Donnel B. Stern

The Eye Sees Itself: Dissociation, Enactment, and the Achievement of Conflict

Abstract Part I of the paper takes up the question of how it is possible for the analyst to see, experience, or understand the countertransference, which is exactly what her unconscious involvement with the patient blinds her to. Must the eye perform the impossible task of seeing itself? A clinical vignette illustrates the problem. The means by which we generally dig ourselves out is our development of an awareness of vague affective hints, or chafings. Yet the problem remains: Why should we be any more able to grasp affective clues to our involvement than we are to grasp our involvement itself? In Part II I suggest that clues that help in thinking about the dilemma of the eye seeing itself are to be found in the examination of dissociation and the conception of the self as multiple. This line of thought leads into the presentation of an interpersonal-relational theory of enactment. Therapeutic action depends upon the creation of new internal conflict between states of self. The clinical material is explored along these lines. Part III returns to the riddle of the eye seeing itself, showing that the problem is insoluble only as long as mind is conceived to be unitary and undivided (“singlemindedness”). If consciousness is multiple, the dilemma disappears.

Unconscious Fantasy versus Unconscious Relatedness

Abstract Comparing the clinical practice of contemporary Freudian analysts with that of Interpersonal/Relational analysts, I focus on the difference between primary reliance on continuous participation in, and reflection on, mutually constructed, unconscious clinical process (the Interpersonal/Relational view) and primary reliance on the interpretation of unconscious fantasy (the contemporary Freudian view). I demonstrate the Interpersonal/Relational view by presenting a detailed clinical illustration.

States of Relatedness: Are Ideas Part of the Family?

Abstract Interpersonal and Relational psychoanalysis are large theories, umbrella theories, so that there is often as much disagreement within them as there is between them. The only answers to the question of how to untangle the relationship of the two theories with one another are the answers of individuals, and even then the answers depend on context. Sometimes the context is primarily theoretical or scholarly, sometimes a matter of personal commitment, and sometimes a political or even moral issue. I identify five different attitudes I have found in my own experience about the nature of the relationship between the two theories.

What Makes a Good Question

Science Fair 3-5 Parent Letter Science Fair Primary Parent Letter Science Fair Primary Journal Science Fair Ideas What Makes A Good Question? The key to a good science-fair project is coming up with a good question. But what makes a good question? It should be measurable and testable. The questions below are not good science-fair questions. Rewrite each question to make it measurable and testable. See the examples below. (Hint: There is more than one right answer. There are many ways to turn these questions into good ones!)

The Man Who Mistook His Impact for a Hat

H IRSCH, Iannuzzi, and Levenson are to be congratulated on this fine piece of work. It is more than I expected. Yes, of course, this interview is what such interviews usually are: it offers Levenson the opportunity to reflect on the field as a whole, interpersonal psychoanalysis in particular, and his own major contribution. But the interview accomplishes a good deal more than that. It doubles as some morphed form of scholarship. Hirsch and Iannuzzi are wonderfully well informed about Levensons work, and they ask questions that allow Levenson to open up his thinking in ways that I am sure will surprise many of his readers. For his part, Levenson is articulate, collaborative, engaging, and forthcoming. The result is a document that, despite its length, grips us throughout. This interview is the only time Levenson has ever tried to convey the sweep of his thought over the course of his career, and considering what we find out as he talks, it is high time for such a survey. Levensons thought has developed over the years, and in ways that may not be obvious to his readers until they read this exegesis. For anyone who really wants to understand Levenson, this exchange has immediately become a necessary complement to his more formal published work. But the biggest surprise in this interview is not its coverage of Levensons ideas. No, it is Levensons shockingly (yes, shockingly) inaccurate assessment of the impact of his own work. I can hardly believe that Levenson has so little idea of his own influence. He does say that he has always thought that The Fallacy of Understanding (1972) alerted Merton Gill, Lawrence Friedman, and some other prominent Freudians that interpersonal psychoanalysis was worth attending to. But Levenson also says

Interpersonal Psychoanalysis: History and Current Status

Abstract Interpersonal psychoanalysis is not well known outside the northeastern United States, yet it has been present since the 1930s and has influenced psychoanalysis all over the world. In this article, the origins of interpersonal psychoanalysis are described, providing at least a partial explanation for this widespread ignorance. Interpersonal psychoanalysis no longer finds much of its definition by an opposition to ego psychology, as it did in its early days. Today, instead, the more significant question for interpersonal psychoanalysis is how, and whether, it can be differentiated from relational psychoanalysis. This is especially important for those who, like me, identify as both interpersonal and relational. Interpersonal thinking was the heart of Mitchells original conception of relational psychoanalysis. I argue that interpersonal psychoanalysis remains a coherent psychoanalytic perspective, defined by radical field theory; a deemphasis on unconscious fantasy and repressed memories as templates for conscious experience; an emphasis on fantasy as mystified experience; a correspondingly greater emphasis on the embeddedness of the past in the forms of the present; and most of all, the continuous, unconscious, mutual influence of the subjectivities of analyst and patient on one another.

Field Theory Across Theoretical Boundaries

Lawrence J. Brown’s Intersubjective Processes and the Unconscious is a description of field theory from a Freudian/Kleinian/Bionian perspective. His book will be of interest to interpersonal and relational analysts because of this overlap between his views and theirs, but these potential readers will also be dismayed by Brown’s failure to address interpersonal and relational field theory. Before I offer some detail about what Brown has not included, though, let me acknowledge Brown’s recognition that relational theories of intersubjectivity preexisted his own Kleinian/Bionian/Freudian conception of such a theory (pp. 9–10). Even in Brown’s single paragraph of acknowledgment, however, there is no recognition at all of the interpersonal contribution, which came first, prior even to the substantial relational literature. Nor is there acknowledgment of the fact that one might well also consider Kohut’s self psychology a variety of field theory. But this very brief recognition of relational forms of intersubjectivty does not lead Brown to treat relational theory, or any of the other earlier forms of field theory that lie outside his own theoretical range, as intellectual and clinical predecessors. Brown seems to make this choice largely because he does not accept that interpersonal and relational

Curiosity: Dealing with Divergent Ideas in the Ideal Psychoanalytic Institute

Abstract How does the ideal psychoanalytic institute deal with the divergence of ideas? We should teach the desirability of both the accretion of ideas and of the revolution against them. The sum of these two paths is curiosity, a demanding ideal.How does the ideal psychoanalytic institute deal with the divergence of ideas? We should teach the desirability of both the accretion of ideas and of the revolution against them. The sum of these two paths is curiosity, a demanding ideal.

An Interpersonal/Relational View of Robert Grossmarks “The Case of Peter”

Abstract The case of Peter is discussed from an interpersonal/relational perspective emphasizing dissociation, enactment, and the emergence of authentic psychoanalytic responsiveness from unformulated experience.