Reply to Commentaries

Abstract

In their rich discussions, Jonathan Slavin and Steven Stern have raised several issues that I take up in this reply. I agree with Slavin's point about agency, and also respond to his perspective on the “real mind of the analyst.” In response to Stern, I reassert the utility of multiple self-state theory and discuss further the experiences of enactment with my patient. I expand on ideas about shared consciousness and its role in opening up closed internal object worlds. Stern's questions about how what was unconscious became conscious for me are explored. Finally, I comment on interpenetrability between analyst and patient and the issue of the analyst's vulnerability.

Notes

¹ Bion (2005) attempted to capture the complexity of the analyst's task in clinical work with a patient in the following way: “It is like having the whole of one person at all ages and at all times spread out in one room at one time” (p. 32).