Reflections on Flat Mountain
(2000)
The Analyst's Unconscious Contribution to the Impassse Commentary on Paper by Stuart A. Pizer
(2002)
In my discussion of Graham Bass's paper, my comments fall under three main categories: an aspect of Bass's theoretical/technical view that informs his conscious clinical choices, his incredible work with Robert as presented in the written case, and, finally, theory in practice as exemplified in his phrase, >inadvertent touch.< I mean for my perspective and the purely personal associations that are stimulated by this case to evoke further discussion and, in general, open some sort of useful dialogue. I believe that anybody who sits with severely dissociated patients would agree that, side-by-side with the necessary terror creeping around in the room, we often experience a confusing, sometimes even silly, >higgledy-piggledy< that seems pathognomonic to the work entailed. This weird experience seems, almost, to set our sense of continuity and logic on its edge. When reading Bass's paper, we must, to maintain our equilibrium, begin by taking for granted some of the contradictory, nonlinear aspects of his reporting, which is, after all, an accurate reflection of what happens in this work. At the level of theory in practice, I consider the implications for symbolic realization in the clinical process when touch need not be relegated to the category of the >inadvertent.<
The title of this paper employs a pun (>not< and >knot<) to emphasize that a relational (k)not negates truly intersubjective dialogue by shutting down the spaces, between and within persons, for mentalization, reflective functioning, genuine affect, and negotiation. In treatment, relational (k)nots appear as repetitions that – unlike Russell's >crunch,< with its intensities of crisis – coerce states of noninvolvement between patient and analyst. Persistent relational notting produces a crisis of mutual detachment. After offering in this paper a developmental perspective on the etiology of relational (k)nots based on parental failure to mentalize the child's separate subjectivity, I offer an extended clinical vignette to illustrate notting and subsequent disengagement between patient and analyst, and I suggest potential analytic approaches to untying the (k)not.
In. Reply, I raise a metaphorical glass to celebrate kinship with Philip Ringstrom, a fellow laborer in the relational vineyard. Drawing from his commentary, I note examples of how a colleague's intersubjective understanding carries meaning forward. Ringstrom takes what I have said into his unique experience and relays it back to me in a new way. I feel both deeply understood and challenged. I restate what I believe Russell means when he refers to >the crunch< in therapy and my >take< on Ringstrom's misunderstanding of Russell then leads me to an exploration of ways in which Philip and I may differ as we conceive the treatment frame. Finally, by implication, I hope to have highlighted, through our dialogue, that relational analysts do not define themselves by particular >agreements< but, rather, that they share a common attitude and context in which we continue to labor and explore.
This author describes how poetry infuses her way of thinking, feeling, and writing and her way of working analytically. She introduces the concept of a nonanalytic third – the analyst's personal, intimate, and substantially abiding relationship to some body of experience unrelated to materia psychoanalytica. She posits that this nonanalytic third, the nature of which is unique to each analyst, constitutes a source of enrichment, texture, and dimensionality as well as personally compelling metaphors that the analyst may offer to the patient as other-than-me substance and a placeholder for cultivating the potential in the discourse of analytic potential space, in addition to serving as a facilitator and comfort for transition when the analyst must recognize and promote the necessary ending of an intimate analytic relationship. Using Stephen Mitchell's notions of intersubjectivity and also using the analyst's and patient's separate role responsibilities in the creation of a context for the absence of conscious intentions, the author develops her concept of the nonanalytic third and the particular contribution of poetry to clinical process. These ideas are illustrated with a detailed case example of an unfolding analytic process that includes an e-mail exchange at the time when a shocking form of nonanalytic third appeared – September 11, 2001.