Intersubjective-systems theory

A new “Muse transference,” which animates creativity and an “expansive” dimension, distinct from the developmental and repetitive dimensions of transference, is introduced. The
expansive dimension is differentiated because it is influenced by the subjectivity of the analyst and is emergent from contemporary contextual possibilities. A theoretical discussion
and case study using intersubjective-systems theory illuminates how intense passion vivifies sublimation leading to creativity when the Muse transference and expansive dimension are active, forming the foundation for new life directions. The role and solicitousness of the analyst being used as a Muse are addressed, and a clinical approach is suggested.

Keywords: analyst’s subjectivity; creativity; expansive dimension; intersubjective-systems

I propose that during an impasse, analysands’ dreams can be usefully conceptualized as a form of communication when defensive processes blockade the verbal narrative. A change in the presentation of dreams heralded their new function to present information that could not be articulated directly, or
even known consciously, because doing so was presumed to be too threatening to the wellbeing of the analytic relationship. The dreams showed the analyst’s unknown trauma-based self-state. This analyst's dissociated transference was prolonging the impasse by triggering the analysand. Dreams spoke to what needed to be brought into the analytic dialogue and conscious focus to resolve the impasse. Case material shows how intersubjective-systems theory, which addresses the interplay of organizing principles in both analyst and analysand, was useful to unlocking the communication in the dreams and dissolving the impasse.

The Phoenix myth is commonly thought of as a simple Egyptian parable of reincarnation. In contrast, this analytic dyad found that the visual images evoked by its elaborated mythemes (sub-plots) related to the various existential moods and affects characteristic of trauma identified by Stolorow (2007), suggesting a psychological purpose, that of emotional self-renewal. Mythology has most consistently been adopted for use in Jung's analytical psychology, but this article demonstrates this myth's usefulness with a contemporary relational psychoanalytic approach, that of intersubjective-systems theory. This was effective for an analysand whose former analysis had been abruptly terminated. It was found that the dialo-gic exploration of possible meaning in the mythemes brought dissociated experience into language, assisted with the emotional integration of the trauma, and restored the analysand's diminished sense-of-being. Images bring together diverse somatic, cognitive, and verbal information, normally separated into different communication " codes " (Bucci, 1997a). This ancient myth's longevity may be due to a useful psychological function; its images can aid the organizing of unformulated unconscious chaotic experience and assist in the process of bringing dissociated or preverbal emotions and moods into language. The utility of the Phoenix myth in a relational dialogical process that helps symbolize unsymbolized unconscious content could assist in work with other survivors of catastrophic loss. THE PHOENIX: The phoenix was said to be as large as an eagle, with brilliant red and gold plumage. Only one phoenix existed at any one time, and it was very long-lived. As its death approached, the phoenix fashioned a nest of aromatic boughs and spices, and it was consumed in flames. From the pyre miraculously sprang a new phoenix, which, after embalming its parent's remains in an egg of myrrh, flew to Heliopolis in Egypt, where it deposited the egg on the altar in the temple of the Egyptian god of the sun, Re. [Encyclopaedia Britannica.com, 2017] Mia, a fifty-year-old analysand, suffered a catastrophic loss when her beloved analyst of ten years suddenly disappeared. After more than a year in a traumatized state, she was helped by the Phoenix myth, which both comforted her and was highly useful to the analytic work of symbolizing affect from raw experience. I propose that imagistic symbols that arise when working with traumatized analysands should be carefully plumbed, because they serve as preverbal symbolizations of dissociated or unformulated experiences. The ancient myth's subplots provide stimuli for rich mental images that appear to be directly related to the emotional phenomenology of trauma described by Robert Stolorow (2007, 2011). These images can support the connection of disconnected aspects of soma and psyche, and organize preverbal, dissociated, and chaotic unconscious experience (Bucci, 1997a, 1997b Modell 2000, 2011), into the possibly universal, often unfamiliar existential emotional patterns of response to trauma. This organizing occurs preverbally at first, in a process like that involved in the phenomena of transference (Stolorow, Brandchaft, and Atwood, 2000). The images draw together resonances from both new and remembered