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Nancy J. Chodorow

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BEYOND THE DYAD: INDIVIDUAL

PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL WORLD

NANCY 1. CIlODOROW

I n recent years analytic writing. presenting, and clinical discussion

almost universally accord a!tention to the ,ulalytic dyad. My reflections

here propose two kinds of reservation about this ubiquitous focus. On theone hand, it leads us away from the richness and complexity of the patient'S

inu'apsychic life-her clinical individuality-which psychoanalysis aloneamong the therapies works La expand. On the other hand, we CIT in thinkingthat the dyad is isolated, when in facl it is always situated beyond itself. Mysubject brings together my idcmily and personal. passions as a psychoana­

lyst and my origins in sociology and anrhropology.We Can trace the hiSiOry of this global march toward the dyad. First, our

understanding of therapcuric action changed. Freud had discovered transfer­ence and argued that it was inevitable and indeed a resource: remembering

requires repeating, and you cannot destroy someone in effigy (Freud 1912,1914). Over time, anchored by Slrachcy (1934), analysts eXlended Freud to

think that unless you were analyzing Lhe transterenc~ in the here and now,

real change could not happen. Working in the transference became a sinequa non of analytic action and the real work of analysis.

This view noticed the patient's mind alone. In the world of classical

ego psychology, in which maIlY American psychoanalysts grew up, clini­cal theory and the theory of technique taught thm the analyst was an

objective interpreter of Lhe patient's psyche, through reconstruction,dream intelvretation, pointing 10 conflict, resistances, and defenses, and

especially through observing and illlcrpreting the transference, which thepatient brought from the there and then to the here and now. Attending 10

Training and Supervising Analyst, Boston Psychoanalytic Sociely and Instilute:;Lecturer on Psychiatry. Harvard Medical School; Prof~ssor uf Sociology Emerita, UCBerkelt=y.

Plenary addrc~s, Am~rican Psychoanalylic Association, New York, January 15.2010. The author thanks Glen Gabbard, Theodore Jacobs, Ellen Pinsky, and BarrieTIlOrne, for reading drafts of this address and making valuabk: suggestions, alldAPsaA's Committee on Research and Special Trnillillg (CORST), for enabling her 10

write it as both anulysl und academic. Submincd for publication March 19,2010.

DOl: IO.II77/0003u651IU37H94 207

anq J. Chodor ow

he transference and (Q the patielll's mind calll~ together. as illl~rpn:tillg

'esistance to the transference and transference r~sistance were central to

malytic work. Such precepts had special force as emigre analysts workedo preserve Freud's legacy against the interpersonal school.

In other senings. different one-person approaches lO the transference",ere taught. In Kleinian England. for instance, the analyst was an observermerpreting defensive and projective manifestations of an imemal phamasy.\lorld, and the object-relations/Independent ullditjon served as an illlerper­.onal nemesis. These and other approaches centered all the interpretation of.ransfe.rence, but this did not mean Lhat thc analyst's person was involved,~xcept as an observer noting its expression in the patient's psyche.

Over tim.: such views were challenged, and our epistemology~hangcd_ AnalysLs aHcnded to their own panicipation in the analytic~ncounter, and countcnransfercnce, from being considered an obstacle,)ccame a resource for investig3l.ion and understanding, to be auended to

md recognized as present at every moment. In the United States, Loewald1960) was an early and articulaLe ego psychological spokesman for the

malysl's place in the analyLic encounLer. The analyst, he wrote, is a "co­lewr 011 the analytic stage," not a "reJlecting mirror ... characterized by;crupulous neuLrality" (p. 223). LaLer he argued that ""Lhe sciel1litic licLion

of a field of study w which we are in the rdaLton of extraneous)bscrvers cannOl be mainlained in psychoanalysis. We become part andJarlicipam of and in lhe field as soon as we are prescllL in our roles asmalysts" (1970, p. 27~). Conlcmporam:ously in Latin America, Maliannemd Willi Baranger (1961-1962) articulated a Kleinian-Bionian approachhat concepLUalized a ··bipersonallield" created by Lhe patienL's and ana­yst's unconscious phantasies together. I Independent analysts drew onlVinnicoll's discovery of tmIlsitional phenomena to characterize an analytic

IThc;= B:.m,mgc:=r~, morc;= likc:= n:Jalillnal analysts. wac;= l:xplicil about co-conslructionn what they calilhe analytic couple: "Ihe analytic silurltion ... is something crcated)eMU" Ihe two, within the unit thai they form in [he momenl of Ihe session. somc­hing r.ldically din-c:=rcni frum what c;=ach uf lh~m is St:par..lIdy" (Buranger and3aranger 1961-1962, p. 806). By contrasl, Ih~ founding inlersubjective ego psy­;hologisL Loewald (1970). slfessed (he separateness and asymmetry. while in rela·ionship, of analyst and an:Jlysand: -"lbe objeci of invr.=slig;llion. (he analysand, as...'cll as the invc:=sligator. Ihe :Jnalysl. allhough c:lch has ;1 considerable degree of imcr­tal psychic organiz;.nion and relative autonomy in respec( 10 tht: OIht=r. call enl~r als)'choanalytic invC:=l<>ligation only by virtul: of their ~ing rcbtivdy open systems, and)pcn to each oLbd' (p. 278).

BEYOND THE DYAD

space that opaated in the realm of two·person illusion, which Ogden(1994) named the analytic third.

Across the analy(ic world. a focus on the dyad became intenwinedwith allention to the analyst-lhe analyst's activity, mind, personhood,and subjectivity that are always present in m.e analytic encounter. Britishand American independents and Italian Sionians attended to feelings.images, and experiences lhat float to the surface of the analyst's mind,enabling her to get some purchase on what the patient is uansmittingunconsciously, at the samc Lime modeling listening to the sele Kleiniansand Kleinian Sionians held that the patient's projective identifications PULdisavowed feelings and thoughls imo the analyst, who could. by obsC'Jvingthese foreign entities, know more about the patient and share this knowl­edge with him. Relational analysLS, self psychologists, and ego psycholo­gists who endorsed Lhe analyst's subjectivity, or who put enactment or theco-creation of the analytic situation fronL and center, all had theoreticallybased assumptions, confirmed by Lheir clinical experience, holding thatthe truest and most alive expressions of the patient's inner life could bebesL observed and discussed in terms of the relationship and the patient'sthoughts and feelings about the analyst in Lhe consulting room.

Today these developments arc Laken for grunted, as dyadic portrayalsof analysis range between lhe poles of unconscious eommunicmion onthe one side and interaction on the other. Jacobs (1997) suggests IhaL theconsulting room contains "lWO minds, two hearts, two life histories indynamic interaction ... unconscious communications transmitted fromboth participams" (p. 1034). Gabbard (2009) describes analysis as "twopeople thinking what either alone canom think.... to some extent, ana­lyst and analysand lose themselves as separate individuals" (pp. 581,587). Harris (2009) says ·'interpretation is always a cite of action.... Weare never outside lnUlsfercncc, ncver outside relational malrices of manyinterlocking types" (p. 17), while Smith (2006) claims LhaL analysis is aninescapable "continuous process of enactment," one in which it cannot be

:'ne British lmkpem.lcms. lhcir origins in the Balinls. Cohan.. l\olilner. andWinnicotl, bt:stowed Ihis name on lhcmselves (see, e.g., Kohon 1986: Rayner 1991).and I folJow Ferro (2005) in imputing a specificity to lIalian Bionians. I mysdf haveidentified an American indc;=~ndent tradition. which 1call imersubjeclive c:go psychol­ogy (Chodorow 20(4), a "twO-persOIl separate" (Poland 1999) psychoanalysis inwhich Lbe internal and silcnl. falher tllan interactive and relational. use of the self isdocumemcd extensively (Jacobs 1991; MeL'lughlin 2005; Poland 1996).

