Language and Psychoanalysis Volume 7 Issue 2 (2018) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Gestalt Theory - An International Multidisciplinary Journal, 2019
The present work focuses on the transformations of the psychotherapeutic field through the relationship dynamics which occur within it. This first part of the article, authored by Gerhard Stemberger, starts with a brief outline of the Gestalt psychological understanding of the field concept, also in its application to the psychotherapeutic situation, followed by a brief review of the introduction of the field concept into the psychoanalytic theory formation. After this, the first author (Giancarlo Trombini) first presents the theoretical concept underlying a new approach he has developed for observing the relationship dynamics in psychotherapy. Mirroring a formation of both psychoanalytic and Gestalt theory of the main author, this new approach is based on the combination of psychoanalytic and Gestalt psychological concepts. According to the clinical experience and insights of the author, the phenomenological and relational approach of Gestalt theory fits well with the psychoanalytic approach; on this basis, a criterion for recording the progress of therapy can be developed. This criterion is the phenomenology of the development of the qualities of the relationships of the client, as they become visible in his dream narrations and the subsequent associations in the analysis room and continue to develop during the session and the further course of therapy. The relationship dynamics in the dream narration is thus compared with those which develop in the course of the subsequent associations.
Psychoanalytic Transformations
The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 2007
The author describes how Bion took Freud's conception of dreams as a form of thought and used it as the basis of his theory of transformations. Bion developed an expanded theory of 'dream thought', understood as a process of selection and transformation of sensory and emotional experiences. In this theory, the work of analysis is in turn conceived as a process not only of deciphering symbols, of revealing already existing unconscious meanings, but also of symbol production--of a process for generating thoughts and conferring meaning on experiences that have never been conscious and never been repressed because they have never been 'thought'. Analysis, in its specific operational sense, becomes a system of transformation whereby unconscious somatopsychic processes acquire the conditions for representability and become capable of translation into thoughts, words and interpretations. The rules of transformation applied by the patient in his representations and those applied by the analyst in his interpretations have the same importance for the analytic process as those described by Freud for the process of dreaming. The author discusses the broad categories of transformation adduced by Bion (rigid motion, projective, and in hallucinosis) and introduces some further distinctions within them.
Gestalt Theory - An International Multidisciplinary Journal, 2019
The present work focuses on the transformations of the psychotherapeutic field through the relationship dynamics that occur within it. The first part of this article had started with a brief outline of the Gestalt psychological understanding of the field concept, also in its application to the psychotherapeutic situation (authored by Gerhard Stemberger), followed by a brief review of the introduction of the field concept into the psychoanalytic theory formation. After this, the first author (Giancarlo Trombini) first presented the theoretical concept underlying a new approach he has developed for observing the relationship dynamics in psychotherapy. Mirroring a formation of the main author both psychoanalytic and Gestalt psychological, this new approach is based on the combination of psychoanalytic and Gestalt psychological concepts. This approach is now demonstrated and further elaborated in the second part of this paper on the basis of a clinical case. The clinical example shows how the relationship dynamics develop in this sense in the individual therapy sessions and over a longer course of therapy. The associated transformations of the therapeutic field give a good indication of the progress of therapy. The main author gained such insights into the transformations of the therapeutic field and the progression of therapy, which are visible in the course of therapy, from the careful application of the criterion “manifest dream/associations comparison of relational dynamics”. In the specific case, there was also a high degree of correspondence between the results of the application of this phenomenological criterion and the empirical evidence of the symptom questionnaire, a self-report measure requested by the patient himself during the course of the therapy (evaluated by Anna Corazza).