A Procedural,Contextual, Action-Focused Understanding: Response to Renn and Westerman

In this reply to comments by Paul Renn and Michael Westerman, I discuss the nature of relational discourse and the various meanings of multiplicity in the relational literature. In further discussing Mitchell’s (2000) case of Connie, cited also by Renn, I highlight the ways in which Mitchell understood that Connie’s sadness was perpetuated by the ways she communicated her feelings and needs in the present. I discuss Westerman’s participatory perspective in relation to Schafer’s action language, Shapiro’s emphasis on action and responsibility, and Dollard and Miller’s conceptualizations of repression as the active behavior of not-thinking certain thoughts. I examine as well Westerman’s distinction between “self and context” and “self-in-context” formulations in relation both to the cyclical psychodynamic point of view and his own case example.