The Analyst as Catalyst: Cultivating Mind in the Shadow of Neglect

Abstract

I describe an effort to cultivate mind and deepen relatedness in patients who exhibit rudimentary thought and constricted forms of object contact, due to the effects of certain neglect or serious disturbance. Some of these patients require the analyst to serve as a catalyst, who takes proactive steps to summon a psychic realm to the patient’s experience and to forge components of the dyadic bonds that promote such function. The insights of the object relations tradition into foreclosed development are noted. I argue that such insights can be optimally applied with the benefit of the relational school’s emphasis on forms of dyadic engagement and use of the analyst’s subjectivity. In some cases of neglect, and others in which serious developmental challenge is the result of disturbance, priority is placed on the patient’s growth. Similarly, in my case illustration, my goal in using my subjectivity, as a catalyst, is for my patient to take his own emerging mind and psychic self with interest.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to Joe for permission to publish aspects of our work, and I express my admiration for his honesty, spirit of determination and willingness that he brought to all our work. His given name is common; he is one of a kind.

Notes

¹ It is beyond the scope of this paper to cite the many analysts who write of enactment and affectivity, and their own participating roles, as phenomena that can render meaning from unmentalized experience, so-called by Mitrani (1995). Figurability refers to the process described by Cesar and Sara Botella (2005), whereby an analyst’s regression from rational thought enables him to produce an image that captures an irrepresentable experience in the patient.

² I (Director, 2009a, 2009b) used the term catalyst in elaborating my view of the analyst’s role as an enlivening object. I recently came across Levine’s (2013) use of the term to describe an analyst’s active role in helping to construct representations in patients who lack the means. He did not draw on the use of the analyst’s own subjectivity as a principal factor, as I do.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lisa Director

Lisa Director, Ph.D. is Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor of Psychology and Clinical Consultant at the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. She is a Faculty Member at the Stephen Mitchell Relational Study Center and a Faculty Member and Supervisor at the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Study Center. She serves on the editorial board of Psychoanalytic Dialogues, and is in private practice in New York.