Psychotherapy Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Psychotherapy, including details on psychiatry, psychoanalysis, methods, outcomes.

A Spinozan lens onto the confusions of borderline relations.

Clark G

University of Western Sydney, NSW, Australia. Gclark1@bigpond.net.au

In this paper the author describes how, in his analytic work with difficult personality disorders, he uses a neo-Spinozan position or attitude of alpha-thinking and functioning to understand, clarify, and so to manage confused and confusing psychosomatic 'body-mind' and emotional relations, both internally and inter-personally. Two case examples are given, followed by reflections on technique and on the limits of mourning, transformation and irony. The author suggests that a private, ideational double-aspect, mind-body position may be helpful in working with these analysands. This analytic mode may create a radically different understanding by incorporating a relational system of containment, self-containment, observation and memory. In addition, the author gives his own version of the aetiology and dynamics of borderline states and relations, and weaves the two cases he reports on into reflections on his countertransferential responses, reactions, inter-actions and 'reverie' through the lens of a neo-Spinozan conceptual system.

Published 2 February 2006 in J Anal Psychol, 51(1): 67-86.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2005-2008 Psychotherapy Research Today. All Rights Reserved.