« Extractive identification - Part 2 | HomePage | Extractive identification epilogue »
Thursday, 01 May 2008
Extractive identification - Part 3
This is from a lecture given by Christopher Bollas. At the workshop I went to a few weeks ago, he was the one credited with the term Extractive Identification.
-------------------------------
We all free associate; it is a natural way of thinking. It will not occur if the analyst is too talkative or hijacks the hour. There is the concept of a larger secret to be revealed. Freud believed if a person freely talked they will go on to many things, leaps, chain of ideas. If allowed to speak long enough you discover a line of thought in a chain of ideas, a logic sequence. We must go back to the one way Freud saw unconscious communication. The value is in discovering forgotten material. The analyst surrenders himself to his own unconscious mentation. He must not try to fix anything, but to catch the drift of the patient’s unconscious with his own unconscious. The engine of psychoanalysis is unconscious communication between analyst and the patient’s unconscious.
If you relax and listen, you will discover a tissue, a chain of thought, it is meditative, without ambition. You must trust that your unconscious mind will perceive a pattern. Certain things patients’ say will strike us, more often than other things. You can echo the word, repeat, active echoing their word, not yours. It may move or puzzle you, so have sincerity in questioning the word. The analyst can’t eradicate curiosity. The analysand may have a spontaneous and new arrival of fresh material if the analyst is the receptive unconscious other to receptive unconscious thinking. If the analyst is out of touch with the patient’s flow, material will stop.
-----------------
This piece says a lot to me about the type of psychotherapy that was being displayed at the workshop.
The client will give you their unconscious thoughts and feelings. But are you, the psychotherapist, listening or receptive to it is the question? To start listening to such communications from the client is somewhat of a narcissistic pursuit by the therapist. He must start listening more to his own unconscious thoughts arising in him. So in this sense the psychotherapist listens less to the client and more to self.
The unconscious communication between client and therapist is what is being sought as the means to understanding the client and the important mode of communication between the client and therapist. I particularly note such statements as:
“The analyst surrenders himself to his own unconscious mentation.“
“If allowed to speak long enough you discover a line of thought in a chain of ideas, a logic sequence”
“The value is in discovering forgotten material.”
“You must trust that your unconscious mind will perceive a pattern.”
“It may move or puzzle you”
“If the analyst is out of touch with the patient’s flow, material will stop.”
This is a diagram that can explain the unconscious communication. Again the therapy is very much about the relationship between the client and the therapist. How they communicate and relate, in this instance at an unconscious level.
How does the therapist do it on his side? That is why I like the statement of surrendering to his own unconscious mentation. One lets their unconscious thoughts appear along with the client’s and hence the interactive or relational quality in the psychotherapy. And a trust in self that you will perceive the unconscious pattern provided by the client. So the concepts of surrender and trust are important for the therapist in this approach.
When the therapist feels something like being moved or puzzled then you know you are on to something. Again this is a very relational approach where the therapist is ‘in’ the therapeutic relationship, not just analysing it form afar.
I particularly like the last sentence and I had personal experience with this in the work that I did as a client. I saw the workshop leader do this with other clients over the 5 days and then experienced it myself which is a real bonus to actually have had first hand experience with it at least on the receiving end.
The therapist is very much in tune with the tempo, tone and communication pattern of the client. This can get disrupted if the therapist makes a jump too fast or in the wrong direction with the client. I recall myself feeling a bit fuzzy and confused at a statement made by the therapist in my work. I don’t usually feel confused and then at that point the therapist mentioned that he had gone too fast, I think it was.
A very interesting and useful learning experience with a style of therapy which I am finding how to integrate into the approach that I use, at least with some clients. It is a very sensitive approach so it is particularly useful with clients who at that time need such a quality from the therapist and also quite fragile clients could benefit from it. In other situations I would never use it. If you counselled prisoners with this modality you would be considered a joke and thus wasting your own and the inmate’s time. Also clients with a good ego strength and a mental toughness you don’t need to always be so gentle and thus one can use more ‘strong’ interventions and achieve gains that would take much longer using the approach described by Bollas.
Graffiti
20:35 Permalink | Comments (10) | Email this
Comments
Ohh my goodness! I like the pictures!
G'night... roses
Ps, i'm practicing on my follow through with this essay right now. It's due in tomorrow at 5pm and i've got such a long way to go. (Keep head down, eye on the ball, swing and follow through... keep head DOWN, eye on the ball, swing and follow through... KEEP head DOwn...)
