Response to Commentaries

Abstract

The author responds to commentaries on his paper “Being Railroaded: A Candidate’s Struggle to Stay on Track,” from Robert Grossmark and Darlene Ehrenberg.

Keywords:

• enactment
• parallel process
• complementarity
• intersubjectivity
• impasse

Notes

1. ¹My struggles around addressing the intersubjective field and working interpersonally were most pronounced and problematic in the treatment with Paul, but I should here admit that similar challenges have arisen, and continue to arise, in other treatments as well. The common denominator, of course, is an analyst who continues to work on his sensitivities with mindfulness toward their potential impact on his clinical work. I continue to wrestle with the extent to which my clinical sensibility and moment-to-moment choices are dictated by limitations and defenses (as, I suppose we could say, do we all), a subject certainly thematized in my paper and Ehrenberg’s response, but one whose full development lies outside the scope of this response.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Matt Aibel

Matt Aibel, LCSW, is a psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City and Stony Brook, NY. A graduate of the National Institute for the Psychotherapies, he serves as Associate Director of Continuing Education at the institute and received its Educators Award for this paper in 2011.