exist many notions of simplicity, and those that can be defined precisely strongly depend on the language in which the theory is formulated. The language dependence is a natural feature—to some extent—but it is also believed to be a fatal problem, because, according to a common general argument, the simplicity of a theory is always trivial in a suitably chosen language. But, this trivialization argument is typically either applied to toy-models of scientific theories or applied with little regard for the empirical content of the theory. This paper shows that the trivialization argument fails, when one considers realistic theories and requires their empirical content to be preserved. In fact, the concepts that enable a very simple formulation, are not necessarily measurable, in general. Moreover, the inspection of a theory describing a chaotic billiard shows that precisely those concepts that naturally make the theory extremely simple are provably not measurable. This suggests that—whenever a theory possesses sufficiently complex consequences—the constraint of measurability prevents too simple formulations in any language. This explains why the scientists often regard their assessments of simplicity as largely unambiguous. In order to reveal a cultural bias in the scientists’ assessment, one should explicitly identify different characterizations of simplicity of the assumptions that lead to different theory selections. General arguments are not sufficient.     

Even More Than the “Something More”: Tronick’s Dyadic Expansion of Consciousness Model and the Expansion of Child Psychoanalytic Technique

Contemporary psychoanalysis considers itself to be a discipline fundamentally concerned with meaning and meaning-making processes. Ed Tronick’s research provides scientific support for the theoretical position that meaning making is a central process in psychological development and in mental health/illness. His work collaborating with psychoanalysts has made major contributions to the psychoanalytic literature on therapeutic action, with a special emphasis on the means by which implicit meanings are activated and modified in analytic treatment—the something more than interpretation. This article is about a different something more, the even more that psychoanalytic theory and technique can evolve through further incorporating Tronick’s important findings. Tronick’s Dyadic Expansion of Consciousness Model will be briefly reviewed—emphasizing his conceptualization of meanings as being composed of multiple commingling layers (biological, psychological, relational, and social) coming together in a nonlinear “messy” mixture of mutually influencing (both bottom-up and top-down) currents. This multilayered model of meaning opens up the reconsideration of an exciting array of technical options—traditionally considered nonanalytic—to be reunderstood as truly psychoanalytic in that they address one or more of the implicit or explicit levels of meaning that a patient makes of his or her self and world. Examples of these interventions include parent work, work with teachers and schools, as well as interventions adapted from other disciplines such as Occupational Therapy. These technical possibilities are illustrated using case material from the psychoanalytic treatment of a nine-year-old boy.     

The Quest for a Unified Psychoanalytic Theory: A Retreat from Uncertainty

There has been a historical shift in psychoanalysis from an earlier time of certainty to our present state of uncertainty with the coexistence of multiple theories competing for our attention. We realize retrospectively how entrenched groups ruled our institutions by maintaining faith in their authority as the keepers of “pure” psychoanalysis. Despite struggles between competing ideologies, there has been progress in integrating clinical theories. As no psychoanalytic theory or technique has been proved superior, we advocate an inclusive approach with all psychoanalysts keeping an open mind about the value of competing theories. This integration of disparate theories has led to a resurgence of interest in psychoanalytic training. Examples are given of some of the difficulties encountered when competing ideas are introduced in psychoanalytic groups.