Are You Thinking (But Not Saying) What I'm Thinking (But Not Saying)? On Not Interpreting: The Role of the Analyst's Theory: Reply to Commentaries

Abstract

In response to these very generous commentaries by Donnel B. Stern and Pat Ogden, I question the meaning and power of the contents of the analyst's mind in the interpretations that are not made. These mental contents are an inevitable amalgam of her theory, her awareness of embodied experience, her understanding of the transference–countertransference matrix, and her moment-to-moment reading of whom she is “being with,” in Stern's formulation. I am extending this formulation, in a Winnicottian sense, and with a fuller integration of the body into the analytic relationship, to more wholly experience whom she is “going on being-with.” The quality of attentiveness that may infuse somatic therapies, like Ogden's, is considered in this light.

Acknowledgments

My appreciation to David Brand, Ph.D., who playfully articulated the theme of this response.