Paul L. Wachtel - Cyclical Psychodynamics and the Contextual Self: The Inner World, the Intimate World, and the World of Culture and Society

Relations

This book extends and further explores a point of view that has characterized my work over the course of many years. The theoretical perspective I have come to call cyclical psychodynamics originated in my efforts to come to terms with challenges to psychoanalytic thought deriving from the arguments and research efforts of behavior therapists and social learning theorists; but as the cyclical psychodynamic perspective has continued to evolve, it has addressed additional challenges and sought additional opportunities in relation to an expanding array of observations and viewpoints, both from outside of psychoanalysis and from within. Among the important nonpsychoanalytic influences in shaping the trajectory of cyclical psychodynamic theory have been the ideas and practices of family therapists and family systems theorists, emotion-focused and humanisticexperiential therapists, and acceptance and mindfulness-oriented cognitive-behavioral therapists. Alongside the influence of these diverse clinical traditions, cyclical psychodynamic thought and practice have been nourished by attachment theory and research and by developments in social and affective neuroscience. Additionally, its particular characteristics were shaped in important ways by efforts to pay more serious attention than is common in clinical theorizing to the powerful influence of cultural values and of race, class, and ethnicity upon the phenomena addressed by clinicians and by the reciprocal effort to explore the ways in which our understanding of the complexities of psychological dynamics could, in turn, shed light on a number of pressing social challenges, especially in the realm of race relations (Wachtel, 1999) and in the interlocking phenomena of materialism, obsession with economic growth, and despoilation of the environment (e.g., Wachtel, 1983, 2003).

An especially important element in the evolution of cyclical psychodynamic theory was its encounter with the concurrently evolving relational movement in psychoanalysis. At first, the relational point of view and cyclical psychodynamics proceeded on parallel tracks, developing very similar ideas in many important respects but remaining separate strands in the overall landscape of the field. But over time, the consonances became more and more apparent (Wachtel, 1997, 2008, 2011a). The beginnings of the relational movement are generally viewed as being marked by the publication of Greenberg and Mitchells (1983) book on Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory and Mitchells (1988) publication of Relational Concepts in Psychoanalysis , though certainly there were numerous precursors, which these two works built upon and integrated. Thus, the first formulations of cyclical psychodynamic theory (Wachtel, 1973, 1977a, 1977b) predated the appearance of relational theory by a number of years, and hence were built on an independent conceptual foundation. Moreover, whereas relational theory was designed to integrate diverse strands of thought within the spectrum of psychoanalysis, cyclical psychodynamic theory aimed at a still broader integration, including not only psychoanalytic theories and observations but those that derived from outside the world of psychoanalysis as well. These differences in origin led to differences in terminology and emphasis that for a time made the substantial overlap between cyclical psychodynamic theory and other versions of relational thought not as readily apparent as they might be today.