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Nan<y I. (hodor ow

a~kcd, "wlzen is iL an enaclmenL?" bUL only "\vlml am I cnal.:Ling wiLh LhepaLielll aL any given momcnL'?" (pp. 723, 733).

You would think thaL as a social scielllist as well as an analyst,would welcome these dcvclopmcnLs. FirsL, they pOltray accurately Lhepsychoanalytic SituaLion. There are, after all, two people in the room. Itis Lhe case that the analyst is present as a person as he analyzes thepauenL, and that a dyad is more than two monads. This is a social view.Thc old vicw, lhat lhc pmienl's psyche was lived separately and could beanalyzed as an entiLy in its own right, is incompatible with our knowledgethat people form themselves and are fanned through conscious andunconscious interaction. Second, the methodologies that have been con­genial to me--ethnography, qualitative and interpretive sociology­always stress the role, presence, and impact of the observer and the rcllexiveinfluence of observational interaction on what is thought to be observed.

ILike the engaged analyst, the researcher in these fields is nol a naturalscientist studying objects, a scribe, blank slate, or tape recorder.

Third, and this is imponant, my own wriLing could be the subject ofmy remarks. Well before mainstream Ametican psychoanalysis movedbeyond classical ego psychology, I argued against a view of Lhe psycheas created mainly from within through innately unfolding drive organiza­tions and ego-slructural development. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s,l drew upon British object relations theory to describe connectionsbetween the intrapsychic world and self-other relalions and LO claim Lhalsubjectivity requires relation to and recognition of the Olher--{)riginallythe mother-as a subject (Chodorow 1978, 1979, 1986).' Not yet a clini·cian, I was on board with a two-person model, and I may even havehelped creare it. For all these reasons, I would welcome the developmentsj describe.

What, then, are my hesitations? As I elaborate them, I hope we keepill mind all the goud reasons for our anemion to the analytic dyad, theilHersubjective contexts of internal life, and the analyst'S subjectivity_

JAs 1 th~n put it, "separ-.uencss is defined relmionally; ditTt:rcmialion occurs inrelalionship: Tam 'II01·YOI/·_ ... adt:quule separation, or dilJerentialion, involvesnol merely perceiving the scpanllcncss, or otherness, of the other. It involves per­ceiving lhe person's subjectivity and selfllOod as well.... lruc differentialion. truescparatt:ncss, ... must ... involve two sdves, two presences. twO subjecls.adequale separalion-individuation. or diffcremiation, involves not simply perceivingthe otherness of the other. but h~r or his selfboodlsllbjcctivily as well" (Chodorow1979. pp. 102-1(14).

BEYOND THE DYAD

Panly, the context changed: one-person views were no longer domi­nant, so psychoanalysts no longer needed to be convinced of their ownpresence in the consulting room. Partly, I b~came an analysL, with on­Lhe-ground knowl~dge of the complexity of individuality and mind.Psychoanalysis, alolle among all modes of therapy and thought, is basedon a premise and valorization of internal life-our patients. in Poland'swords (1996), as "unique other[s]" (p. 6). Psychoanalysis is the ollly fieldto have developed a method for the investigation, deepening, and expan­sion of this imernaJ individuality. Unless you have spent a good pan ofyour life in the academy-in the world of social science, where all psy­chi.c life is thought to be created in and through the social, or in thehumanities, where there is often not even a self, but only a subject createddiscursively through power-you may take for granted psychoanalyticunderswndings of iUller life. You assume the potency and insisLence oftlle driv~s, the role of the pasL in shaping the present, the ubiquity ofintrapsychic conflict and resistance to self-awareness, the intractableforces of envy, guilt, and shame, the power of our inner world to endowexperience with personal meaning and to enable dreaming and creativity.

Our job, as I see it, is to help our patients discover md undersumd[his illlernallife and to live it marc fully, with less inhibition, contlict, andself-undermining. We use ourselves in so doing, but I do nOl want to ­

substilute, for this goaJ that we have for our patients, a focus on the rela­tionship. Indeed, some who advocate self-analysis, self-observation, andauending to interactional processes assume that such processes go onsilently, addressed to apprehending, through noticing unconscious reso­nances, the patient's internal world. Too often, however, pennission touse the self seems to have led away from the psychology of the patientand toward a focus on lbe dyadic process or on the analyst himself.

One of my patients was startled and uncomprchending when I usedin passing a tenn drawn from my everyday vocabulary, bur no~, as ittumcd out, from hers. Inner life. She was, as she put it, "stymied" by rhephrase: I might just as well have said "disavowed and encapsulated com­bined parental inrrojects," for all she knew what I was talking about. Butwe could then watch, over the next weeks and months, as she became,almost, an ethnographer of the mind, and of her own mind. She wasamazed when she drifted off for three seconds into a dream willIe in mywaiting roonL She observed that others, as she put ir, sometimes "Lakethat little step" of noticing and remarking on someone else's feelings,saying things like "You must be unhappy about thal." Her own mode was

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Minty I. (hodol Ow

to squelch any thoughts about something that she, 01' the pa:mn she wastalking 10. couldn't do anything aboul. Thougills were judged as bad or

good; they n.::quircd immediate action or inlllll.:diarc sharing. Thoughts

did not just DCCUr.

Such an experience reminds us of what we, as analysts, take fur

granted: that people have inner experience, inner lives thal go beyond

what comes from two people together. My patient observed thUI attendingto Ihougllls thm were nOl about her day, or 11I.::r ltHlu list, was for her like

thinking, as she walked. "Okay, first th~ len foot goes forward, now lherighl." This was how difficult and tangkd the sllwllest spontaneous

thought was for her. In this context, I reconsidered my reaction to what Ihad prevlously thought one or the sil1i~st sociology articles ever written,

about "doing walldng" (Ryave and Schenkein 1974).' Loewald (1960)describes the analyst's role as lhat or helping the palh":l1l become a "cen­LCred unit by being centered upon·' (p_ 230): 111.y patient came to refer lO

whal she called "this '1' business."

r Our attel1lion to what goes on between tWO peopl~ in th~ consulting

room has, I feru·. confused the means with the end. our method of

inquiry-by ncc~ssity a two-person venlure, because what are we, if nolpersons?-with our goals. We wantLO help our patients overcome conllictsand intemal impoverishment, through sclf-obst:rvalion. seLf-understaJlding,

and new experience with an other who is we. but we ;ue helping peoplewho are individuals with separaLC lives and internal worlds, hopefully

now freer and more enriched through their work with us. As I might

tell a patient, we don't know-I, panicu/ady, cannot know-what hisunconscious lhoughls are, but maybe we can notice, drawing on his

associations (along with my mindfulness about paucrns amI my use ofIheory, lechniquc. and-yes-myself) what is crecping into consciousness,

hovering ill the wiJlgs (on paltcms, see Chodorow 199Y).Developmcnt, both in childhood and ill analysis, happens in and

through relationship, but in our current analylic world it seems that we_ have forgotten the asymmetry in both of these arenas. We employ meta­

phors like the mother-child realm of illusion or transitional realm, but wepass over rhe fact that the mOlher in this originary experience lives in lWOworlds, in the tnlOsitiollal world of illusion and ill the world thal observes

and thoughtfully creates, with conscious and unconscious intention, her

-4··Notes on tilt: Art of Walking"' obs..:rvcs that you In nOI walk on Ihl.: lOpS of c'lrs.through peopk hoilling hands, or down the midJh: of the slrt:d. Tht:se now absolutelyobvious. lakcn·for·grantcd processes had originally to be lew·ned.

