Yes/and, Alan! A Few Additional Thoughts

Abstract

In this discussion of Alan Kindler's article, I examine a number of principles pertaining to improvisation as a mode of play in psychoanalytic treatment. These include differentiating improvisation from spontaneity, a series of questions germane to tracking improvisation referred to as a relational ethic, and the concept of the positraum. In elaborating my discussion of Kindler's cases, I explicate three versions of improvisational play, improvisation, the playful to and fro within the treatment; mutual inductive identification, the lapsing by patient and analyst into unconsciously scripted versions of their engagement; and, finally, Improvisation, the untangling and illuminating of the dyad's enactments. This third mode sometimes culminates in what I refer to as positraums, which are potentially conviction-altering moments that defy personality organization, thereby providing an experience of something positively unimaginable such as initiating new convictions.

Notes

¹This article is in part based upon an earlier discussion of an earlier version of Kindler's article, which we both presented at the Annual Conference of the International Association of Self Psychology in the Fall of 2005 in Baltimore, MD.

²In this famous play by Edward Albee, the characters George and Martha continuously swap the roles of sadist and masochist as if a sound mixer were turning up and down the volumes on the two channels of a stereo system.

³Independently, Barbara and Stuart Pizer (2005a, 2005b) have been discussing comparable phenomena, which they referred to as positive trauma.