Now Streaming: On Unconscious Communications in the Analytic Process

ABSTRACT

In this article, I illustrate the concept of unconscious communication by means of a clinical example in which a patient was able to recover the memory of a key adolescence experience as the result of the interplay of unconscious messages transmitted between himself and his analyst. When the patient spotted the analyst driving an old, beat-up family car, this triggered an unconscious memory of this painful adolescent episode, one that epitomized and stood for his troubled and disappointing relationship with his father. This memory, which was expressed nonverbally, in turn, evoked a memory in the analyst from his own adolescence that put him in touch with the patient‘s traumatic, adolescent experience, material that had come up previously in the analysis but had not been adequately dealt with or worked through. By grasping the meaning of the interplay of these unconscious messages, the analyst was able to help the patient get in touch with, better understand, and work through, an experience that had an enduring impact on his future life.