B£:YONO THE DYAD

participation. We draw on ideas of maternal reverie, or lheorize themother's processing infantile beta into alpha elemellls, \\'ithout noticingthe mOLher's self-obscrvation and her location olltside of reverie as wellas within il.~

As we mude the analytic dyad .1 prominelll focus of our ;mention andrecognized the analyst's ubiquitous participation and subjectivily, diu we

sometimcs make the analyst's mind and activity, as well as the analyst'srole in the patienl's mind, the more contillllously and actively engaged

focus or our \\'ork? Did these become as important, perhaps more impor­

tant. than the minds of our patiellls themselves? A few years ago I found

myself at a clinical workshop in which one colleague presented material

to analysts from different analytic locations (a selling to which I willreturn luter). Rmhcr late in the day, one of the pandists said, as :'JJ1other

was focusing on a patient's fantasies. "The patient! The pmient! Whatabout the analyst?'· You have perhaps read an anide by Steiner (2008).''Transference to the Analyst as an Excluded Observer." This anicle is

ambiguous. implying simuhaneously that it is universally a difficulty foran analysis when the analyst is not the paticlH's primary object, thUI it is

a cOllnterLIansferenc~ difficulty for the analyst. who has to manag~ andslruggle with intolcr.tble feelings of narcissistic injury, and that it is aproblem for the patient-bul as to this last, Steiner is less clear aboutwhy. The reader's puzzlement about the patient is increased, because Steiner

repons the analyst's feelings and actions in the tirst person, whereas the

patient's feelings and actions are rendered in more generalized descrip­tions. oftcn in the passive voice. of the mood of the session.

We need to not icc, I think, when our theories of therapeutic action

und technique lead us to treat as problematic a panelist, or a patient, whodoes nOlmuke the analyst the center of analytic attention. We notice what

the palient is doing to th~ analyst. how whatever the patient is sayingrefers dircctly or metaphorically to his observarion of the analyst and theanalysis, how every moment in the analysis is co-crcalcd by analyst and

patient or is a continuous, recursive process of enactments involvingboth, And we imply lhatthe therapeutic action of analysis, and therefore

the focus of analytic activity, comes from keeping these processes in theforefront of both the analyst's and the palient's anenlion. Joseph (1975)

worries that analysis with some patients can become 100 intellectual­two analysts talking about someone who is the patient. My worry, by

~I am adapting a point abuut maternal subjectivilY madl.: by Alice [3:JJinl (1939)thai hdpcJ gruund my c:Jrly writings.

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H~n(y J. (hodor ow

contrasl, is that in the prcscnl p~riod. analysis Ihr~at~IlS to become tWO

people-two patients? two analysts'l-Iulking about the analyst.6

Along with an increased focus on the analyst. these ponrayals oftherapeUlic action inevitably involve a decreased focus on lhe patient's

_ mind, as, in Locwald's formulalion (1970), a "universe in its own right"

(p. 278). When the analyst always brings herself into the hour and

focuses persistently on the dyadic relationship, it is harder to imaginesilences, observation of nonverbal communication. or rOOI11 for waking

dreaming. How, we might wonder. Can the patient come to develop an

internal dialogue with herself. or a registering of experience that does 1/ot

primarily involve words? How can she come lO be in touch with the psy­

chosexual, the physical body, aI/the senses, thai Freud made so cenlrill?7

Advocates argue, correctly, that Ollr emphasis on the analyst, the

Ianalyst's activily. and the irreducible subjectivity of the analyst is merely

empirical. We are, after all. working in a dyad; the analyst is inevitablyan equal participanl with the patient we have only ourselves to under-

stand our patients. and what we see and hear of them is lillered throughinteraclion and our own sensory and verbal capacities. In writing, pre­

senting, and teaching. we have no choice but to take the analyst's pointof vicw, since this is the unavoidable perspective from which we workand write. I am criticizing an unavoidable epistemological conundrum,

since the analyst callnot be ";) reOecting mirror characterized by scrupu­

lous neutrality."I suggest. however, that we now insisl too forcefully that an accurately

rellccling mirror has alu'llys to include the analyst. Perhaps, as we came

enthusiastically to acknuwledge a point made by Sullivan (1953) over fiftyyears ago-thai the analyst is a participant as well as an observer-we are

now in danger of forgeuing that a panicipant observer remains an observer

~My Cl)llCCrnS arc not onl)' m)' own. In the COllrse of claiming that the an,llyslnr.:cds to pay ult~l\lion 10 how her internal world p:micipat~s in lh~ analylic pro­cess, Harris (2009) noteS Ihat "this vision of thc clinical dyad does not cenl~r onsymmetry or equivalence or some exdusive narcissislic focus all analytic sUbjectivily.

. imersubjective space is alw3ys also tilled wilh dislinclion, l.1ifferellc~. and ollier­ness" (p. 0; sec also Kantrowitz n.d: Parsons 2009b).

iWhen you sing Beethoven's Ninth, you k:arn the Gerlll:lIL words and their Icxi­l:al English me311ing, but the human ;md inslrumenlal voil:es Ihat iune"l this texl-thcmusic th,lI expresses, like the ps)'cht':, dynamics, rhythms, and tonalitics--<:onve)' Iheexperiential mcunil1g of thc piece. Such Illcanillgs. moreovcr, arc personally enliv­~ned by ~ach p~rformer and lislcncr.

BEYOND THE DYAD

as welJ.'lI have oftcn thought lhat. insufm as we observe the transfercJllialenlivening of experience through unconscious falllasics and meanings, we

might be wise LO Iloat wilh our pariems in the here and dum or the thereand now, where (hey can Come to sensc an imcmal and cxternal world andhislory of their own. I aln advocating lislening, observing, waiting, wit­nessing, and unconscious tuning as deserving of equal or perhaps mOre

importance in the analyLic attitude and the analyst's action than interpret.ing, showing, noricing, and pointing out. 9

For some Lime, J have thought about the tendencies I am describing,in which bOlh analyst and patient focus on the analYlic dyad and the ana­

Iysl's role in the patient's mind, as the problem of the Runaway BUllllY's

motherY' The RUllaway BUIIIlY is a separation-individuation story by

Margaret Wise Brown (1942), whu larer wrote Good/ligllf Moun (1947).A little bUllny wams to run away. but his mOlher tells him that she willrun after him: he is her Iiule bunny, Does she love him and want to pro­

tect him, or is she so intrusiv~ that he will never be allowed lo develop aseparate self? He imagines escape scenarios, but she is always there in histracks. "If you run after me," he says, "J will become a fish in a trout

stream and r will swim away from you." She says. "11" you become a lish

in a (rout stream ... I will become a fiSherman and I will fish for you."He says, "If you become a fisherman, .. I will become a rock on the

mountain, high above you." "If you become a rock on the mountain ...

