Reply to Reviews of Awakening the Dreamer: Clinical Journeys by Philip M. Bromberg

I reply here to reviews by three inspiring thinkers, Ethel Person, Susan Sands, and Allan Schore who, though uniquely different from one another in their conceptual frames of reference, share a sensibility as clinicians and creative scholars that has led them to engage and appreciate my work in depth while enriching it with their individual perspectives. Ethel Person's review is meaningful to me for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that we think very much alike about “how we are” with patients despite the diversity in our families of origin. Her thinking, which extends the boundaries established by any one school of thought, transcends doctrine, especially that of “technique.” I am equally grateful to Susan Sands, whose review stimulated a dialogue between us about the similarities and differences in our views of the analyst's personal role in enactments with severe trauma survivors and whether there is reason to distinguish between life-threatening and developmental trauma. My reply to Allan Schore's review satisfies a long-standing wish to engage with him in dialogue about what he refers to in his review as “a remarkable overlap between Bromberg's work in clinical psychoanalysis and my work in developmental neuropsychoanalysis, a deep resonance between his treatment model and my regulation theory” (this issue, p. 755). In my reply I comment from my own vantage point on how our shared commitment to an interpersonal and intersubjective perspective—my interpersonal/relational treatment model and his “Interpersonal Neurobiology” led us to arrive at overlapping views on developmental trauma, attachment, the dyadic regulation of states of consciousness, and dissociation.     

How prisoners and their partners experience the maintenance of their relationship during a prison sentence

Research shows that intimate relationships, and their maintenance via prison visits, have a positive impact on factors associated with prisoner well‐being and reduced likelihood of recidivism. It is therefore in the interest of corrections, government, and wider society to enable prisoners to maintain healthy relationships with their family and intimate partners throughout their prison sentence. Despite this evidence, little is known about how prisoners experience the maintenance of a significant intimate relationship in prison. This study aims to explore heterosexual couples' experiences in maintaining their well‐established intimate relationships, while the male partner is incarcerated. Four main themes were identified: how they experienced “having a special connection” that they were motivated to maintain; “coping with challenges and threats” to that connection; “developing reciprocal behaviours” to meet those challenges; and “maintaining a belief in the future.” Implications for how the relational context of rehabilitation can best be supported is considered.     

Making Probabilistic Relational Categories Learnable

Theories of relational concept acquisition (e.g., schema induction) based on structured intersection discovery predict that relational concepts with a probabilistic (i.e., family resemblance) structure ought to be extremely difficult to learn. We report four experiments testing this prediction by investigating conditions hypothesized to facilitate the learning of such categories. Experiment 1 showed that changing the task from a category‐learning task to choosing the “winning” object in each stimulus greatly facilitated participants' ability to learn probabilistic relational categories. Experiments 2 and 3 further investigated the mechanisms underlying this “who's winning” effect. Experiment 4 replicated and generalized the “who's winning” effect with more natural stimuli. Together, our findings suggest that people learn relational concepts by a process of intersection discovery akin to schema induction, and that any task that encourages people to discover a higher order relation that remains invariant over members of a category will facilitate the learning of putatively probabilistic relational concepts.     

Working class homosexuality and HIV/AIDS prevention some recent research from Sydney,Australia

Abstract

Surveys on gay and bisexual men in Sydney and non-metropolitan New South Wales (NSW) indicate uneven patterns of HIV/AIDS knowledge and sexual behaviour change. As a follow-up action-research study, the Class, Homosexuality and AIDS Prevention (CHAP) project pursued audio-recorded, semistructured interviews with men in western Sydney and Nullangardie, a provincial city in NSW, to investigate the relationship between homosexuality and class.

One-to-one interviews with working-class, homosexually active men revealed particular patterns of homosexual initiation and sexual relationships, and a distinct culture being slowly affected by notions of being “gay” and “gay community”. This impact of modern gay life on western Sydney was different from that in the provincial city. More prominent were the effects of class—unemployment, poor education, poverty, and cultural marginalisation—on the experience and elaboration of homosexuality. Group interviews confirmed an experience of “difference” from prominent gay communities, especially Sydney's “Oxford Street” gay quarter. Working-class men offered a critique of gay community-initiated HIV/AIDS prevention strategies, pointing toward different education initiatives involving local social networks.

Case studies are presented to argue the importance of the relation between sexuality and class, and its consequences for HIV/AIDS education.     

Expecting More in Relationships – Implications of Relational Entitlement

Abstract

Sense of relational entitlement refers to what individuals’ believe they “should” expect from their romantic partner. When expectations are both unrealistic and not met by one’s partner, there is a potential for adverse consequences. Researchers surveyed 195 female participants between the ages 18-60. The study examined the influence of one’s sense of relational entitlement with varying conflict strategies. The findings revealed that extreme forms of one’s sense of relational entitlement was associated with conflict strategies like verbal aggression, and control & domination. Thus, one’s sense of relational entitlement appears to play a significant role in how individuals handle conflict.     

Power and Gender Influences on Responsibility Attributions: The Case of Disagreements in Relationships

Abstract

In a sample of 156 college students (74 men and 82 women), the authors examined the influences of power status and gender on responsibility attributions and resolution choices during disagreements in personal relationships. The participants read vignettes in which relationship partners disagreed; then the participants placed themselves in the situations depicted and reported their perceived responsibility and resolution choices. The participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 power-status conditions (you have/your partner has greater power in the situation). Power status was based on resource power (i.e., a monetary inheritance) or on perceived power (i.e., financial knowledge). The authors tested 2 alternative power-status hypotheses (justified benefits/rights and ability/accountability) and 1 gender hypothesis. The results supported both power-status hypotheses. In addition, the men's and the women's responsibility attributions and resolution choices (i.e., adhering to their own wishes or deferring to their partner's wishes) revealed differential dependence on the type of power held by the person with greater situational power. The authors suggest issues further research concerning how situational differences in socially based expectations (e.g., power status and gender) may affect conflicts within relationships.     

Monogamy,Nonmonogamy, and Identity

After a brief discussion of the terms “monogamy” and “nonmonogamy,” I evaluate explanations offered by different theorists for the pain that nonmonogamy can cause to the partner (especially a female partner) of a nonmonogamous person (of either sex). My suggestion is that the self, especially the female self, is convention’ ally defined in terms of sexual partners. I present and reply to a possible objection to this explanation, and then discuss my theory's normative implications.     

Experiential Learning

SUMMARY

The following article is about three things: my impressions of Virginia Satir's work, my personal experience of her, and the profound connection between the work of Virginia Satir and Dr. Eugene T. Gendlin's Focusing work.

My attraction to both of these great teachers is not surprising. They both share a type of wisdom which in metaphysics is often described as “intelligence lovingly applied.”

In this article I hope to convey what I see as an organic and compatible overlap between Satir and Gendlin which will hopefully be useful to the readers of this publication.     

Creativity,Spontaneity, Impasse,and Leaps of Faith: Reply to Commentaries

In my reply to the commentaries, I address several points of convergence with and divergence from Drs. Danielle Knafo and Philip A. Ringstrom. I clarify my view that while shame can drive the creative process, the thrust of my paper is about ways in which shame can close down access to one's creative potential, as well as creating obstacles to vitality and intimacy in relationships. I expand on how it was indeed a visceral, embodied sense of my own shame which served as an “informant,” as Ringstrom suggests, of Julia's chronic experience of shame, opening a door to our exploration of the repetitive enactments between us. Grounding my understanding of therapeutic action and enactments in a relational perspective, I describe how I view enactments as inevitable and co-created, and reflecting on them collaboratively as a potentially useful opportunity in analytic work. I resonate with Ringstrom and Knafo's belief in the creativity inherent in the psychoanalytic process, and the importance of spontaneity and risk taking, particularly in negotiating impasses in treatment. Finally, I describe Julia's poetic reflections upon reading the paper.     