Posted by: roses | Thursday, 01 May 2008
I like it Roses as I said before that you put yourself in the situation where you could fail. The fear of failure is such a prominent feeling that makes so many people live a half life.
Congratulations on living a more full life
Tony
Posted by: Tony | Thursday, 01 May 2008
A question I have which is only slightly related to this post.
What do you do on a bad day?
We all have them, whether it is a hangover, irritability or a bad hair day or distraction.
Surely it does impact the therapeutic relationship.
What happens if a client bores you or you just plain dont like them?
Posted by: Kahless | Friday, 02 May 2008
Hey Kahless, I've found most clients who bore me or I just plain don't like, don't stick around for very long.
Bad hair days, usually a one off and really doesn't impact on the relationship over all. In fact the way Graffiti is talking about working, I reckon would work better on bad hair days cause the therapist trust the unconscious more and therefore has to do less conscious "techniques". Not sure if I'm saying this right. It's only 730 in the a.m.and I probably shouldn't even be writing anything cause it won't make any sense at all :-)
Posted by: Madeleine | Friday, 02 May 2008
You make perfect sense Madeleine.
7.30am? I am usually in work by then lol!
I am not totally convinced by your comment btw (hope you dont mind me saying.) In my working day some meetings absolutely bore me and I day dream. (I have the knack of appearing interested.) Smile, nod and reflect!
I reckon you must do that too eh?
If a counsellor works with clients all day, 5 days a week, I cant see how you can keep interested 100% of the time. I reckon most of us in our working day give 75% of our attention. This must vary according to client.
Interesting actually. I reckon I am quite perceptive in a limited sphere. the 'relational' is two-way. So if I am feeling bored or day-dreaming or in my own world in therapy, then that is a reflection of the therapist????
Things cut two-way. As much as the counsellor is picking up my feelings or whatever, I am picking up their response to me and judging that.
Their response could be more about them than about me if they are having a bad hair day surely?
Oooo. I like this thought. I am going to enjoy thinking about this more!!
Hope you have a good friday.
Posted by: Kahless | Friday, 02 May 2008
See I am back within 10 minutes cos I have loads of questions spinning in my head now.
So, there is a bit of chicken and egg eh?
If the counsellor is reporting their feelings in response to their client what came first. Did the counsellor say something at the beginning of a session that provoked that feeling in the client in the first place?
Posted by: Kahless | Friday, 02 May 2008
Kahless,
You ask a profound question about chickens and their eggs in the therapy room.
One answer to your question could be from the co-creation perspective. Both client and therapist create 'reality' together. Through their communications both conscious and unconscious they create what happens and the understanding of what happened by both client and therapist.
So in this way there is not a chicken and an egg. Nothing comes before the other they both create what happens simultaneously.
Tony
Posted by: Tony | Friday, 02 May 2008
I often use the same words and mannerisms in reflective work. Sometimes the client understands the reflection and other times they might ask for clarification. Doing the work feels safer within visualisations. And the therapist is not just dealing with an "it" monster, however an object that represents difficult to express feelings.
Once a young client said he would have 50 robots in the house that he was drawing. "would they be your friends?" I asked. His reply was a firm Yes! "What if they wouldn't be your friend"? I asked. He replied by saying he would crush them and went on to describe the crushing unit.
Of course that left some great material to work with. High functioning autistic/aspergers children have a visually responsive expression of feelings. Its just a matter of understanding that kind of pictorial language with clients and doing something that disengages a too controlled line of thinking. Of course the therapist is required to know two languages at the same time (pictorial and theoretical Languages) and whilst engaged in the relationship, the activity, listening to own feelings or related visuals and of course tracking of the client treatment wise. hmmm I think my prices just went up.
kenoath
Posted by: kenoath | Friday, 02 May 2008
Tony,
Fantastic.
Thank-you for answering my question.
I see now about looking at it from another angle.
And as a bonus I now know the answer to what came first - it was neither.
Have a great bank holiday ; oops forgot you don't live in the uk!
Posted by: kahless | Friday, 02 May 2008
Well Kahless we can't have an extra holiday every weekend.
Last weekend we had Friday as a holiday because it was ANZAC day.
Enjoy your day and take those dogs for a long walk
Tony
Posted by: Tony | Friday, 02 May 2008