Breathing Together: Reply to Harris and Shaw

These two very different but complementary discussions address two different “registers” of my thinking in my paper on patients who “live in airless intrapsychic worlds.” Harris is most interested in the meta-theoretical and historical contexts and frames of my theory and clinical approach, viewing my contribution as an example of various broad trends in contemporary relational psychoanalytic thought. Shaw, by contrast, engages with my particular insights and clinical/theoretical framework for understanding and working with patients whose struggles very much resemble and overlap with the struggles of the adult children of “traumatically narcissistic” parents, which his seminal work has focused on. In my Replies I voice my appreciation of each of their unique perspectives on my ideas, and engage with each of them regarding certain differences in our theoretical and clinical sensibilities.