Errare Humanum Est (To Err Is Human): A Mentalizing Breakdown in the Therapeutic Work With an Adolescent

The therapeutic stance in therapies conceptualized by the two-person psychology (Wachtel, 2010) binds the therapist to genuine self-scrutiny. The concepts of transference and countertransference are viewed as jointly constructed endeavors between therapist and client, wherein the therapist needs to be aware of her contribution to difficulties arising in the therapeutic dyad. Different conceptualizations of this therapeutic technique have been eloquently described elsewhere throughout the years in terms of intersubjectivity (Stern, 2005; Aron, 2006), mentalizing (Fonagy and Bateman, 2006), mindfulness-in-action (Safran et al., 2001), rupture and repair (Newhill et al., 2003), and epistemic trust (Fonagy and Allison, 2014). These concepts will be presented interchangeably with a clinical vignette delineating a rupture in the therapeutic work with an adolescent. Finally, the article concludes with a discussion of identifying non-mentalizing modes (Allen et al., 2008) within the therapist to get back on track and restore epistemic trust (Fonagy et al., 2014) in the therapeutic relationship.

dialogue with the unconscious in working with anxiety

A defining tenet of Jung’s approach to psychotherapy is that the therapy is more than a dialogue between the psyche of the patient and that of the therapist. There is an invisible but active third perspective in the room: that of the unconscious, representing a viewpoint that, though shared by the therapeutic dyad, has its own autonomy and objectivity. Following Bion, psychoanalyst James Grotstein has said that in each session the analyst must freshly specify the anxiety that is present. Expressions of the unconscious, as in dreams, active imagination, and artistic products, tend to be very helpful in this task, sometimes calling attention to what is at the heart of the anxiety and sometimes reframing the situation to show that there is a limit to how much a particular anxiety has to teach us. Drawing on dreams reported in his own practice, as well as by seminal Jungian teacher Marie-Louise von Franz and a friend in analysis with another colleague, the author demonstrates how such expressions from the unconscious have illuminated and contextualized the nature of anxiety in therapy and life situations. Offering a fourth example of the unconscious bringing objective insight, the author describes his own consulting of the I Ching about a political development that was making him and many of his patients anxious. This divinatory method, introduced to analytical psychology by Jung, seems particularly well designed to help understanding that is unconscious become conscious and explicit.