1 will be a Illoumuin climber. and I will climb to where you are," He willbecome a bird, she a tree on which he will alighl; he a sailboat, she thewind. And so on. He gives up.

ilThis tangle about the epistemological impact of the observer crosses liddS'jConsid~ring lhose in her profession who cl<lim Ih;1l cultures cannot be studied apan fromIhe impact of rhe l:thnographer's presence, or Ihat tradilionaJ cultures CUll be sludied onlyas products of West~m culluml imperialism and colonialism: the amhropologist SherryGnner (1984) writes, '"To such" position w~ can ollly respond: try" (p. 143).

')1 <1111 in the vicinity of what I onc~ c:l1led "Iislcning to" and "lisH:ning fur"(Chodurow 2003). but her~ looking al whm the: analyst docs wilh wha! she hears.Parsons (2009a) describes wailing as pari of British lnde:pcndelll tcchniqu~. Poland(1999) writes of witllt:ssing. Sl.:hlesinger (2003) likens thc analyst's techniquc to thlllof Ihe musician who inllucnces through emotional contact wilh Ihe listener.

'UHislorically, il has been prnblcm<ltic (or perhaps only misguided) when we;

have Jikellcd ourselves too closely 10 muthers, and in our fhinkillg aligned lbe analyticdyad and the mother-child dyad. Phillips (199M) has callcd this "playing mOlhers." Y~II and olhcrs have found th~ analogy useful, even if we mUSI always be mindful Ihal,in Ihe case of udult analysis, Ihere arc always two adulL'i ill Ihe roum, with similarlyconSlilU!ed psyches Ihal have dt:\,cloped :lpan from each olher.

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Nancy J. Chodoro w

I-lave we forgotten th~ GUUdlligJII 1\400/l part of the psyche-llll;inLernal, pahaps dreamy or nightmarish, primary proc~ss wurld LhaLendows obj~cts and th~ surround wilh unconscious meaning, that hascontlicL. or fear about chang~ and about being left alone wiLh itself, a:-; insl~ep? This internal world enables trallsferences that go belween uncon­scious and preconscious, rather than from self LO other. Unlike TileNwunva)' BIIIIIIY, GnndlligJu /V/OOII only hints ar the presence of the otht:r:

"a quiet old lady who was whisp~ring 'Hush."·'1"Beyond the dyud" n.:achcs toward individual psychology, LOw~lrd our

paLicllls' il1lrapsychic lives i.l.'i tht: privileg~d focus of our work and ourthinking. inside and oUlsid~ the consulting room. The analyst's psyche iscenainly JUSt like the patient's, a personal subjectivity with inevilable andubiquilOllS lransferences to the patienL and lO the work, and lhe analyst us~s

her psyche lO guide her understanding. But sh~ has a differ~nt role, <lnd herreactions should neither be pli\'il~gcd in her own Iltind nor made the centerof her thinking and aClion. Loewald tells us that analysl and pmient arc"co-aclOrlsl on the psychoanalytic stag~:' bUL this does not mean. as I PUl

i' recen,ly lChodorow 2009). ,h"'the "n"lyst should steal the show."Beyond lhe dyad" takes us noL only toward lhe individual but alsu

LOward the social. In what follows. I focus on twO aspects of the socialityof the analytic dyad: tirst. iLs aCLual social constitution and. second, someof the dangers in our current conceptualization (a conceptualization that,recursively, is itself a social phenomenon). My thinking is inspired bypsychoanalytic sociology. ethnomethodology, and sociological phenom­enology-Lhe sociologist Alfred St.:hutz drawing from Husser! to ask,\Vhat is the l:oll:ootitutive phenomenology of everyday life, what Schutzrefers to as "lhc world k.nown in common and Lakcn for granted""! (quoted

in Garlinkel 1967. p. 37)."

liTo druw from morc sciCJllilk mutheN:hikl realms: perhaps. in our conCl.:rn notto he what WI: might call (following Tronick 2007) "still-face" analysts. we havebecome inslcad (druwing frulIl Beebe and L,\\;!lmann 1(98) hypcrculllingelit and

overintrusive.I~I ~1Il nm Ihe lirst to liSt.: Ihl.:se fidds tu !tlUdy taken·for-granted, prctht.:urelil:ul

assumptions underlying diniciuns' work. Rcs~archers have donc l"iddwork in mentalhospitah. wriucn ethnographies about psychiatric and medical training. studied psy·chialric dinil: rCl:onh, anJ looked at decisions in outpulicnl and inpatiel1l scaings. forexamph:. how psydliutri:-.Is predict suicidality and how institutiolls decide whether togrant M:::x-change operations lSc~. e.g.. Coscr 1979: Garfinkel 1967; Glaser and

Strauss 1967; Gon'mun 196 J ; Stanlon and Schwarz. 1955).

8EYOND THE DYAD

EthnOlllctl1odology investigaLes tl1~ unstated assumptions, Lhc tacitpresuppositions. thaL panicipants hold al every momenl in parl.icular set~

lings and thal enable these sCllings La go on being. If these assumptionswere arliculated, lhe aClivity would be impossible La accomplish: doingwalking, for example, or. when you are in a conversation, wking turnsspeaking. You acknowledge tacit assumptions about these practices Occa­sionally, as whcn you say. "Hey, look where you'rc going!" or "YouinlerrupWd me!" Even though it is not mentioned in the wriuen rules, youdo nOllhrow all the cJlL:ckers or chess pieces on the floor and reassemblethem bdore making your move. When your child does, she might wellsuy, "But rhe rules don't say you CUIl't!" Garfinkel, who coined lhe lCrmerllllOmelllOdoJogy, suggests that if we can observe participants as theycomment on and produce thdr participmion. we can infer whm theyassume and fWIII that what thc constitutive features of seuings arc.u Asanalysis makes the unconscious conscious, so ethnomelhoclology makesthe implicit expliciL I4

My suggestion here is IhaL our current emphasis On the dyad. ratherthan simply reflecting empirical reality more accuralely, is ilself pan of aset of practices and tacit assumptions lhat go beyond and produce thatrealiLy. Our discussions with one another, our writings, and. as far as wecan infer. we in Our consulting rooms all assume lhat lhe ,tnalytic uyadexists as a thing apart: there is a self-contained unit whose private. uniqueinteraction produces and constitutes the analytic process. Fantasies,wishes, and theory, along with lhe physical plivacy of IhL: cOllsuhingroom, cOllle rogeLher to lead us to this assumption. which is funher sup­ported (and cremed) by the experiences and writings I have described.Th~se experiences and writings aver thm the analyst is just as prescl1l, juS!

I.vrhe generaliyc grullllllari;llIs lhough! similarl)' ,Ibout how We produce JUIl­

guag(::;. By nOlil:ing. for example. which apparemly gramm;llicul senlences of n:alwords made sense and which ones dill not (Chomsky's famous "Colorless grecn ideassh:~ep furiously"). they could begin to e1ucidale IlOI only tht: struclurc of p;miculOlr100nguagcs, but <.llso thc implicil knowledge IhOl' speukers of that language must Imvc10 speak il.

