Contemporary relational psychoanalysis’ shift to understanding the patient through the interactive effects of the therapeutic dyad requires a different language from the more historical objectivist stance that relied on authoritative interpretations by the analyst.
Based on the theory of intersubjectivity, relational psychoanalysis has huge implications for the practice of psychotherapy. Shifting the emphasis of the objective therapist with whom the patient projects dissociated aspects of the self onto the therapist, and the therapist interprets, intersubjectivity, understands the therapeutic relationship as one of mutual influence – two subjectivities at work. Consequently, the therapist shifts their cognitive formulations “about” the patient turning their attention to the interplay of deep affective states and experiences stirred within the therapist. This orientation often results in a mutual regression whereby the therapist, enters deeply into the patient’s experience, feels it (literally), and at some level matches the patient’s experience.
As most methods are cautious in articulating to the patient their experience of the patient – this is one of the most difficult shifts to make when working within a relational model. Learning a new way of articulation, involves speaking to the emotional field evident within the therapeutic space.
