Creating New Ways of Being and Relating

Abstract

The therapeutic action of psychoanalysis has been broadened beyond interpretation to the creation of new ways of being and relating. The concept of analysis as including both understanding and creation is rooted in two major analytic traditions: the British Independent school and the relational movement. It is proposed that central concepts from each tradition can be combined to form a theory of technique that is focused creating new ways of being to replace the patient's historical patterns. The clinical strategy advocated here is aimed toward bringing dissociated self states to consciousness and then using the now conscious conflicting states to create new self-world relationship patterns. A theory of technique is suggested that combines the relational concepts of dissociated patterns of interaction with Winnicott's theory of potential space for the purpose of transforming latent psychic capacities into new forms of being. Specific criteria are proposed for identifying new potentially authentic ways of being, and a technique for facilitating their evolution from nascent dispositions to new ways of being is delineated. Two cases are used to illustrate how the technical strategy can be used to create ways of being from previously dormant psychic potential.