Shared emotions

Existing scientific concepts of group or shared or collective emotion fail to appreciate several elements of collectivity in such emotions. Moreover, the idea of shared emotions is threatened by the individualism of emotions that comes in three forms: ontological, epistemological, and physical. The problem is whether or not we can provide a plausible account of “straightforwardly shared” emotions without compromising our intuitions about the individualism of emotions. I discuss two philosophical accounts of shared emotions that explain the collectivity of emotions in terms of their intentional structure: Margaret Gilbert's plural subject account, and Hans Bernhard Schmid's phenomenological account. I argue that Gilbert's view fails because it relegates affective experience into a contingent role in emotions and because a joint commitment to feel amounts to the creation of a feeling rule rather than to an emotion. The problems with Schmid's view are twofold: first, a phenomenological fusion of feelings is not necessary for shared emotions and second, Schmid is not sensitive enough to different forms of shared concerns. I then outline my own typology that distinguishes between weakly, moderately, and strongly shared emotions on the basis of the participants’ shared concerns of different degree of collectivity, on the one hand, and the synchronization of their emotional responses, on the other hand. All kind of shared emotions in my typology are consistent with the individualism of emotions, while the question about “straightforward sharing” is argued to be of secondary importance.     

Crash: What We Do When We Cannot Touch: Commentary on Paper by Meira Likierman

This commentary aims to show the congruence and difference between Likierman's position on recognizing otherness and working with enactment and her relational, intersubjective position. Differences in my reading of the case include stressing the repetition of early attachment trauma, the level of implicit procedural relating, and the patient's contribution to the shared third of rupture and repair. I try to show that enactments arise not merely because the patient is able to pull the patient into forbidden behavior but because the dissociated parts of the patient pull the analyst into dissociation even when the analyst is acting “properly.” The rupture or collision—the “crash”—that the patient helps to formulate represents an opportunity to see the life-giving element in what we, analysts along with patients, inevitably also experience as frightening and even life-threatening.     

Teaching children with autism to mand for social information

We replicated Shillingsburg et al. (2018) by teaching children with autism to mand for social information while analyzing the variables influencing the emission of mands. We presented questions about a social partner that were known and observable (e.g., “What is Robin doing?”), known but unobservable (i.e., questions for which an intraverbal response had previously been taught, such as, “Where does Robin work?”), or unknown (e.g., “What is Robin's favorite food?”). Correct answers were reinforced across all conditions. During treatment, we prompted children to mand for information from the social partner following only unknown questions. All children acquired mands for social information and answered previously unknown questions correctly after manding for social information and 3 of 4 participants emitted mands to novel social partners, including a peer with autism.     

Impact of attachment style on responses to accommodative dilemmas among same‐sex couples

Drawing upon Goffman (1963), we examined the impact of attachment style on responses to accommodative dilemmas among couples with “discredited” identities (i.e., lesbian and gay male couples). Specifically, we tested the hypothesis that individuals in same‐sex romantic relationships involving two securely attached partners would be more likely to engage in accommodation (i.e., in response to a partner’s anger or criticism, would behave constructively) than would individuals in same‐sex romantic relationships involving at least one insecurely attached partner. As expected, results from 58 gay male couples yielded a significant main effect for attachment style pairing on responses to accommodative dilemmas. However, results from 53 lesbian couples yielded a marginal interaction effect involving partner (i.e., Partner 1 versus Partner 2) and attachment style pairing on responses to accommodative dilemmas. Implications for the study of personality characteristics and interpersonal behavior among lesbian and gay male couples are discussed.     

Affective responses to non-sexual imagery depicting gay men and lesbian women

ABSTRACT

When examining negative attitudes and behaviors directed toward gay men and lesbian women (i.e., homonegativity), researchers tend to use measures that require participants to respond to belief statements. This methodology is problematic for two reasons: 1) it focuses on the social categories “gay men” and “lesbian women” and ignores the practices of relational intimacy engaged in by gay and lesbian persons (practices that, arguably, are at the crux of homonegativity); and 2) it overlooks the affective responses that sexual minorities evoke in heterosexual people. These issues were tackled in the current study. Specifically, heterosexual participants (N = 241) were asked to report their affective state using six basic emotions while viewing photos depicting male-male, female-female, and heterosexual couples. Findings demonstrated that participants, regardless of gender, reacted most negatively to images of female-female couples engaging in everyday intimacies. Theoretical explanations for these findings are explored.     

