Ordinary Unconscious Communication in the Therapist/Patient Relationship

ABSTRACT

In this article, I consider the ways in which unconscious communication between therapist and patient is omnipresent in psychoanalytic work. To consider unconscious communication between therapist and patient is to consider psychoanalysis, at its core. The phenomenon of unconscious communication between patient and therapist is a quotidian event. It defines its essential listening stance, with variations associated with different theoretical perspectives. I present several clinical vignettes to illustrate the phenomenon and consider some different theoretical perspectives that bear on the therapist’s uses of self in engaging the ways that one unconscious informs another.

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Anthony Bass

Anthony Bass, Ph.D., is on the faculty of the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy, the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, and the Stephen Mitchell Center for Relational Studies, where he serves as president. He is an Editor in Chief of Psychoanalytic Dialogues: The International Journal of Relational Perspectives, and a founding board director of the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy.