How a Kleinian Analysis Also Tells a Relational and Intersubjective Story Commentary on Paper by Meira Likierman

Abstract

Dr. Likierman narrates her case in ways that differ dramatically from the usual discourse of relational analysts, and she frames her work with constructs that derive primarily from contemporary Kleinian theory. Yet I believe that if we listen closely to her clinical material, we can see how she and her patient live out a deeply relational/intersubjective process—intersubjective in both Stolorow, Brandchaft, and Atwood's (1987) broad sense and Benjamin's (1995) more developmental point of view. I suggest is that there is real mutuality in their relationship, a reciprocal, unconscious, taking in of the mind and role of the other—a mutual change in which, paradoxically, both parties seem more real and, more deeply than ever, to express themselves. Ultimately, I think we can see that analyst and patient have “enacted” a slightly subversive, yet vital, mutual dance into and through precisely the paradoxes that Likierman recognizes as “forbidden” territory in the therapeutic relationship.