I~ Jimenez'~ rCCCtlllntern.llional PsychoanalylicalAssocialioll plenary. "GraspingPsychoamllysts' Practil:e in IL'i Own Merits" (2009). is to my knowledgc lhe onlypsychoanalytic paper to have lIsed ethllOmcthodological-phenoillcnologicallllclhodsto study psychoanalytic practice.

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as active, as tilt:: patient, is nOI a passive instrtlmcllI of ob.i~clivc listening

and imerprctillion. 15

Various conl:cptualizations of the analytic process reflect this imageof a self-comailled dyad in the roOITI. both exemplifying a global trendand pULLing each analyst illlo a paniel/lar geographic and institutionalworld of colleagues. theory. and assumptions about whm the: analyst

_does. We think or transference as a total siluarion and of analytic illten.lc­tion as a continual process of enactmclll or a seuing in which all talk andaction are co-created by reJationally intertwined participants. Analysismight be a transf~rence-counterrransf~n::nce matrix, a bipcrsonal Iield, ora meeting of two unconscious minds. It is conceptualized as reverie andwaking-dreaming within each participant or the analyst Iislcning to him­self in a way Ihat fosters the patielli's observing and listening.

This specific sociality of tilt: dyad bt;gins in training, where ahe train­ing analysis is nO( simply il matter of two individuals, analyst and candi­date. but a process devdoping ill u local or national context of assumptionsabow how an analysis shoulJ b~ conducl~d. Preparing for my 2009 two­day clinkal workshop, which reatured Paul Denis of the ParisPsychoanaly,ic Society. I read in UP a response LhaL Denis (21l04) hadbeen asked to write to a clinical hour described by PCLCr Fonagy. Dt:nisnoted Ihat Fonagy gave his patient more interpretations in a single hourthan he, Denis, had received from his training analyst in over ten years.When 1 began t.raining ill San Francisco, I had certainly read as much inthe analytic literature as my feHow candidates, and perhaps more. But I

[

had 1101 read. did not know thall should have memorized, Kubic's U 'SayYou're Sorry' " (1955), Weiss's "Crying at the Happy Ending" (1952),and, especially, Bernfeld's uThe Facts of Observalion in Psychoanalysis"(1941). TlIm wa:\ San Francisco,lf> When a Bostonian-Harry Sm.ith­writes aboul how we hcar the voices or our supervisors and analysts inour daily work (200 I). it is Elvin Semrad who inhabilS the first several

I)Anil,ly:oIS hinc alwuys bcclI alone in thc cOllsuhing room wilh jusl on~ Olherpc:rson, but as we turn to thc sociologic... !. we miglu nole (though il is 1I0t dirt:ctlygennane to lh~ queStion of dyads) that attention to th(: analyst's expcriellc~and actionhas illcrea~cd a~ thc SlaLUS of psychoilnalysis has declined.

16h was abo ilssumt:lJ. though this was not cmpirically the case, that lhe modalcandidate was a psychiatrist who ll::lIJ to unleam psychiatric nosology, and that, what­ever our profcssiollal urigin. we had probably trained with Norman Reider and HobWallerstein at Mount Zion Hospital.

BEYOND THE DYAD

pages of his article, and who pr~sull1ably is there ill his consultingroom-beyond 'he dyad.

Freud once lold liS lhal there are at !cast six p~ople in th~ bedroom.Similarly, lhe analyst (like the patient) brings professional and personalpresences into his office. Yet we minimize the centrality of this basic wayin Which. at every mOIllCI1I, we listen. inlt:rvene. hear, and observe themost minule analytic events through preconscious tillers that locate ussimUltaneously in th~ there and lhen of our professional location andtraining,17

These meetings, all our lll~ctings, provide some of our besl evidem:efor our awareness of the always presem social characler of the analyticdyad. Our panels fcature analysts from differentlocarions who look at theU

same" clinical material, or who present clinical material about the"same" phenonl~na-<lrt:ams,impasses, countcnransfercnce elli.lctments,the analyst's use or d~velopll1cntal thinking. We assume, that is, that theanalysl is not only. not lirSl and foremost, wilhin an analyric dyad, hutthat he is also a participant in an analytic community, the product or apanieular, local analytic culture thaI influences his work.

I have been looking at empirical reality. It simply is lhe case thm theanalytic dyad, including thc analyst's and Ihe palient's observations andintcrpretations of the unconscious. is constiruted socially. cven as it con­sists of two individuals. Now I would like to [urn from lhc actual to thenecessary. This very social constitulion, insofar as the analyst kCt;ps it inmind. protecls lhe dynd and the individuals-particularly the patient­within il.

Within sociology, the dyad is as understudied as the individual. HutGeorg SimmeJ, who wanted to build a picture of society outward from theindividual, and Philip Slaler, illlerested in the psychoanalysis-sociologynexus, c<Jch address dyads directly. Their formulations apply to manyfeatures of the analytic dyad and to potential problems intrinsic to a too­exclusive focus on it. They illuminalc as well areas of crisis and rupturethai we as a profession address.

171 alii in the Icrrain of Almolld's hRolt:s in the Psychoanalytic Rdaljoll~hip," in

whidl Almond (2008) claims that hanalyLing providcs a special social StruclUre for thepersonal relation" (p. 71), III c.:Olllrast to Almond. 1am not focused all huw wc (Olnd ourpaticllls) muve in (as allalysl) and out (as (wo people in a uniquc meeting uf twoUIlCOllsciollsnesses) of role and a role relationship. The ethnomethodological pcrspec­rive claims thOlt whcther wc are "in" or "out"' of role, Wt: are always rcOexively produc­ing a dyad whuse features inclUde that which goes beyond ilud helps constilUrc it.

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Sinunel (1908) begins by I\:minding us of the,; sociality of th~ dyad(in GermaJl. a "union of two"). He notes several characteristic.;s thal makeit pOlclltially anxious, vulnerable, self-prOlcctivc, and defensive.Foundmionalwa true dy;'ld is that variarion neither in the individuality ofthe panicipants nor in their motives alters the dyad's basic structural fOfm

and function (in our case. the analytic frame). Dyads involve a "mixlUreof ingredients," some that its members "contribute lU it alone. _ . and[othasl that are not characteristic of il exclusively" (p. 126), yet bothmembers tend to be pulled toward features thallhey see as exclusive and(Q resist seeing themselves ill a supcr·oyadic context. The dyad prefersthat "its whole affective structure is based on what each of the two partici­pants gives or shows only to the one or other person and to nobody else"(p. 126). As pan of this effort, dyads foster secrets that tie them togetherand that those not in the dyad do not know.

