THERAPIST’S SOCIAL FEELING RE-ACTIVATES PATIENT’S ONE

Abstract

The theory of intersubjectivity represents a development recently added to the theoretical knowledge of psychoanalysis mainly because of the work conducted by Stern and the Boston Change Process Study Group. The theoretical roots of the intersubjective model can be found in A. Adler’s Individual Psychology (IP) with respect to both meta-psychology and theory of technique. In fact, the second fundamental concept of IP is the social feeling/interest that regulates – in balance with self-affirmation – the development of the Self. The intersubjective model considers the processes of change in treatment as grounded on the therapeutic alliance that is a crucial area and is currently studied with empirical approaches also including those of brain imaging. In the therapeutic relationship are articulated, overlapped, and cancelled pretenses and authentic experiences of alliance and change. When the therapeutic relationship is characterized by continuous and reciprocal imitations and simulations it is likely that patients’ simulation of the therapist’s modified expression of patient’s experience carries out therapeutic functions of regulation. It seems that patients “see” in their therapist a more manageable version of what they are experiencing. In the therapeutic alliance the therapist’s Social Feeling through the Creative Self (re)activates “as an infection” the patient’s one. The process of change is nourished by the mirroring sequences of infections and reciprocal transformations as a premise/result of the alliance. The deep infection of trust, distrust, distress, disillusions and hopes crosses, reinforces or erases, or confuses the intentional word and body messages of the conscious strategies of encouragement. As a result, the therapist’s ethic responsibilities are increased – in the interaction matching (Rovera) reciprocally changing of the setting; such responsibilities underpin a continuous development of his/her Social Feeling