Joseph D. Lichtenberg - A Spirit of Inquiry: Communication in Psychoanalysis

A Spirit of Inquiry

Joseph D. Lichtenberg

Frank M. Lachmann

James L. Fosshage

COMMUNICATION IN PSYCHOANALYSIS

T he burgeoning literature in Freudian, interpersonal, object-relational, relational, and self-psychological psychoanalysis increasingly directs our attention to basic questions about communication. How do analysts communicate with themselves and their patients? What facilitates openness to self-awareness on the part of patient and analyst alike? And, most saliently, how does each participant in an analytic process influence the other? In this richly textured examination of communication, Lichtenberg, Lachmann, and Fosshage hold that all manner of analytic communication verbal and nonverbal, implicit and explicit, procedural and symbolic implicates and falls back on a persistent spirit of inquiry. The spirit of inquiry is the guiding attitude that underlies the analytic process; indeed, psychoanalysis itself signifies that special type of intimacy that grows out of a shared spirit of inquiry.

Thoroughly grounded in contemporary developmental researc h, A Spirit of Inquiry: Communication in Psychoanalysis explores the ecological niche of the infant-caregiver dyad and examines the evolutionary leap that permits communication to take place concurrently in nonverbal and verbal modes. Via the uniquely human capacity for speech, the authors hold, intercommunication deepens into a continuous process of listening to, sensing into, and deciphering motivation-driven messages. The analytic exchange is unique owing to a broad communicative repertoire that encompasses all the permutations of day-to-day exchanges: moments of addressing serious questions; of playing with images; of suspending thought and giving way to pressing physiological needs or to feelings of love or hate. It is the spirit of inquiry that endows such communicative moments with an overarching sense of purpose and thereby permits analysis to become an intimate relationship decisively unlike any other.

In elucidating the special character of this relationship, the authors refine their understanding of motivational systems theory by showing how exploration, previously conceptualized as a discrete motivational system, simultaneously infuses all the motivational systems with an integrative dynamic that tends to a cohesive sense of self. Of equal note is their discerning use of contemporary attachment research, which provides convincing evidence of the link between crucial relationships and communication.

Replete with detailed case studies that illustrate both the context and nature of specific analytic inquiries, A Spirit of Inquiry presents a novel perspective, sustained by empirical research, for integrating the various communicative modalities that arise in any psychoanalytic treatment. The result is a deepened understanding of subjectivity and intersubjecfivity in analytic relationships. Indeed, the book is a compelling brief for the claim that subjectivity and intersubjectivity, in their full complexity, can only be understood through clinically relevant and scientifically credible theories of motivation and communication.

Joseph D. Lichtenberg, M.D. is Editor-in-Chief, Psychoanalytic Inquiry; Director Emeritus, Institute of Contemporary Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis; and Past President, International Council for Psychoanalytic Self Psychology.

Frank M. Lachmann, Ph.D. is Training and Supervising Analyst, Postgraduate Center for Mental Health; founding faculty member, Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity, NYC; and author, Transforming Transgression: Psychotherapy with the Difficult-to-Treal Patient.

James L. Fosshage, Ph.D. is Cofounder, Board Director, and faculty member, National Institute for the Psychotherapies, NYC; founding faculty member, Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity, NYC; and Clinical Professor of Psychology, New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoonalysis.

COVER DESIGN BY ANDREA SCHETTINO

Psychoanalytic Inquiry Book Series

Volume 19

Psychoanalytic Inquiry Book Series

Vol. 1: Reflections on Self PsychologyJoseph D. Lichtenberg & Samuel Kaplan (eds.)

Vol. 2: Psychoanalysis and Infant ResearchJoseph D. Lichtenberg

Vol. 4: Structures of Subjectivity: Explorations in Psychoanalytic PhenomenologyGeorge E. Atwood & Robert D. Stolorow

Vol. 7: The Borderline Patient: Emerging Concepts in Diagnosis, Psychodynamics and Treatment, Vol. 2James S. Grotstein, Marion F. Solomon & Joan A. Lang (eds.)

Vol. 8: Psychoanalytic Treatment: An Intersubjective ApproachRobert D. Stolorow, Bernard Brandchaft & George E. Atwood

Vol. 9: Female Homosexuality: Choice Without Volition Elaine V. Siegel

Vol. 10: Psychoanalysis and MotivationJoseph D. Lichtenberg

Vol. 11: Cancer Stories: Creativity and Self-RepairEsther Dreifuss Kattan

Vol. 12: Contexts of Being: The Intersubjective Foundations of Psychological LifeRobert D. Stolorow & George E. Atwood

Vol. 13: Self and Motivational Systems: Toward a Theory of Psychoanalytic TechniqueJoseph D. Lichtenberg, Frank M. Lachmann & James L. Fosshage

Vol. 14: Affects as Process: An Inquiry into the Centrality of Affect in Psychological LifeJoseph M. Jones

Vol. 15: Understanding Therapeutic Action: Psychodynamic Concepts of CureLawrence E. Lifson (ed.)

Vol. 16: The Clinical Exchange: Techniques Derived from Self and Motivational SystemsJoseph D. Lichtenberg, Frank M. Lachmann & James L. Fosshage

Vol. 17: Working Intersubjectively: Contextualism in Psychoanalytic PracticeDonna M. Orange, George E. Atwood & Robert D. Stolorow

Vol. 18: Kohut, Leowald, and the Postmoderns: A Comparative Study of Self and RelationshipJudith Guss Teicholz

Vol. 19: A Spirit of Inquiry: Communication in Psychoanalysis Joseph D. Lichtenberg, Frank M. Lachmann & James L. Fosshage

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JOSEPH D. LICHTENBERG

FRANK M. LACHMANN

JAMES L. FOSSHAGE

The clinical vignette described on pages 95 to 97 in chapter 4 was published previously as: J. Fosshage (1997), Listening/experiencing perspectives and the quest for a facilitative responsiveness in Conversations in Self Psychology: Progress in Self Psychology, Vol. 13, ed. A. Goldberg (Hillsdale, NJ: The Analytic Press, pp. 3355). Portions of chapter 5 appeared in Selbstpsychologie, 5/6:276304, 2001; portions of chapter 6 appeared in Selbstpsychologie, 3/2:4474, 2001; and portions of chapter 7 appeared in Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 3:279294, 1983.

Copyright 2002 by The Analytic Press, Inc.

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