Dyads art: fragile. as each member is aware that "(he secession ofeither would destroy lht: whole" (p. 123). To protect themselves, theypromote "exclusive dependency ... and hopelessness thm cohesion mightcome from anywhere but immediate illieraction" (p. 136). Both membc..:rsknow, moreover, thilt built into tlte dyad's formation is the cenainty of itseventual "tcrminmiou" (this is Simmel's word). This knowledge of tenni­nalion colors the life and imagination of each participant and of the twotogether. Because the dyad depends on each member and needs both,dyads often feel "both endangered and irrcplaceable," making them, saysSimmel, "into the reallOl::us not only of ... suciological tragedy, but alsoof seillimentalistll and elegiac problems" (pp. 123-124). In a Loewaldianvein, Simmel adds, "this feeling tOIlC appears whenever the end of theunion has become an organic part of ilS structure" (p. 124),

As a "union of two," the members of the dyad together dctinc andagree upon reality, thus creating their own exclusive world, They want to"see only one another, and do not sec, at (he same time. an objective,super-individual structure which they feci cxists and operates on its own"(p. 127). A third element of this sort "illlcrfercs with the most intimatenature of the dyad" (p. 127), In the analytic dyad, sueh clements mightinclude, for example, all the features of analyLic practice and the analyticcommunity that are pan of Ihe knowledge and identity of both partici­pants, plus each participant's history and relational world.

Dyads protect themselves against the threat of dilution or intrusionby what Sirnmel calls triviality-for us, perhaps, mUlUally recognizedand repeated interactional or tranl:iferencc-countcnransferencc patterns,

BEYOND THE DYAD

shared metaphors and formulations, and the like. They employ and uver­value such exclusive, self-defining practices and relational patterns, yetthe very fact of repealing them, in order to establish the dyad's special­ness. (rivializes them, Thc dyad's need to maintain spccialncss and todefend against seeing itself as pan of a larger unit "frequently becomesdesperate and fatal" (p. 125).

Slata follows Simmd in noticing the dyad's inbuilt tendency to be aworld unto ilsdf. In "On Social Rc..:gression" (J 963), he enlers a conversa­tion begun by Freud, who leaves libido and the dyad halfway throughCil,iliwtiolJ lind Its Di.w:olllem.\' to tum to aggression. Slater suggests thatlibidinal contruction, with both narcissistic and object-libidinal compo­nems, marc specifically than pleasure and (he turn from reality. constitutesJibido's social threat. Psychological tension-points in social life occurespecially when libidinal comraction-a pull away from what Freud(J 933) called "ever greater unities" (p. 107)-threatens libidinal diffusion.The dyad, with its inbuilt tendency to wallt to be a world unto itself, alongwith its satisfying cathectic iJllensily, is particularly threatening.

The dangers of dyads lie in a potential antisocial narcissism of two:gratification from mutual admiration of self, other, and the couple; theselling of private rules lhat apply 10 the (wo alone; lack of regard for theoUlside world and its institutions and rules; an exclusivity and mutualgratification that cOllle from t:molional, illlellt:ctual, or sexual bonding. IS

The dyad has no intern<.ll incentive to dissolve itself, and, just as we areattracted to narcissistic leaders who may threaten society but seem imper­vious to guilt and shame (Slat~raJludes on this pointlo Group Psycholugyand the Analysis o/the Ego), so we are attracted LO, though threatened by,the mutual involvement of dyads. Simer points oul thm most of the greatlovers of Htermure and culture arc guilty of enormous social and familydisloyalty, allractive to us for just this reason, and yet, by slory's end, arcoftcn desu-oyed.

Slater closes his essay with a reading of Thomas Mann's shon story,'The Blood of the Walsungs." In Mann's story a pair of twins, Siegmundand Sieglinde, return in their family coach from seeing Die Walk-ii.re.This opera, Mann notices, centers on disasters of dyadic and individualnarcissism-the [wins Siegmund and Sieglinde. instigated by theirfather Wotan, consummate their sexual passion and thereby bring down

J¥Ellcn Pinsky (personal communication) reminds JIlt: that Freud, in his "Paperson Tt:l:hnique," anticipates such dangers in an iUHtlysis.

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the reaJIlI of tfIc gods. In their carriage, seuled into velvet, cushions, andsatin, enveloped in exclusive dyadic self-involvement. the twins engagein a rapturous sexual encounter.

Silllmel and Slater, whcn they write about dyads ,Iud point LO thedangers or narcissistic withdrawal and private rule-setting, are consider­ing dyads composed of equals. But the analytic dyad, though both mem­bers are fully pill'ticipunr, complex human beings, is fundamentallyasymmeu'ical and unequaL Yet our recent conceprualizations of this dyadonen do not notice-only occasionally allude to--these fundamentalasymmeu'ies: of dcpendence; of knowledge; of authorily; of self-revelationvs. restraint; of the capacity to set or br~ak the rules (ironically, the veryhiaarchical inequalities between palient and analyst that many whoadvocated a focus on the dyadic relationship and interaction, or recogni­tion of the analyst's participant subjectivity, meant 1O address). Moreover,while the patient blings himself to only this one meeting of conscious andunconscious minds, this one interaction, the analyst, promiscuous, bringsherself to several such relationships. The dyad is exclusive for the patientin a way {har it is not for the analysT.

When I notice LIS paying so much aucntion to interaction in the ana­lytic dyad, [ think or Simmel's description of dyadic secrets, of the sel­ting of private rules and communication. of compelled exclusivity andthe potential despLTation of dyadic self-maintenance. I think of Slater'ssuggestion that when the dyad breaks down. it regresses toward narcis­sism-the narcissism of both participants together and of each as indi-

_ viduals in a self-enclosed world. When I read accounts that focus on theanalyst's subjectivity as much as on that of the patiem, or that advocatethat the analysis be conducted as exclusively as possible in the here andnow, as if the patient'S internal life and life outside-lives apart from theanalyst-are less important, I am reminded of Slater's description of

_ the attraclions of the narcissistic leader who sets his own fules, and of thesocial and individual threat, and seductive appeal, of dyadic withdrawaLThe analytic setting or ne-cessilY requires twO individuals. but the dyad'sintrinsic vulnerabilities can be mitigated through our recognition of thesocial seuing-lhe location in practice and profession-of the analyticdyad on the one side, and of lhe internal tife and history of the palienton the other.

Freud (1933) reminds us th'-lt we learn of the crystal's structure whenit shatters. Spending much of my life in the Bay Area, 1 think also ofthose tectonic faults that we discover from carthquakes. I conclude by

BEYOND THE DYAD

reminding us of two lines of professional fraclure, one polarizing but insome aspects taken for gramcd, the other consensually seen as problem­alic. These lines of fracture. 1suggest. reflect among other sources dilli­cullies arising from our assumptions lhat privilege the analytic dyad overand against, on the one hand, our paliems as separate others, and, on theother, our recognilion thaI the analylic dyad itself, and we as practi­tioners, are located in an analytic world. It is hardly a surprising coinci­dence that our increasing attention 10 the analytic dyad has accompaniedan increased attention (a welcome addition (Q our earlier exclusive focuson the oedipal triad) to the prcoedipal mother-infant dyad and its devel­opmental signiticance. But Freud also reminds us of the oedipal father'snecessary intrusion imo and containment of this dyad, an observation weseem to have forgotten. Such a reminder mighl be useful in the two con­texts to which I now turn.

