Authoritativeness and Responsibility in the Analytic Exploratory Process Discussion of Elisa’s Case

Following the clinical exploratory process of Francesca Colzani’s case, this discussion emphasizes how the authoritativeness of the analysts’ contribution has to do with her/his responsibility for a self-reflexive attitude. We do not speak of power as much as of the possibility for and openness to change, which is stimulated by both of the subjectivities that are brought into play. The paper underlines the dialogue between poetic meaning and analytic meaning suggesting an innovative bidirectionality: from poetic language to the analytic process, but also from the analytic process to poetic language.     

The Risks of Therapist Passivity and the Potentials of Constructivist Influence

Francesca Colzani’s rich report of her sensitive work with Elisa highlights the therapist’s struggle with the issue of the exercise of power and authority bearing on the patient’s choices. It is suggested that sometimes the analyst poses her dilemma in dichotomous terms, choosing, in effect, between coercion and passivity. Also, it is argued that moral choices can be obscured by a turn to medicalization, diagnosis and treatment, of the patient’s “condition.” An alternative is proposed in which the analyst may offer constructive suggestions imbued with her subjectivity—her experience of conflict and uncertainty—leaving Elisa room for the exercise of her own responsible agency. In finding her own voice, the analyst may awaken selves or aspects of self of the patient that might otherwise remain dormant, potentially to her detriment. An example of an interpretation of projective identification, with self-disclosure on the analyst’s part, is proposed that might encourage collaborative reflection on a seemingly dissociative dimension of Elisa’s way of being and relating.     

Making Music Together: Discussion of Gianni Nebbiosi’s “The Smell of Paper”

Finding life in our patients is a common goal for analysts. Historically this project had been defined as one of freeing unacceptable impulses from their imprisoning defenses with the analyst, via interpretation, then contrasting the patient’s internal fantasied reality with “actual” reality. Untangling fantasy from reality could free the impulses to provide energy for more realistic projects. This imagery stands in stark contrast to the fluidity of a contemporary relational conceptualization of human experience where our inner experience is now understood to be the lens through which we construct our vision of external reality, always a subjective perception. Clinical change—finding life—now depends more on the activation of a generative intersubjective process between patient and analyst, which contributes to the expansion of the patient’s subjective experience. Gianni Nebbiosi’s use of music and of mime to help him feel his way into his patient’s and ultimately into his own similarly defended experience demonstrates the creativity and idiosyncratic clinical approaches that emerge from a contemporary relational orientation. This orientation recognizes the analyst’s subjectivity as a fundamental tool of clinical change—a vehicle through which any theoretical approach will necessarily be shaped. Differing approaches to a clinical situation do not always simply reflect theoretical disagreements; they may also reflect the expression of the particular subjectivity of the analyst.     

Gillian Straker on Tracey Moffatt’s Night Cries

Gillian Straker’s perceptive comments on Tracey Moffatt’s film Night Cries bring us into the heart of the intersubjective vulnerability of every clinical situation. Straker shows us how the film’s imagery expresses and strains the ethical, in the context of historical crimes written in ongoing suffering and fury but also grace.     

Some thoughts on self‐disclosure and the danger‐safety balance in the therapeutic relationship

This paper examines the assumptions and recommendations of Irwin Hoffman on self‐disclosure and Jay Greenberg on the danger—safety balance in the therapeutic relationship. On the basis of this examination, alternatives to the ideas of Hoffman and Greenberg are offered for consideration.     

Engaging with the Hatred of the Other: Personal Reflections Discussion of “States of Exile and Marginalization”

Drawing upon experiences associated with racialized tensions and interactions related to living in neocolonial, post-apartheid South Africa, I engage with Gillian Straker’s complex paper on “States of Exile and Marginalization” (this issue) as elaborated in response to Moffatt’s film Night Cries. In particular, I question what it means to receive the hatred of the other in contexts in which previous relations of power become challenged and inverted and grapple with how it may be possible to sustain a relational ethics in such instances. Straker’s reading of the tension between the real and the symbolic in Night Cries and what this signals for modes of expression, multiplicity of meaning, and potentialities in relating is also highlighted.     

Review Essay: Constructivism with a Human Face

Irwin Hoffman's book Ritual and Spontaneity includes, but goes well beyond, his series of seminal papers—written over the past several decades—developing a psychoanalytic, constructivist perspective. A new, existential framework depicts what Hoffman calls the “psychobiological bedrock” at the core of the human process of constructing meaning—the lifelong effort to create a livable, subjective world in face of our ever present sense of loss, suffering, and, ultimately, mortality.

This review describes Hoffman's encompassing, existential perspective and discusses how, within this framework, he uses his dialectical sensibility to frame our understanding of both parenting and analysis as “semisacred” activities. The “dialectic of ritual and spontaneity”—the vital clash between disciplined adherence to the analytic frame and personally expressive deviations from it—represents the creative tension between the “magical” dimension of analytic authority and the healing influence of a genuinely expressive human relationship. Hoffman's perspective on the self-interested, “dark side” of the analytic relationship is compared with Winnicott's views on the vital, therapeutic role of “hate” and the paradoxical process by which the patient comes to “use” the analyst.

