Panel II
The Self

Eleanor Feinberg

Presenters: Richard Geist, Ed.D. and Jody Messler-Davies, Ph.D.
Moderator: Ronald Bodansky, Ph.D.

"Connectedness, Permeable Boundaries, and the Development of the Self"
By Richard Geist

Geist is interested in the clinical possibilities that the concept of connectedness offers. The three components of connectedness are the selfobject functions, subjectivity, and empathy. He invites us to use the concept of connection as a central organizing principle in the way we listen, interpret, make interventions, and experience our patients. Connectedness is the essential ingredient, the "moving edge," that remobilizes thwarted developmental needs and offers the potential of an optimally functioning self. He defines connectedness as a conscious or unconscious "felt sense of sharing and participating in another's subjective emotional life while simultaneously experiencing another as participating in one's own subjective life." He believes that "the felt presence in another's subjective world" is bi-directional. It is the interpenetrating experience of connection that contributes to the development of the selfobject transference, the structuralization of the self, and the capacity for mutual intimacy.

His notion of interpenetrating subjectivities makes permeable boundaries a given. By placing self-psychological concepts within an analytic dyad that is defined by interpenetrating subjectivities he stretches the boundaries of Kohut's self- psychology. For instance, disruption and repair look somewhat different from a connectedness viewpoint. He says that repair can require not only the analyst's empathic understanding of the patient but also the patient's empathic understanding of the analyst.

This is an evocative and thoughtful paper that highlights and particularizes the essential qualities of connectedness. Geist suggests that the analyst's full subjective responsiveness may be necessary for an analytic process to develop. He offers sensitive vignettes about patients who require that they be a felt presence in the analyst's mind before they can feel safe enough to get in touch with their needs. His vignettes illustrate the usefulness of enactments when the patient needs an experience of what is needed. He presents connectedness as an essential component of therapeutic action, but I think that what may be missing from this fine paper is a clear statement that connectedness lays down the base for a transference to develop, and that it is through the transference that awakened needs can be worked through.

"On the Nature of the Self:
Multiplicity, Unconscious Conflict and Fantasy in Relational Psychoanalysis"
By Jody Messler-Davies

Whereas Geist's self-psychological self is a singular continuous unit that develops over time within a selfobject matrix, Davies's relational self is "a somewhat fluid organized network of interpenetrating self/other organizations of experience." Self/other organizations are formed throughout development in response to a wide range of traumatic interpersonal situations. Each self/other organization is a separate "self state" accompanied by specific representations of self and other with its attendant fantasies and developmental levels. These multiple selves are underpinned by the predictable repetitive patterns which are formed by our early relationships and which contribute to our distinctive characters. Intrapsychic conflict arises when one self state is irreconcilable with another self state. These irreconcilable self/other configurations emerge during the therapeutic endeavor. Transference and countertransference enactments inevitably become engaged as particular self/other configurations of the patient collide with certain self/other configurations of the analyst.

This multiple self state model is based on the concept of dissociation caused by severe trauma. The concept has been broadened to include more typical anxiety situations. Davies gives us two examples of the type of identificatory conflict that makes dissociation necessary. At the more severe end of the continuum is the child whose parent alternates between being abusive and being nuturing. The child adapts by forming a separate identification with each aspect of the parent. These identifications are irreconcilable with each other and an unconscious conflict arises as a result of the dissociation between the two self/other states. At the milder end of the continuum she gives us an example at of a man struggling with "how to be a man for my father and how to be a man for my mother."

Unfortunately, Davies was unable to attend the conference because she was sick with pneumonia. Steve Stern performed the admirable and unenviable task of reading her paper. The second part of her paper was a case study designed to explicate her theoretical stance. She gave us a relational formulation of her patient's dynamics. She described the internal cast of characters that she and her patient might each bring into the analysis, but without her there to amplify the case material it was difficult to see how the case material unfolded.

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