The first faultline: the training analyst system, and perhaps ourtraining arrangemems more generally. 19 I suggest that our tensions, con­tention, and inability to pUl things to rest have to do with our overreach­ing conceptions of the analytic dyad, that some of Ule passioll and angerin our debates corn~s from our tacir recognition that the arrangements inour Current system are contradictOry. \Ve are arguing in displacement.What I ask us to consider applies to all alternatives cun'ently on thetable, national or local, that retain some institutional oversight (myaccount of the instabilities and dangers of dyads, moreover. suggests thedesirability and wisdom of institutional involvement in the frame of thetrajning analysis).20 Everything I point to <lpplies with equal force tosupervision. 21

Specifically, the appointment of training and supl::rvising analysts iscompletely compatible with the clinical privacy of the u'aining dyad andwith the candidate's freedom to choose-within a training setting. There is.by contrast, a contradiction between an institutionally required training

I~I am in territory well traveled by Others (for reccn( treaIlllt::IlIS. see, e.g..Kemberg 2006: Wallerstein 2007; Levy 2009), waming only to nulc links to my argu­Illen! today.

200ur currelll debates, posing local aUlonomy and cOlllral against ccmralization,have social-historical precedent. From the beginning, there were (ens ions amongVienna. Berlin, <.tnd BUdapesl (originally also Zurich, and later Londoll) that we callscc as we trace back geographically most post-Freudian dissidence and challenges.

21 For a cauijullary laic about a system with privalc choice of personal analyst and:iupervisors. st:e rran(fois-Pom:ct (2009).

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analysis and an inslilUlional stepping back in favor or nomransparemdyadic negoliations abnut the financial arrangcments of this analysis. Inother cduccllion and training systems, all participants in training, trainersand trainces alike, are recognized by and seen as pan of the training insti­union. The pcrsnnal training rdationship may b(: negOtiated between atrainee and somcone who is part of the systclll (students choose menlOrsand dissertation advisors), but fees are Ih;vcr-'lt least not Icgally­involved. In mast educational senillgs, students pay different amoullls ofmoney for their training, but those who teach unci train do not have afinancial investment in how this is negotiated, neither for slUdellls ingeneral nor for those who work speciticully with them. They do not makepotentially very differelll ,UTullgemcnts with those in the same trainingrelalionship with them, as if each pair were a private and autonomousdyad, nor do they stand to benelit financially by choosing Lo work withon~ trainee rather Ihan <lnother.!2

\Vc claim thilt negotiating the fee (or the entire relationship) pri­vately is necessary to bring out panicular conflicts, resistances, ant;ifaIllasi~s, and even thm money has special privilege in generating these,Any ulha arrangemeJ1l is thought to il1lerfere with the privacy of thedyad and with the analysis itself. But if we hold lhat anything that hap­pens between analysl and patient, lhat all analytic arr.mgemcl1ls, areinfused with unconscious and transfcrcmiul meaning for each individ­ual and for the dyad, then it cannot also be the case that our currenlarrangemcnt provides more grist for the mill than any other, that thereis a privikgcd relationship between privately negotiated training analysis

211du 1101 know thc history of our arrangl.:lllcllIs, but I am gUl.:ssing In,lI one 1';11';­lOr is that analysis was ~x.duded from (he university, from IImh medical schools andIcu~rs and :,>cit:ll(;es. Un:lOchored in a traditional cdlll.:ational setting, lraining urrangc­mt:nts werc invcnted along tht: way (lhese consciolls deci~iuns underpinned by lh~

general anxielies and vulnt:rahililic:s of dy:\ds. as well as by preconscious and COll­scious assumptions lhat the training dyad llecl.lt.:d privatc fcc ulT3ngemenL.. in order tobe private analylil:ally). Our solution has now becomc one of those laken-fur-gr:lIuedbdt:lviors thal retkxivdy inJex our assumptions: we think and al.:t as if, and therebyproduce, the training (or ~rsonal) analysis relaliullship us an exclusive dyad-aunion of two-lhal m:\kes its own rules. III lhis contex.1 il is also worlh noting thatresearchers and tCiu.:hc.rs in Illany cducmional senings (~.g.. in medical, law, business,and engineering schools and academic scicnct: UCpanllll:nls) earn less lhun theirCOUlltClTlUl1S in privale or corporate practice. They have forgone inl.:omc for preslige:,respe:ct, und Ih~ opponunity to truilllhcir profession's future practitioners.

BEYOND THE DYAD

fees, on the one hand, and unconscious cOllllllUnil:utioll Clnd f<llllasy onthe otherY

I believe we know intuilively that ill these matters we arc misusingour conception of dyadic privacy. We know lher~ is a cOlllradictionbelween a candidate's bcing trained in our analylic illslitutes and negoti­aling financial arrangements for ha analysis (ano supervisions) privately,especially given other universalized requirements abOlu how (h~ trainingdyad will openae--on lhe couch, four times a w~~k, candidalcs not illclasses wiLh their training analyst, nonreponing, and so forth. It is ourcultural tietion, reproduced as dyadic fiction, that analysl and patient (inthis case, both the training analyst and the candidate) are nOl part of asocial and institutional setting in which their tlY~ld lives.

Our difficulty in thinking about how and what in lhc analylic dyad isprivate; our lack of knowledge concerning thc vulnerabilities of unions of(wo that create their own reality; our inaucntion to the asymmetriesintrinsic 10 the analytic dyad; our minimizing of the individuality of thepatient <lnd of the location of lhe analyst in a professional world: thesecOIltribulC to a collective misconstrual of Ihe privacy or something thal ispaIl of a social process. What needs to be private <llld bctween lhe two iswhat goes on ill the analysis-whatever is brought for observation,understanding, and change by the candidate. Our current arrangementfosters the assumption that the frame of the training rdalioll~hip faihc.fthan its content, the frame of the analysis father than its content, isdyadically private and even secret.

Which brings me, by way of secrecy <Iud asymmetry, 10 another pl.lceangels fe.u· to tread. J wam 10 look at how my argument applies to a sec­ond crystal-shallering. tectonic fault: boundary violations. One prevalelHingredient in boundary violalions, it seems to me, is the fantasy that theanalytic dyad is privaLe and excJusive, a world lIntO itself-a fantasy, Ihave suggested, thal is nm only privatc or dyadic but also pan of our CUf­

rentlaken-for-gramed culture. To the CXlent that Ihe analyst does not seeherself first and foremost as part of a (;ullllllunity of praclitioners. but first

2.1) leave aside here the potclIliaJ tensions. s~cn.:cy. und llllcaSC among candidateswho mayor may not know what they and their coJh::.lgucs art: paying lo the S:.tlllr.: ordifferenl tr:lining ilnd supervising analySiS for what should be cquivalenl trc:UHlcnland supervision. The lraining analysl--<:andidalc frame. of t~es. frequency. potclllialself·disclosure, and social openness is 1101 as private: or dyadic .IS we would like 10think. Nor would we:: improve upon thi!'> sillWtiOll by laking the analytic training dyadcmirely (jut of lhe:: institute's purview.

