Psychoanalysis · 1983
Relational psychoanalysis
The cure takes place within the bond, in a co-created field where two subjectivities transform one another.
Greenberg and Mitchell articulate a theoretical synthesis that integrates the perspectives of object relations and self psychology, giving rise to a relational conception of psychic functioning. The subject is understood as constituted in and through relationships, and therapeutic change is produced within an intersubjective field co-created by patient and analyst. The model rejects the idea of a neutral observer and stresses mutual influence, bidirectionality and the co-construction of meaning as the axes of the clinical process, inaugurating the relational paradigm of contemporary psychoanalysis.
Core ideas
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Mind is inherently relational
Relational psychoanalysis holds that psychic experience cannot be understood as an isolated intrapsychic phenomenon, but as a process constituted from the outset in and through significant relationships. The self emerges from historical and current relational matrices, and its organisation reflects patterns of relating rather than decontextualised internal drives. (Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983; Mitchell, 1988).
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Change occurs in the intersubjective field
Therapeutic change is produced not primarily by unilateral interpretative insight, but by transformations in the intersubjective field co-created by patient and analyst. The new relational experiences lived in therapy modify implicit expectations, affects and self positions, generating lasting psychological reorganisation. (Mitchell, 1993; Stern et al., 1998).
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The analyst's neutrality is a technical fiction
The relational model rejects the idea of the analyst as a neutral observer external to the process. Every intervention, silence or attitude of the therapist participates actively in configuring the clinical field. Recognising this involvement is an epistemological condition of honest and effective clinical work. (Mitchell, 1988; Aron, 1996).
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Transference is a current relational construction
Transference is understood not as a projective distortion of the past onto the present, but as a relational experience that emerges in the living interaction between patient and therapist. Although it is informed by prior relational history, it is transformed by the analyst's actual response and by the current context. (Mitchell, 1993; Greenberg, 1995).
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Enactments are expressions of the field, not technical failures
Enactments are conceptualised as co-created relational scenes that express unsymbolised aspects of the therapeutic bond. Far from being errors to be avoided, they constitute privileged clinical opportunities when they can be recognised, thought about and worked through relationally. (Mitchell, 1997; Stern et al., 1998).
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Countertransference is a central source of knowledge
The therapist's emotional reactions are regarded as relevant clinical data about the intersubjective field, not as interference to be eliminated. Used reflectively, they give access to affective states and relational configurations that the patient cannot yet symbolise directly. (Racker, 1968; Mitchell, 1988).
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The therapeutic relationship is the principal agent of change
Relational psychoanalysis holds that the therapeutic relationship is not merely the context of treatment but its principal transformative agent. The possibility of living a sufficiently authentic, regulated and reparative relationship makes it possible to modify internal relational models beyond intellectual understanding. (Aron, 1996; Safran & Muran, 2000).
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The self is multiple, contextual and dynamic
The self is conceived as a multiple and contextual relational organisation, composed of different self states or positions that emerge according to interpersonal context. Therapeutic work seeks to increase the capacity to move between and integrate these states, reducing relational dissociation and rigidity of identity. (Bromberg, 1998; Mitchell, 1993).
Influences
- Object relations (Fairbairn)
- Self psychology
- Interpersonal (Sullivan)
- Winnicott
- Social / relational constructionism
- Second-order cybernetics
- Phenomenology / Hermeneutics
Key references
- Greenberg, J. R., & Mitchell, S. A. (1983). Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory.