[1] The title is a variation on and inspired by Louis Sander’s title of 2002: Thinking Differently: Principles of Process in Living Systems and the Specificity of Being Known.

 

[2] And this parallels experientially the content of what I am writing of: making contact. And only later explaining myself. Experiencing is always first, it is the process of living. Theorizing is a way of making sense of such experiencing post hoc.  It is after the fact, a way of arranging “facts” in a certain order when these “facts” are snapshots in time of a living process, already past. Theory, my colleague Alan Karbelnig would say, is a way of tidying up the mess that is living

 

[3] I address myself as a psychoanalyst (therapist,/clinician) to the analysand  (client/ patient/ person who comes to see me in my capacity as analyst/therapist/clinician), because in the relating to my clients lies the sole clinical relevance of anything I do or am. It is my positioning myself as analyst vis-à-vis the analysand that creates the analytic situation – the situation in which this particular kind of relating takes place -- in which we are trying to make contact and “make sense together” (Orange 1995:11), in which all that we are and all that we have been is relevant for who we can be together, with the aim of making the analysand more accessible to him- or herself.

 

[4] And so it inevitably will. By the end of our work together my clients will know much more of me and in more ways than I will ever be aware of. And this is as it should be.

 

[5] This is what I do: my chair is placed vis-à-vis the couch where clients sit or lie as they choose, always able to look at me at will. In light of what we now know of the relevance of feeling ourselves felt by the other by observing our impact on them in their faces, of resonant emotional states created in the perceiver of emotions, it is the only tenable position for me to allow for my being seen and my seeing the other as they (not I) choose.  Of course, the visual is not the only pathway to feel oneself felt/ understood. There is the whole body, the voice, and of course what is being said and how. What is imperative is that the analysand find a way to do so. The visual is a highly significant way to which I will not deny my clients access. See also the literature listed in footnotes (9) and (11).

 

[6] As much emphasis as psychoanalysis puts on language and the spoken word, the mind-body dichotomy is only apparent. The “talking cure” was never only about talking. “Mind” and “body” are constructs we use to try to understand the whole creature we are. Newest developments in infant research, neuro-psychology, attachment theory and their interface with psychoanalysis bear this out. Minds and brains are two different constructs to look at the whole person – one develops as the other does (or rather, they are not separate) within a relational context. We have tended to disregard the body and its gestures in psychoanalysis – only consider the classical positioning of the analyst out of sight of the analysand – and often that means that the analysand is also out of sight of the analyst. That, too, has an impact, even when (including because) we do not attend to it. See also footnote (5).

 

[7] This is the analytic dyad – the crucible where all that will happen in analysis will happen. Where analysis itself – another abstraction from the process of relating of an analyst and an analysand – will take place. The dyad, too, is where our minds and brains (I should say mind-brains or brain-minds, the Winnicottian “psyche-soma”) are built and continue to evolve and change. See Daniel Siegel 1999 and 2003, Alan Schore’s work on Affect Regulation, and D. W. Winnicott’s pioneering understanding of this matter.)

 

[8] Webster’s Dictionary: Dialogue: 1. a talking together; conversation 2. interchange and discussion of ideas, especially when open and frank, as in seeking mutual understanding and harmony (italics mine).

 

[9] This is what we humans do – orienting towards each other in an attempt to know ourselves even as we know the other. See Beebe and Lachman (2002:36f) in Infant Research and Adult Treatment. Co-constructing Interactions: “(…) perception of emotion in the partner creates a resonant state in the perceiver.” Also Daniel Siegel’s (1999) “The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are.”

 

[10] Ideally, and hopefully, I will have more than one of those systems of metaphors available to me (whatever language/s I speak ). James Grotstein spoke of this once in a seminar he was teaching where I was in attendance as “I speak several theories fluently”. But nonetheless, some of these “languages of theory” will resonate with me more than others.

 

[11] This process refers to the crucial experiencing for any human being of an other as having one’s mind in mind in order to develop a knowledge of oneself as someone with a mind.  Fonagy et al. call this “Affective Mentalization” (Fonagy et al. 2002: Affect Regulation, Mentalization and the Development of the Self).  Winnicott  refers to it decades earlier (1967)  in his paper “Mirror- Role of Mother and Family in Child Development” when he says: “When I look I am seen, so I exist. I can now afford to look and see.” (1967/1971:114). And “What does the baby see when he or she looks at the mother’s face? (…) what the baby sees is himself or herself (…) the mother is looking at the baby and what she looks like is related to what she sees there.” (1967/1971:112).

 

[12] “An interpretation is a translation, and what is reflected in an interpretation is the analyst’s personal view of the patient, which is one of many possible realities.” Bromberg (1994:   ): “Speak! That I May See You”. Some Reflections on Dissociation, Reality and Psychoanalytic Listening.

