Discussion of Joseph Newirth's Clinical Material

Abstract

This paper originated as my contribution to a panel discussion offering differing theoretical and technical points of view. It was based on Joseph Newirth's detailed process description of two clinical sessions of an ongoing analysis. Utilizing Bion's concept of the “psychoanalytic game,” the material is played with from the Kleinian-Bionian perspective of an experienced adult and child analyst. My model of mind addresses with facility the “child in the adult” of the patient, using concepts of an internal family of mother, father, little-boy, and little-girl parts, noting and clarifying misconceptions, misunderstandings, and misapprehensions, as well as a striving in the patient toward truth, beauty, and goodness under the aegis of the primacy of life forces. The impact of concrete thinking on perceptions of reality is addressed in the clinical material.