Moments of Meeting in Psychoanalysis: Interaction and Change in the Therapeutic Encounter

Description

There are moments of connection between analysts and patients during any therapeutic encounter upon which the therapy can turn. Moments of Meeting in Psychoanalysis explores how analysts and therapists can experience these moments of meeting, shows how this interaction can become an enlivening and creative process, and seeks to recognise how it can change both the analyst and patient in profound and fundamental ways. The theory and practice of contemporary psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy has reached an exciting new moment of generous and generative interaction. As psychoanalysts become more intersubjective and relational in their work, it becomes increasingly critical that they develop approaches that have the capacity to harness and understand powerful moments of meeting, capable of propelling change through the therapeutic relationship. Often these are surprising human moments in which both client and clinician are moved and transformed. Moments of Meeting in Psychoanalysis offers a window into the ways in which some of today’s practitioners think about, encourage, and work with these moments of meeting in their practices. Each chapter of the book offers theoretical material, case examples, and a discussion of various therapists’ reflections on and experiences with these moments of meeting. With contributions from relational psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and Jungian analysts, and covering essential topics such as shame, impasse, mindfulness, and group work, this book offers new theoretical thinking and practical clinical guidance on how best to work with moments of meeting in any relationally oriented therapeutic practice. Moments of Meeting in Psychoanalysis will be of great interest to psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists, psychologists, social workers, workers in other mental health fields, graduate students, and anyone interested in change processes. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents List of contributors Acknowledgments Introduction Part I Background/context 1 My journey in infant research and psychoanalysis: microanalysis, a social microscope 2 Moments of truth in psychoanalytic treatment Part II Jungian approaches to relational work 3 Moments of complexity: non-local aspects of moments of meeting 4 The aesthetics of being 5 States of grace: eureka moments and the recognition of the unthought known Part III Relational analysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy 6 Moments of meeting and the problem of shame: a brief history of relational therapy 7 The therapist’s capacity to tolerate the intolerable: my tears, not his 8 Living inside the moment: a view from self psychology 9 Where did that happy ending come from? Dreaming moments of meeting 10 You, me, and us 11 Probing for realness and reciprocity in the early years of an analysis 12 Sleeping/dying: “Now moments” in clinical space 13 Mutual discoveries emerging from secrets, lies, deceptions, and truths 14 Retirement from psychotherapy practice: a mutually generative rite of passage Part IV Alternative relational modalities 15 Something more than “‘Something more’ than interpretation”: accelerated experiential dynamic psychotherapy (AEDP) works the experiential edge of transformational experience to transform the internal working model 16 Mindfulness, intimacy and presence: moments of meeting in psychotherapy 17 Finding each other in a crowded room: internal family systems and group psychotherapy Afterword Index