Refine
Language
- English (1)
Document Type
- Reviews (1)
Has Fulltext
- no (1) (remove)
Year of publication
- 2001 (1)
Philip Ringstrom presents improvisation as an important dimension of the analytical process. I propose that we take this idea even further and look at the ability to improvise as the desired goal of analysis or therapy – to live one's life as a free, responsive, and spontaneously expressive person. Improvisation is the normal mode of human communication. In a natural, healthy life, we do not write down what we are about to say before we say it. We simply say and do, prompted by the incalculable mixture of conscious and unconscious influences that shape the self at that time and place in our development. The two things one hopes to avoid in psychoanalysis and therapy are rigidity on one hand and chaos on the other. Improvisation, the natural and spontaneous flow of activity that is also self-discovery, presents the happy medium between these extremes. To improvise means on one hand not to be constrained by the forces of habit, fear, and conformity and on the other hand not to be constrained to act randomly or impulsively without reference to context, but to be able to perceive the true outlines of the situation in which one finds oneself and to act accordingly as the need arises.