Darlene Bregman Ehrenberg

The Interpersonal/Relational Interface

Abstract My effort here is to try to clarify some of the historical and also political bases for the ways “relational” and “interpersonal” intersect and overlap and how they diverge, and some of the issues involved. I describe also how I locate my own conception of working at the “intimate edge” in historical context in this framework, and why I believe that a recognition of the intersubjective nature of the analytic field requires a radical reconceptualization of how we think about the analytic process, the data of analysis, the analysts role in the process, and the nature of therapeutic action.

How I Become a Psychoanalyst

In this essay, I focus on how my personal history contributed to my choosing to become a psychoanalyst, what I then encountered and the choices I made professionally, and the issue of being “inside” versus “outside” the classical tradition. In this context, I describe some of the political conditions that prevented Ph.D.s from being able to be trained as analysts within the classical tradition during those years. I also describe how the training I received outside the classical tradition actually was much broader than what would have been offered within it and how it allowed for a level of intellectual freedom and critical thinking about traditional ways of working that would not have been possible in the classical institutes. I also describe briefly how I began developing the concept of working at the “intimate edge” in the analytic relationship, which I first began writing about in 1974 and which is detailed most fully in my 1992 book, The Intimate Edge: Extending the Reach of Psychoanalytic Interaction, and in several subsequent publications (Ehrenberg, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2003).

Working at the "Intimate Edge"

Abstract In this article I 1) provide some very brief context for the history of the differences between the relational/interpersonal and classical analytic perspectives; 2) give a brief overview of my own position, which is based on the view that an appreciation of the power of unconscious communication between patient and analyst, and of the interactive/intersubjective nature of the analytic field, requires a radical reconceptualization of how we conceive of the data of analysis, the analysts role in the process, the nature of the analytic change process and the nature of therapeutic action; and 3) elaborate how working at what I call the “intimate edge” of the analytic relationship can extend the reach of psychoanalytic interaction not only with more traditional patients, but also with patients who traditionally were considered “unanalyzable.”

Working at the “Intimate Edge”: Intersubjective Considerations—Comments on “A Case Study of Power and the Eroticized Transference–Countertransference”

Working from the premise that as analysts we are always vulnerable to unconscious collusion and enactment, and that this has radical implications for how we conceive of the analytic process, I try to illustrate how the process of working at the “intimate edge” of the analytic relationship, and explicitly engaging what goes on intersubjectively between patient and analyst expands the analytic process and the analytic possibilities. I especially focus on how deconstructing interactive enactment can help to access unconscious aspects of what might be in play in relation to the issues of power and eroticized transference–countertransference under discussion here, and how this process itself can become the medium of the work and the focus of therapeutic action.

A Radical Shift in Thinking about the Process of Change: Commentary on Paper by Gerhardt, Sweetnam, and Borton

My reply addresses some of the questions raised by Gerhardt, Sweetnam, and Borton in their discussion of my work as representing “a radical shift in thinking about the process of change.” I also attempt to clarify areas of misunderstanding. Wherever possible, I focus on specific clinical moments to clarify my points.