| Abstract: | This response to discussants Philip Bromberg and Glen Gabbard explores the relevance of a self-state perspective to my reflections (2007) on the benefits of reconsidering traditional recommendations regarding an analytic frame. The clinical and theoretical implications of Bromberg's view that the shifting choreography of a multiplicity of self-states of analyst and patient, in collision and negotiation, are implicated in the structuring and resructuring of an analytic frame, are considered. I also explore Gabbard's perspective that analysts' reliance on traditional, rigid constructions of an analytic frame no longer characterizes most contemporary work. Although I agree that relational contributions to psychoanalysis have become increasingly well established and that our more traditionally trained colleagues are beginning to grapple with and even integrate them to some degree, I nevertheless suggest that many of the traditional ways of defining and structuring a psychoanalytic frame continue to exercise a strong atavistic influence on training, practice, and the very definition of psychoanalysis. |
