Glossary of Relational Concepts

Dissociation: Bromberg (1996) sees dissociation as a defence that is used to allow an escape from experiences that are linked to a threat of the infant, initially, and the adult, eventually, being overwhelmed with affect without the possibility of becoming able to symbolise the experience. The use of dissociation in early development leads to the formation of separate self-states that are kept isolated, with a resultant impoverishment of the self as a whole. In his most recent book (Bromberg, 2011) he describes the experience of living with trauma as living in the “shadow of the tsunami”. He conceptualises therapeutic action as the outcome of an ongoing encounter between the subjectivities of analyst and patient that involves “shrinking the “tsunami” little by little. One aspect of therapeutic action involves the patient’s capacity to symbolise previously non-verbal material that has become dissociated (Bromberg 2006).

Enactment: Or the interpersonalisation of dissociation according (Stern 2010: 14). Both Bromberg and Stern argue that what is dissociated is not particular mental content, but specific aspects of identity. If the analysand cannot and will not inhabit the dissociated “self-states” (see below) that may be at risk of being formulated during a relational interaction, then the analyst will be pressed to experience these self-states instead. Many relational analysts (e.g. Benjamin 2009) consider that hurting the analysand is an inevitable part of the work, i.e. enactments of some sort are unavoidable. Benjamin considers that “moments of excess that fail to evoke a mirroring knowledge can serve instead to signal the unformulated, undifferentiated malaise, despair or fear” (Benjamin 2009: 441). In other words enactment is the only way to access dissociated parts of the self. However, the analyst’s capacity to forgive himself or herself is an important part of the work too.

Mutual Recognition: Mutual recognition (Benjamin 1990) refers to the perception and acknowledgement of another person as a subject who has a similar and yet separate mind. Benjamin’s concern throughout her writing career is the move away from what she sees as the limitations of subject-object relationships to subject-subject relationships. She sees this as not simply a lack of linguistic lack of precision, but an implicit position that affects the conceptualisation of analytic work.

Objectification: Part of enactment is a process of “objectification” (Bromberg 2006: 34). The patient objectifies an aspect of the self as being an aspect of the object, here the analyst. The analyst likewise may objectify the patient as the site of where the enactment is coming from, because of his or her own dissociation. This view is also prominent in the work of Jessica Bejamin. This situation represents a lack of intersubjectivity that needs to be restored. At some point, Bromberg believes, the analyst stops seeing the patient as simply repeating something from the past and acknowledges the situation as occurring in the here and now between the two participants. Both parties can then begin to compare their perceived realities through a process of dialogue.

Self-States: One of Bromberg’s oft cited concepts related to unconsciousness. (Bromberg 1996, 2006: 31). Bromberg sees selfhood as a “shifting configuration of mental states” (Bromberg, 2006: 32). In an optimal situation there is a fluid shifting between these different self-states while the individual is able to retain self-cohesion and self-validation in the face of novel experiences. Developmentally, this process is made possible through the attainment of affect regulation in early parent-infant relationships. However, in certain psychopathologies, different self-states are isolated from each other so that at any one time one self-state colonises consciousness.

Surrender: Drawing on a number of Winnicottian concepts, Ghent attempts to clarify the meaning of surrender as a concept distinct from masochism and submission. It refers to the self’s surrender to the ego as the antidote to the false self’s resistance and commitment to the status quo. Submission is an agent of resistance and at best an adaptation of perceived necessity. Ghent speculates on the existence of a wish to for the true self to experience a rebirth, to “come clean” of all the defences in the service of this notion to surrender. This wish that is essentially one of being recognised by the Other. Ghent enumerates some of the characteristics of surrender highlighting its difference from submission. Acceptance is an outcome of surrender, resignation an outcome of submission. Ghent often references the difference between West and East, defeat and yielding, information and transformation, with a clear position against the limitations of the west. He references Marion Milner’s work on art, and other sources as he attempts to articulate the phenomenology of surrendering, attempting to hypothesise the developmental origins of this phenomenon. He does not see it as an inherent drive towards self-integration, but as a need towards restitution where development has become stunted. It appears as something complex that can sometimes be confused with depression, withdrawal or even psychosis. The wish to surrender occupies a boundary between wish and fear, as it involves facing the dread that originally resulted in the formation of the false self. This “controlled dissolution of self-boundaries is at times sought, not only feared” (p. 116). He likens it to Winnicott’s fear of breakdown, the dread of experiencing a breakdown that has already occurred, but also the wish to remember it.

Third: A concept proposed by Jessica Benjamin. She argues against the classical view that one participant as a subject that “does” something to the other, who is then left feeling as an object that has been “done to” (Benjamin 2004). The difference between a subject-subject and the above subject-object relationship is the difference between reciprocity (two-way directionality) and complementarity (one-way directionality). A subject-subject relationship in Benjamin’s view (2004) requires the position of a “third”: This is not an object (such as the analyst’s theory), but a sort of mental space that Benjamin likens to Winnicott’s potential space. “Surrendering” (Ghent 1990) to the third implies achieving a state of freedom involving accepting connectedness and difference rather than occupying a position of control and coercion.

Unformulated Experience: Stern (1997) speaks of “unformulated experience” to designate that which is dissociated and therefore unconscious. Like Bromberg he makes use of Sullivan’s me, bad-me, and not-me distinctions to explain the outcomes of dissociation. Stern (2010) adopts a post-modernist view that assumes there is no pre-existing meaning waiting to be revealed or discovered, but rather potentially able to be formulated within a relational context. Stern is at pains to emphasise that this position does not constitute relativism, where any meaning is possible, but rather that the possible meanings that can be formulated are delimited by pre-existing experience. He references the “relational or interpersonal field” that is created between analyst and analysand, without each participant’s awareness, and which shapes what they experience together. This relational field affects what they also experience in their own minds in the presence of each other, and often outside this presence. Stern also emphasises the continuity of clinical process by highlighting that the experience that is constructed between the two analytic participants influences the experience that follows. It would appear that Stern takes up a critical realist position describing his theory as mid-way between objectivism and relativism. What delimits the formulation of unformulated experience in the analytic encounter is a structure encompassing culture, history, and tradition that places constraints in how “reality” (although existing) is apprehended. These constraints can be “tight” or loose”. Unformulated experience is not located in a compartment of the mind’s topography as envisioned by Freud, but in relatedness. Each participant is creating experience and constituted by it so that, as mentioned before, transference and countertransference are seen as arising from a selection of available possibilities. They are not simply distortions of each participant’s experience, but they are based on rigidity rather than flexibility. They do not easily change with experience and can prevent the experiencing of new content. The task of analysis then becomes paying attention to the possibilities of formulating experience in ways that are not immediately automatic. The “choice” to formulate experience in new ways can be both a conscious and unconscious one.

World Horizon: Stolorow and colleagues have articulated a different conception of the unconscious than the Freudian one. They have suggested an alternative to what they view as the Cartesian isolated mind with compartments such as unconscious, unconscious and preconscious, or id, ego and superego. They advanced the case for a multiply contextualised experiential world constituted intersubjectivity, and consisting of the sum of the individual’s lived experience. This “World Horizon” (Stolorow et al. 2002) is “more or less conscious” and constitutes a system rather than a container. The ordering principles of the world horizon consist of expectations, meanings, and interpretative patterns formed in the context of significant life events such as trauma, loss, and other psychological injuries and are “prereflectively unconscious” (Atwood and Stolorow 1979, 1984). They cite Gadamer’s view that whatever the person is unable to know or feel, falls outside the world horizons (Gadamer 1975).