 

[13] The Berkeley group around Paul Watzlawick  and Allan Bateson formulated this understanding in the 1970s with their observation that “we cannot not communicate.”

 

[14] Consider the body of work on implicit and explicit memory and ways of knowing (semantic vs. procedural knowledge) -- encompassing so much more than what is or can ever be consciously available to us and which yet colors all that we are and is at the root of all we can never be.  Much we can only know about – and never know directly. A number of relevant papers can be found in: Tronick, E. (Issue ed.) (1998): Interventions That Effect Change in Psychotherapy. A Model Based in Infant Research. Infant Mental Health Journal Vol. 19 (3). There among others:  Lyons-Ruth, K. (1998): Implicit Relational Knowing: It’s Role in Development and Psychoanalytic Treatment. Also Beebe, B. (1998): A Procedural Theory of Therapeutic Action: Commentary on the Symposium “Interventions that Effect Change in Psychotherapy. Fonagy, P. (1998): Moments of Change in Psychoanalytic Theory: Discussion of a new Theory of Psychic Change. Stern, D. (1998): The Process of Therapeutic Change Involving Implicit Knowledge: Some Implications of Developmental Observations for Adult Psychotherapy. Another, very accessible text integrating a wealth of complex and difficult information on infant research and development into everyday, understandable language is Siegel, D. and Mary Hartzell (2003): Parenting from the Inside Out.

 

[15] Language is socially constructed and exists and lives in its usage. It does not fall ready-made from the sky – much as institutions like the French Academy Francaise as well as the German Mannheimer Sprachinstitut may give the impression that language is supposed to be a certain way and not another, what with their efforts to “preserve” what is no thing but a living process in the first place. There are all sorts of determining factors that go into how any of us use language, what any given term and phrase and way of speaking means to us -- all of them socially mediated, in larger (societies and groups and sub-groups) and smaller (families and dyads) ways. However, we are all, as Lacan posits, inescapably born into language. And how we emerge into it, where we emerge into it, with whom we emerge into it will forever color all that we can mean.

 

[16] I am thinking of something like Winnicott’s spontaneous gesture here, a spontaneous gesture to each other. A “true self” meeting another “true self” if you will: responding, existing -- and not just reacting to impingement. An analyst/mother providing for the analysand/child an experience/environment that is “good enough”, so that there can be “(…) existing and not (…) reacting.” Winnicott (1960:148). This is a general stance, what it is that is actually needed to be “good enough” will be different for every person coming to see me. “Good enough” is, by definition, less than perfect (and is, paradoxically, exactly what is needed). Here belongs the concept of attunement, including its failure, developed in the idea of rupture and repair. Research shows that moderately contingent attunement (a measure of rupture and repair) is optimal for development (cf. Beebe & Lachman 2002).

 

[17] Cf. Louis Sander (2002): Thinking Differently: Principles of Process in Living Systems and the Specificity of Being Known. Also Benjamin, J. (2002): The Rhythm of Recognition. Comments on the Work of Louis Sander, as well as the works referred to in footnote (14). Donna Orange (1995) says: “(…) understanding is incompatible with standing apart.” Martin Buber expresses it thus: “The relationship to the Thou is direct. No system of ideas, no foreknowledge, and no fancy intervene between the I and Though.” (1937:11). And with Orange “(…) subjectivity becomes real only when two subjectivities meet in a personal relation.” (1995:21).

 

[18] The Boston Study Group of Change refers to this phenomenon in the treatment setting as “moments of meeting”. In infant research these are moments of affect attunement, including cross-modal ones. Cf. Stern, D. (1985): The Interpersonal World of the Infant, as well as the texts by Beebe and Lachman and Daniel Siegel mentioned in footnotes (9) and (14).

 

[19] Here, then, the psychoanalytic concepts: transference and countertransference. Here “nameless dread” and “dread of annihilation”. Here “false self” and “basic fault” and “unthought known”. Here “fantasy” and “phantasy”. Here “defense”, “resistance” and so on.  Here also organizing experience around the expectation of a recurrence of previous experience, based on how our actual brains/minds where shaped within early attachment relationships.

 

[20] Fonagy et al. (2002) mentioned above in footnote (11) develop these concepts at length within the construct of Affective Mentalization. It is what Winnicott was getting at with his idea of “good enough mothering.” Also, Bion’s beta function belongs here.

 

[21] It is again Winnicott (1960) who develops the idea of object usage as an achievement arising out of a “good-enough” mothering situation.

 

[22] There are variations here, of course, of relatively more or less transparency. But psychoanalysis as a profession is operating from a stance, by and large, of relative withholding of the analyst’s own explicitly known reality.

 

[23] And this is, in the end, what we can do for each other: use each other by mutual consent the way we need to use each other to be more fully ourselves.

