Terms of the Social IV: The Relational Self (original) (raw)
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The Use of Self from a Relational Perspective
Clinical Social Work Journal, 2007
This article explores the implications of a contemporary relational perspective on the use of self in social work practice. The author is responding to an article by Andrea Reupert, who interviewed social workers and reported they tended to see their concept of self as individualistic, autonomous, and only partially defined by others, even though social work practice focuses on person-in-environment. In this article, the author expands the concept of self and argues that a contemporary view of the therapist’s self is one that is dialogic, contextualized, decentered, and multiple. Additionally, the author suggests that this relational perspective has implications for teaching and supervision. Several clinical vignettes are provided to illustrate the concepts under discussion.
2020
Developed by Richard Erskine and his colleagues, integrative psychotherapy (IP) rests on a deeply relational view of the person. The case study presented in this article demonstrates how the application of IP theories and methods facilitates the establishment of a healthy therapist-patient relationship and the implementation of relational processes promoting the healing of the self. The story of Stella, a 40-year-old woman suffering from a severe form of dissociation, withdrawal, and body armoring, provides a clinical, theoretical, and methodological reflection on how the therapeutic approach of IP as integrated with other theoretical and methodological contributions facilitated her therapeutic process. Among these contributions are Stern’s fundamental dynamic pentad and Levine’s somatic experiencing.
Terms of the Social III: The Relational Dialogue
Psychiatric Times, 2024
In this column in Psychiatric Times, I explore the relational dialogue that is both an apparatus or tool and a way of being—social being. Furthermore, it creates a link between the relational therapies of social psychiatry and the “terms of the social” that are at the heart of social psychiatry. Key Takeaways: * Relational dialogue is central to social psychiatry, linking relational therapies with foundational social principles. * Therapists may have technocratic or phenomenological temperaments, focusing on techniques or meaning. * Relational dialogue emphasizes active listening, mutual respect, and hierarchy flattening, fostering intimacy through self-disclosure. * It is crucial for expressing and witnessing suffering, promoting change, and enhancing the therapeutic alliance.
An integrative relational point of view
Psychotherapy (Chicago, Ill.), 2014
This article, part of a special section on the Relational Foundations of Psychotherapy, describes a particular relational approach called cyclical psychodynamics. Cyclical psychodynamics is rooted both in the relational perspective in psychoanalysis and in an integrative melding of psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, systemic, and experiential points of view. Central to its theoretical structure is a focus on the vicious and virtuous circles that perpetuate (or contribute to changing) personality patterns that may have originated in childhood but that persist because they often generate the very feedback from others that is necessary to keep them going. As a consequence of this latter focus, the relational foundation of cyclical psychodynamic therapy addresses in equal and dynamically reciprocal fashion both the therapeutic relationship in the consulting room and the key relationships outside the consulting room that play an essential role in the maintenance or change of the proble...