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and foremost in a unique, bounded union of two, the fanta:Joy that these

two constitute an ~xclusive world is more likely. Our history of boundaryviolations is another reason for us to be careful aboul our assumptions

about the analytic dyad.Dyadic secrets; exclusive and exclusionary l:ommunication pallerns:

the pQ(clllial despenuion of dyadic self-maintclI:lIIcc; dyadic breakdowns

(hat regres!\ toward narcissism: we sec all these in boundary violations.\Vhen the dyad is asymmetrical, when one of its members has authority

or power, as well as operating in a taken-far-granted professional contextthat foslers the bdicf in dyadic apanness, tlHH member's narcissism and

lack of judgmclll is likely to have priority. On the one side, we assume

Ihal our work involves, as much as possible, keeping everything in therelalionship in the room, rather than focusing tirst and foremost on lhe

patient as somcone located internally and externally in her own world.On the other, we forget our own professional loc:llion when we focus so

intensivdy on both participants' psyches and actions and assume and act

as if we are doing our work in a privaLely co-created dyad.2-lTo com:lude, 1 have suggested that when we put the dyad at the center

uf our work, we err, potentially, in two directions. 011 the one sidt:, such_ an emphasis can shift our focus away from th~ psychology of the palient­

- (he patient's affects, conflicts, and defenses, the unfolding and expanding_ of the patient's inner life, of her unconscious P:.L'it and present-and frolll

_ our understanding of intrapsychic individuality in our theory. It mnkes the

analytic dyad, rather than the analysand, tlw Ccn(Cr of attentjon, and illrecent years it threatens to shjf{ our aucntion even further away from the

patient and toward the analyst him- or herself. Beyond the dyad IOwaI'd

individual pSyl:hology: thai forms one side of my exposition here.On the other side, we obscure the analytic dyad's social location and

constitution. The analyst's activiiies are shaped by her training, her pro­fessional identity, her taken-far-granted assumptions and reflexive loca­

tion as analyst, and by her conscious and preconscious ideas about whmbeing an analysl is. Like the patient, the analyst is every moment beyond

\

the dyad. not only in her own private world and history-which has inrecent years been recognized and brought into our understanding-but

also in the world of analysis.

14GabbarJ (2000) points out lh<.ll drawing upon consultants. which is aile of uurmOSl successful illlcrvclllions in boundary violaliuns, works precisely because il

introduces a third into lhe dyad.

BEYOND THE DYAD

Individual psychology and sodal world come together. Our emphasis011 Ihe dyad and on Ihe analysr, rather than on our palicnls as separateindividuals with inner lives, along with Our lack of adequate recognitionof the soci;.i1ity or [he analytic dyad and understanding of the tensions and

vulnerabilities of dyads in general-nil of these have undermined Ourability 10 think clearly and act optimally in two of tht: most cOnlentiousnud prOblematic areas of our professional life.

As we teach our c~lIldida{es about what conslitutes annlysis. as we doaliI' work and panicipate in our organizations. We should be ntindful of

our personal and professional pull toward protecting the exclusivity of

(he dyad. Patients are first and foremost individuals, not first and fore­most in a relationship with the analyst. We, as analysts. arc not, nor

should we be, psychologically or in tenllS of analylic identity, alone inlhe room with the analysand, in a self-enclosed. not-to-bc-intruded-upon

relationship. Ongoing recognition of the setting and vulnerabilities of thedyad, and of the location of each member beyond the dyad. protects thefreedom of eal:h in the analytic work itself.

REFERENCES

ALMOND, R. (2008). Rolt:s in th~ psychoanalYlic relationship. PsychoanalyticDi%glle,. 18:70-88.

BALINT, A. (1939). Love for the mOlher and mol her-love. In Prill/wy Lovealld Psychu-Analytic Technique, ed. M. Balint New York: Liveright,pp.91-108.

BARANGER, M., & BARANGER, W (1961-1962). The analYlic Silualion as adynamic field. IlI1enuuional Journal ofPsychoanalysis 89:795-826, 200H.

BEEBE. B., & LACHMANN, EM. (1998). Co-conslructing inner and relationalprocesses: SeJf- and mutual regulalion in infalH research and adult Ire'll­Illt:nl. Psychoanalytic Psychology 15:480--516.

BERNFElD, S. (194/). The facts of observation in psychoanalysis.l111ernatiOlwljournal of P.\')'choallalysis 12:342-351, 1985.

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7 Maadow WayCambridge, MA 02138E·mail: nancy_chodorow@hms.harvard.edu

<-.~

\!)---------------~ Nancy Kulilh

CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS OF

CONTEMPORARY GENDER THEORY

The current intellectual scene in psychoanalysis is marked by vigoroustheoretical concroversies about gender. The ideas being debated haveimporum implications for clinical work, which have not been thoroughlyexplicated or integrated into common practice. These implications includethe following: gender can accrue idiosyncratic meanings; gender identityis considered fluid and rigidity of gender identity deemed problematic;gender· related conflicts are typically described as divergent: analysis ofsuperego conflicts related to gender becomes particularly important: and,finally, gender-related biases are seen as inevitable and must be taken intoaccount in the clinical situation. A detailed clinical example illustr.ltes theapplication of these ideas. While the more dramatic cases related to genderhave been more frequent SUbjects of study, conflicts about gender areeveryday occurrences for our patients and deserve further attention.

T he cunelll imelleclUal scene in psychoaoalysis is marked by fasci-nating and vigorous theoretical ControverSIes over gender, with

feminists and gender rheorisrs. as well as c1iniciuns of all stripes, joiningin the dialogue. The ideas emerging from this discourse have imporrant

implications for clinical work, and are incrensingly finding their way into

psychoanalytic practice. At the same time, because our assumptions about

gender, both in psychoanalytic theory and in socicly at large. arc changing

so rapidly, the clinical ground for working wiLh gend~r-relaled problemsis shifting. Both theoretically and cJinically, there arc no longer--and

perhaps there never were-dear-cul and uniformly recognizable guidepostsin approaching issues related to gender. In [his paper I will review the cur­rent psychoanalytic thinking about gender, oUlline whal I see as its major

implications for clinical prdcuce, and then illuslrate these ideas with clinicalmaterial. My goal is to illustrate how I have struggled with lhcse challenges

. Adjunct Professur, Dcpanmcm of Psychology. \Va)'n~ Slate Unive:rsiIY; AdjunctAsslsta~l. Professor of. Ps~chol()gy. Universily of DClroitlM~rcy; Training andSuPCrvlSlIlg Analys[. Michigan Psychoanalytic InstilUtc. Submiucd for publicationMarch 7. 2010.

DOl: 10.117710003065110370352 HI

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A MER CAN

PSYCHOANALYTIC

VOLUME 58 NUMBER 2 APRIL 2010

NANCY KULISH

CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS OF CONTEMPORARY

GENDER THEORY

o NA TASS 0 C

N .... NCY J. CHOOOROW

BEYOND THE DYAD: INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY,

SOCIAL. WORLD

~

BRUCE FINK

AGAINST UNDERSTANDING: WHY UNDERSTANDING

SHOULD NOT BE VIEWED AS AN ESSENTIAL AIM OF

PSYCHOANALYTIC TREATMENT

MITCHELL WILSON

PUTTING PRACTICE INTO THEORY: MAKING

THE TRAINING ANALYST SYSTEM COHERENT

ERIC J. NUETZEL

WHOSE ANALYSIS IS IT, ANYWAY?

COMMENTARY ON WILSON

DEBORAH L. CABANISS I HILLERY BOSWORTH

SELECTIVELY QUESTIONING ORTHODOXIES:

COMMENTARY ON WILSON

LEWIS A. KIRSHNER

PARADOXES OF THE SELF: THE CONTRAPUNTAL

STYLE OF ARNOLD MODELL

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