A Systems Sensibility: Commentary on Judith Teicholz's “Qualities of Engagement and the Analyst's Theory”

Abstract

I suggest that Teicholz's integrative sensibility, which emphasizes consensual agreement emerging from the mutual influence among psychoanalytic theoreticians, is compatible with a nonlinear, dynamic, open system process applied to Teicholz's perspective on psychoanalytic theory and to the stream of clinical process with her patient, Derek, as well. I contextualize some of Teicholz's ideas within a complex systems framework and ask questions hoping to expand the dialogue. I propose that the cocreated qualities of engagement and modes of relating addressed by Teicholz, as well as listening-experiencing stances described by Fosshage (1997, 2003), may be experienced as both chosen and unbidden and may manifest as attitudes that are context-dependent, emergent properties of a specific dyadic system at a given moment. Finally, I narrate, from my own perspective, my version of therapeutic action and change coconstructed by this analytic pair-my understanding of the intersubjective exchange-of self and interactive regulatory patterns between Teicholz and her patient, Derek, that evolve into a successful therapeutic outcome.