Unlike most postmodernist “constructivists,” Hoffman openly reveals his underlying belief in certain “transcultural, transhistorical universals”—his “psychobiological bedrock.” In acknowledging these “essentials” (assumptions about human nature) that in some form are integral, yet often hidden, elements of any system of thought, Hoffman saves his own dialectical constructivism from falling into dichotomous (constructivist vs. essentialist) thinking.     

Review Essay: The Ethical and the Epistemological

In this review of Ritual and Spontaneity in the Psychoanalytic Process, I suggest that Irwin Hoffman's claim that his proposed paradigm of constructivism is revolutionary becomes more comprehensible and substantial if we realize that constructivism not only is an epistemological stance but is a profoundly ethical and even theological position that sees construction as construction in the face of death. The pronounced dialectical approach Hoffman is espousing and developing enables us to see the underside of uncertainty not only as epistemological complexity but as the ever present potential for moral fallibility and guilt.     

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     

Technology and guidance: a balance

The following symposium discusses the place of technology in guidance and some of the concerns involved. Tiedeman, a leading authority on technological applications in guidance, takes the position that guidance technology is an important new development. Schmidt, who has written widely in the areas of psychology and counseling, questions the place of technology in guidance and society and underlines some of the concerns related to the adoption of technology. The authors' discussions of “one-way” versus “two-way” thinking and the problem of control over the technology should be of interest to readers concerned with applying technology in guidance.     

Humiliation and the Cultural and Relational Structuring of Hysteria: Reply to Commentaries

In this reply to the discussions by Muriel Dimen and Richard Lasky of “Hysteria and Humiliation” I emphasize how historical theoretical conceptualizations of hysteria have always been informed by derogatory attitudes. I concur with Dimen's view that power is always invoked in gender and race relations and that these inevitably find their way into the clinical. I disagree with Lasky's view that the hysteric can be understood primarily through the operation of “autonomous mental events” and that too great a reliance on this concept obscures the role of cultural and developmental experiences of humiliation in the origins and maintenance of hysteric phenomena.     

Nothing but the truth: self-disclosure, self-revelation, and the persona of the analyst

The question of the analyst's self-disclosure and self-revelation inhabits every moment of every psychoanalytic treatment. All self-disclosures and revelations, however, are not equivalent, and differentiating among them allows us to define a construct that can be called the analytic persona. Analysts already rely on an unarticulated concept of an analytic persona that guides them, for instance, as they decide what constitutes appropriate boundaries. Clinical examples illustrate how self-disclosures and revelations from within and without the analytic persona feel different, for both patient and analyst. The analyst plays a specific role for each patient and is both purposefully and unconsciously different in this context than in other settings. To a great degree, the self is a relational phenomenon. Our ethics call for us to tell nothing but the truth and simultaneously for us not to tell the whole truth. The unarticulated working concept of an analytic persona that many analysts have refers to the self we step out of at the close of each session and the self we step into as the patient enters the room. Attitudes toward self-disclosure and self-revelation can be considered reflections of how we conceptualize this persona.     

Symposium: On the Interface of Kleinian and Intersubjectivist Approaches to a Clinical Case

This symposium is the first of what we hope will be a series on the interface between Kleinian and intersubjective/relational approaches to psychoanalysis. There are some commonalities between these approaches that may not be entirely obvious. The Kleinian clinical approach organizes the internal world in terms of internal object relationships, and relies on attention to certain aspects of the countertransference as the central data source for analytic work. Both of these qualities provide an immediate link to the two-person model so central to the relational turn. At the same time, the Kleinians' radical insistence on the primacy of the internal world and in particular, the world of the primitive phantasies, runs counter to the relational interest in the equally important role of actual, social reality. This contrast is perhaps most acute in their approaches to the analyst's participation in the analytic dyad, which is meant to be limited to particular analytic functions in the Kleinian approach, but acknowledged and used as a part of an interpersonal relationship in the relational model. As the Kleinian perspectives gain currency in the United States and international interest in the relational approach grows, an exploration of these complex conceptual and clinical differences and similarities seems quite timely.     

For richer,for poorer: Financial behaviors,power (im)balance,and relational aggression among different-gender newlyweds in the U.S.

Guided by an intersectional feminism framework, we used three-wave, dyadic survey data from a nationally representative sample of 1625 U.S. different-gender newlywed couples to test three research questions. First, as balanced power is considered a key concept for relational well-being in feminism, we examined developmental trajectories in husbands' and wives' perception of power (im)balance. Second, considering money as a major influence on power and aggression, we examined how financial behaviors relate to power (im)balance and in turn relational aggression—a type of intimate partner violence that is controlling and manipulative in nature. Third, informed by the intersectionality between gender and socioeconomic status (SES), we examined gender differences and SES disparities in the associations among financial behaviors, developmental trajectories of perception of power (im)balance, and relational aggression. Our findings demonstrate that newlywed different-gender couples are experiencing power struggles, where two partners diminish each other's influence over time. We also found that healthy financial behaviors are associated with balanced power and, in turn, less relational aggression (especially for wives and in lower-SES households). Taken collectively, we continue calling for efforts to facilitate money management skills and promote balanced marital power.     

