FROM THE WORD TO THE SCENE: AN EXPANDED CONCEPTUALIZATION FOR THERAPEUTIC ACTION

摘要

I have briefly reviewed the positions that interpretation, empathy, and authenticity are central to mutative activity within the therapeutic process. I have offered an alternative view of change, an expanded conception of empathic resonance to include the mutative impact of each of the above interventions as they are embedded in a sequential interactive context. I have referred to certain findings in dyadic systems regulation that suggest the kinds of patterns that can be observed in recognizing a sequential interactive context first with infants and mothers but ultimately within all dyadic system contexts. The clinical illustrations I used demonstrate that the ability of the analyst to use an observational perspective that encompasses the sequential-interactive context—that is, a patterning of matches, but also mismatches that function as expected hopes and dreads, as self and/or mutually regulating attractors between analyst and analysand—can contribute to therapeutic change when interpretation alone, empathy alone, and/or authenticity alone miss the mark.