Engagement and the Emergence of a Charged Other

Abstract

Engagement is intricately woven into the fabric of development and the fabric of psychoanalysis. However, there has been little effort to describe the process and essence of therapeutic engagement itself, or closely consider its effects. We propose that engagement with others occurs under highly specific circumstances. We identify three conditions: 1) a core positive affective investment; 2) prioritization; and 3) continuity. When these conditions are conjoined in the context of certain relational parameters, they can initiate a process that catalyzes the development of the mental, affective, and social capacities fostered in relationships. Through this process, a “charged other” emerges, a person who holds increased positive value (though not consistently positive affect), with whom this catalyzing of capacities becomes possible.

Keywords:

• engagment, therapeutic change, embodied mind
• dynamic systems, therapeutic alliance
• developmental change

The members of the Boston Change Process Study Group © (listed alphabetically) are Nadia Bruschweiler-Stern, Karlen Lyons-Ruth, Alexander C. Morgan, Jeremy P. Nahum, and Bruce Reis.

Nadia Bruschweiler-Stern, M.D., pediatrician and child psychiatrist, is the director of the Brazelton Centre of Switzerland and a consultant/supervisor at the University Hospital of Geneva. Her clinical work and teaching focuses on the early development of the infant, how parenthood transforms the individual, and the beginning of the parent–infant relationship.

Karlen Lyons-Ruth, Ph.D., is professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a supervising psychologist at the Cambridge Hospital. She is a past board member of the World Association for Infant Mental Health, a fellow of the American Psychological Association, and an honorary member of the American Psychoanalytic Association.

Alexander C. Morgan, M.D., is a practicing analyst in Boston, a faculty member of the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Psychoanalysis, and an assistant clinical professor in the Cambridge Hospital Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School.

Jeremy P. Nahum, M.D., practices psychoanalysis and psychiatry in Cambridge, MA. He is on the faculties of the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute, the Massachusetts Institute of Psychoanalysis, and the Harvard Medical School at the Cambridge Hospital, where he serves as a psychiatric consultant to the Family Pathways Project.

Bruce Reis, Ph.D., is a clinical assistant professor in the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, and a visiting faculty member at several psychoanalytic institutes around the United States. In addition to practicing full-time in Manhattan, Dr. Reis serves on the editorial boards of several psychoanalytic journals.