Reflections of Authority in Psychotherapy

Abstract

This article examines how therapists' expressions of authority affect the psychotherapeutic relationship. The article is based on the proposition that the clinical practitioner is always in a position of authority, regardless of how the role of authority is conceptualized within treatment approaches. The article includes an investigation of power and authority differentials within and across therapeutic approaches that espouse both hierarchical and egalitarian authority relationships. Process material from these approaches is analyzed to identify therapists' exercise of authority within these two approaches. It is suggested that researchers and therapists might use a heuristic research design to study the conveyance of therapeutic authority to identify whether dimensions of authority are overtly or covertly expressed, and whether or how such expression might affect practice and a client's exercise of personal authority.     

Marital Therapy and Marital Power: Constructing Narratives of Sharing Relational and Positional Power

Scholars continue to emphasize in their conceptualizations of marital power the capacity to exert influence in the marital relationship based on the control of valued resources and status (positional power). Much less attention has been given to the capacity to exert authority in the marital relationship through the context of an intimate relationship and the opportunities for influence it provides (relational power). Strategies are suggested for co-authoring narratives with couples in the process of therapy that create opportunities for them to share these bases of power within their families in ways that free them from the negative constraints associated with cultural discourses about gender and power.     

Taboo Trade‐Offs,Relational Framing,and the Acceptability of Exchanges

This article reports 4 experiments demonstrating the power of social‐relational framing to complicate superficially straightforward economic exchanges of goods and services. Drawing from Alan Fiske's theoretical framework as well as Tetlock's sacred value protection model, the experiments demonstrate (a) pricing distortions and refusals to answer certain questions when people contemplate buying or selling objects endowed with special relational significance; (b) moral outrage and cognitive confusion when people are asked whether they would allow market‐pricing norms to influence decisions that fall under the normative purview of communal‐sharing, authority‐ranking, and equality‐matching relationships; and (c) elements of tactical flexibility in how people respond to breaches of relational boundaries (a willingness to turn a blind eye to taboo trade‐offs when it is in their interest to do so). An agenda for future work is offered that explores how pragmatic, economic interests are balanced against the desire to be (or appear to be) the type of person who honors social–relational constraints on what should be considered fungible.     

Supervision Is a Relationship Too: A Contemporary Approach to Psychoanalytic Supervision

This paper discusses clinical cases presented by Comins and Eliot within a paradigm of psychoanalytic supervisory work based on relational theory. Here, in making the medium of supervision more symmetrical with the message of contemporary psychoanalytic ideas about structure of mind health, pathology, and treatment, the relationship between the supervisor and supervisee is considered to contain crucial supervisory data to be delineated and discussed by both members of the dyad. The supervisory relationship is described using three dimensions: power and authority, the data held to be relevant for supervisory conversations, and the mode of the supervisor's participation in the supervisory process.     

For love or money? How activation of relational versus instrumental concerns affects reactions to decision-making procedures

We investigate how the direct activation of relational versus instrumental concerns affects reactions to decisions made by an authority. It is demonstrated that when instrumental concerns are experimentally induced, people’s evaluations of the authority (Studies 1 and 2) as well as their intentions to protest (Study 3) are more strongly affected by how the procedures used by the authority affect anticipated outcomes (i.e., whether procedures are favorably or unfavorably inaccurate) than when relational concerns are activated. By contrast, authority evaluations (Study 2) and protest intentions (Study 3) are more strongly affected by whether procedures used are fair (accurate) or unfair (inaccurate) when relational (versus instrumental) concerns are activated. These findings extend previous research where relational versus instrumental concerns were inferred, but not directly examined, to explain differences in responses to authorities’ decisions.     

Penetrating Subjectivity: Response to Commentaries

In response to the commentaries by Altman, Straker, and Suchet, the author considers the ways in which thirdness—in various manifestations—has aided in the continuing process of thinking about race. She responds to Straker’s invitation to interrogate further what it means to write from within and without a context, considering some of the defensive strategies that manifest when writing about race from a position of whiteness. Following Suchet’s lead, the paper looks too at the notion of the decolonization of the mind and how this is a project that unfolds in parallel with the decolonial moment being witnessed in broader socioeconomic contexts. In response to Altman’s commentary on the clinical aspects of the paper, the author engages with what it means to enter more fully into a process of mutual recognition when working in cross-racial dyads and considers, finally, the question of far she is able, as a white clinician and writer, to jeopardize the self in the process of unsettling whiteness.