The nature of stress experienced by lesbians and gay men

Abstract

This study examined both the meanings and sources/causes of stress from the perspectives of lesbians and gay men (n=30), using a series of focus groups. The findings suggest that stress is considered a part of life itself, and is perceived to contain both negative (e.g. detrimental effects on health and overall functioning, unfairness, out-of-control), and positive (e.g. a motivator, growth-facilitator) elements. The sources/causes of stress (i.e. stressors) identified include stress experienced from the “coming out” process, stress in family relations and intimate relationships, conflict over one's sexuality given society's homophobic and heterosexist attitudes toward lesbians and gay men, as well as stress from financial and work-related issues. More importantly, this study suggests that culture/ethnicity, gender, and aging, which are interconnected with one's sexual identity, play an important role in shaping the experiences of stress among lesbians and gay men.     

The Influence of Social Identity and Intimacy of Interethnic Relationships on Uncertainty Reduction Processes

This study examined the influence of social identity and the intimacy of relationships on uncertainty reduction processes in interethnic relationships. Data from two samples (Hispanics in the Midwest and Caucasians in the Southwest) were used to test hypotheses derived from social identity theory (e.g., Tajfel & Turner, 1979) and theories of relationship development (e.g., Altman & Taylor, 1973). Results for both samples revealed that social identity has a significant positive effect on uncertainty reduction processes. This effect, however, was moderated by prototypicality; that is, it occurred in relationships where the partner was viewed as “typical,” but not in relationships where the partner was viewed as “atypical.” When controlling for the partner's ethnicity in the Caucasian analysis, social identity had a significant effect on communication with black partners, but not with Mexican-American partners. This finding was explained by status characteristic theory (e.g., Berger & Zelditch, 1985). The intimacy of interethnic relationship also accounted for a significant portion of the variance. The effect for intimacy was manifested in relationships where the partner was viewed as typical, as well as when the partner was viewed as atypical. The results are consistent with social identity theory and recent work linking it with uncertainty reduction theory, as well as with theories of relationship development.     

Metanoia

SUMMARY

The author draws on her experience working with individual men who are violent to their partners to think about the problem of international violence. A parallel is drawn between a man's feeling of “entitlement” to forcefully keep his partner “in line” and feelings of national entitlement to engage in violence to force one group's agenda on another. The differences between morals and taboos are discussed underscoring the community value of that which becomes socially and ethically “unthinkable.”     

Strengthening Resilience in a Risky World: It's All About Relationships

SUMMARY

Building on Judith Jordan's earlier work on relational resilience, this paper challenges the commonly held view that resilience is a unique form of individual “toughness” endowed to a lucky few and suggests that resilience can be strengthened in all people through participation in growth-fostering relationships. The author reviews the research describing individual, internal characteristics associated with resilience and explores the relational aspects of these characteristics. A case example illustrates that efforts promoting relational development help people grow through and beyond experiences of hardship and adversity. In addition, the author proposes specific ways resilience can be strengthened through engagement in relationships that enhance one's intellectual development, sense of worth, sense of competence, sense of empowerment, and, most importantly, sense of connection.     

Deconstructing the “Covered Bridge” - Couples Therapy with Sexual Abuse Survivors and Their Partners

SUMMARY

In accepting the editor's invitation to submit an article for this volume, I have taken the subject matter, Building Bridges, quite literally: that is, to talk about bridges as a rather compelling metaphor for couple relationships. I have chosen to focus on the covered bridge, in particular, as it informs me most graphically of the structure and therapeutic challenge presented by couples in which one partner is a child sexual abuse survivor. In my clinical work with such couples, I invariably find myself in the role of surveyor/engi-neer/builder, deconstructing the “covered bridge” and engaged in building a stronger, more open and enduring structure. The steps toward rebuilding and transforming the “covered bridge” structure for these couples are outlined and illustrated.