 

[24] Here again the concept of affective mentalization, i.e. the idea that I can only see what I see being seen. Winnicott’s “When I look I am seen, so I exist. I can now afford to look and see.” (1968/1971:114).

 

25 I want to make a case here for being careful about where to be so unguarded in public. What I am talking about are personal relationships with other/s who are willing to receive me, will let me have their response and let me respond to them. It is a dialogue with an other/ others I am referring to, a living process. It is not possible to have a personal relationship -- a real dialogue -- with a whole group, only with individuals. For this reason, conferences and large groups are not good places to be so open and vulnerable. What is a chance at being known through contact to an other in a dyad or a small group becomes an experience of exposing oneself in an environment that, because of the sheer number of individuals present, precludes any sustained exchange among any of them. I will not know whether I have been seen – only that I have been looked at (like standing naked in front of a crowd when I want to stand naked in front one other).

   

References

 

Balint, M.(1968), The Basic Fault. London: Tavistock.

 

Beebe, B. (1998), A Procedural Theory of Therapeutic Action: Commentary on the Symposium “Interventions that Effect Change in Psychotherapy”. IMHJ, 19 (3):333-340.

 

-------- & Lachmann, F. (2002), Infant Research and Adult Treatment. Co-constructing Interactions. Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press.

 

Benjamin, J. (2002), The Rhythm of Recognition: Comment on the Work of Louis  Sander. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 12 (1):43-54.

 

Bion, W.R. (1959), Attacks on Linking. IJPA, 40:308-315

 

Bollas, C. (1987), The Shadow of the Object: Psychoanalysis of the Unthought Known. New York, Columbia Univeristy Press.

 

Bromberg, P.(1994/1998), “Speak! That I May See You.” Some Reflections on Dissociation, Reality, and Psychoanalytic Listening. In: Standing in the Spaces. Hillsdale, NJ/ London, Analytic Press.

 

Buber, M. (1937): I and Though. Edinburgh, Scotland, T.& T. Clark.

 

Fonagy, P. (1998), Moments of Change in Psychoanalytic Theory: Discussion of a New Theory of Psychic Change. IMHJ, 19 (3):346-353.

 

----------& Gergely, G., Jurist, E. & Target, M. (2002), Affect Regulation, Mentalization, and the Development of the Self. New York: Other Press.

 

Lyons-Ruth, K. (1998), Implicit Relational Knowing: its Role in Development and Psychoanalytic Treatment. IMHJ, 19 (3):282-289.

 

----------(1999), Two-Person Unconscious: Intersubjective Dialogue, Enactive Relational Representation, and the Emergence of New Forms of Relational Organization. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 19 (4):576-617.

 

Orange, D. (1995), Emotional Understanding. Studies in Psychoanalytic Epistemology.  New Your/ London, Guilford Press.

 

Sander, L. (2002), Thinking Differently: Principles of Process in Living Systems and the Specificity of Being Known. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 42 (1):11-42.

 

Schore, A. (2003): Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self. New York/ London, Norton & Co.

 

-------------(2003): Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self. New York/ London, Norton & Co.

 

Siegel, D. (1999), The Developing Mind. How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are. New York/ London, Guilford Press.

 

------------ & Hartzell, M. (2003): Parenting from the Inside Out. New York, Tarcher/Penguin.

 

Stern, D.N. (1985), The Interpersonal World of the Infant: A View from Psychoanalysis and Developmental Psychology. New York: Basic Books.

 

-------------(1998), The Process of Therapeutic Change Involving Implicit Knowledge: Some Implications of Developmental Observations for Adult Psychotherapy. IMHJ, 19 (3):300-308.

 

Tronick, E.Z. (Issue ed.) (1998): Interventions That Effect Change in Psychotherapy. A Model Based on Infant Research. Infant Mental Health Journal (Special Issue),

Vol.19 (3).

 

---------(1998), Dyadically Expanded States of Consciousness and the Process of  Therapeutic Change. IMHJ,19 (3):290-299.

 

Westen, G. & Gabbard, G. (2001), Developments in Cognitive Neuroscience: 1. Conflict, Compromise, and Connectionism. JAPA 50 (1):53-98.

 

Winnicott, D.W. (2003, original:1958), Through Paediatrics to Psychoanalysis. London: Karnac Books. (TPP)

 

--------- (2003, original:1965), The Maturational Process and the Facilitating Environment. London: Karnac Books. (MPFE)

 

----------- (1999, original:1971), Playing and Reality. London: Routledge. (PAR)

 

----------- (1949), Mind and its Relation to the Psyche Soma. TPP.

 

----------- (1956), Primary Maternal Preoccupation. TPP.

 

----------- (1958), The Capacity to be Alone. MPFE.

 

----------- (1960), Ego Distortion in Terms of True and False Self. MPFE.

 

---------- (1967), Mirror-Role of Mother and Family in Child Development. PAR.

 

 October  2005

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