Louis Sander

Explicating the implicit: the local level and the microprocess of change in the analytic situation.

This paper proposes a method of examining the micro‐events of the analytic process that borrows heavily from developmental research. The increasing importance of illuminating the microprocess of interaction to understanding the process of change in analytic treatment is emphasised. A set of constructs and terminology is proposed for the study of the moment‐to‐moment interactive process in psychoanalytic therapy referred to as the local level. A theory of therapeutic action based on ‘local‐level’ process is then explicated. Its central element involves a step‐by‐step process of ‘fitting together’, which leads to changes in implicit knowing through alteration of emotional procedures.

A 25‐year follow‐up: Some reflections on personality development over the long term

Highlights of our work over the last 30 years are reviewed; we begin with the infants whom we studied in the mid-1950s and conclude with impressions from a follow-up of their development 30 years later. The review begins with our first effort to propose a constructionist view of behavioral organization over the first 3 years of life, in terms of the negotiation by infant and caregiver of a sequence of adaptations in their interaction. This review includes a brief consideration of living systems and some of the principles that constrain the organization of behavior of the participants. Illustration of the way that these principles set up the “event-structure” of a system is given. In its recurrence, this event-structure sets the stage for psychic organization. The application of this early formulation to the study of 25- to 30-year outcome in these same infants studies the hypothesis that the configuration of adaptive strategies that the subject constructs by 2 years of age will be recognizable in the strategies which that individual employs in self-recognition and in the later construction of his ecologic niche at age 25. The logic or rules for this construction are set up over the first 2 years, as the infants adaptation to the event-structure of the system is achieved and regulates later constructions. The bias set depends on the red thread of the subjects early inner experience of state and emotion (or affect) in relation to the infants competence as agent in regulating states. A basis for inference as to this red thread of inner experience has been summarized in five propositions of construction. These highlight the patterning of competence in self-regulation within the individuals unique system. The role of infant state and of positive affects in this long-term influence is critical, as is the patterning of competence in enabling the infant to reconstruct desired states as goals in the unique configuration of adaptive solutions achieved for that system.

THE CASE OF SOPHIE

ABSTRACT: The analysis of a girl from ages 3 to 5 years old offers a clinical illustration of an alternativetheory of change. In this theory the process of change is organized around nodal points of exchangebetween patient and analyst, designated as “now moments” and “moments of meeting.” In the casepresented, these moments were preceded by an intensification of affect and were accompanied by a senseof openness and ambiguity. As often as not they were nonverbal and sometimes did not even involvesymbolic representation. The process resulted in a progressively expanded repertoire of ways of beingtogether and ways of doing things together. In a parallel and mutually influencing track, the child wastelling me a story that gave meaning to her world, and increased the coherence of her sense of self. RESUMEN: El ana´lisis de una nin˜ade3a5an˜os de edad ofrece una ilustracio´n cli´nica de otra teori´a sobreel cambio. En esta teori´a el proceso de cambio se organiza alrededor de puntos nodales de intercambioentre la paciente y el analista que se designan como “momentos de ahora” y “encuentros momenta´neos.”En el caso presentado, estos “momentos” fueron seguidos de una intensificacio´n del afecto y fueronacompan˜ados por un sentido de apertura y ambigu¨edad. Tan frecuente como nunca antes, fueron “mo-mentos” sin hablar y algunas veces no involucraron representacio´n simbo´lica. El proceso resulto´enunrepertorio progresivamente expandido de maneras de estar juntos y maneras de hacer cosas juntos. Enforma paralela y de influencia mutua, la nin˜a me estaba contando una historia que le dio significado a sumundo e incremento´ la coherencia de su sentido del yo.