Bringing it All Back Home: How I Became a Relational Analyst

Journal title STUDI JUNGHIANI
Author/s Warren Colman
Publishing Year 2014 Issue 2013/37-38
Language Italian Pages 24 P. 81-104 File size 658 KB
DOI 10.3280/JUN2013-037005
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This paper traces the similarities between the cluster of influences that informed my own training and practice as a British developmental Jungian analyst and those that led to the creation of intersubjective and relational analysis in America. Having outlined five main themes of relational analysis, I show how these were anticipated by several trends in British analysis, especially the work of R.D. Laing and the theory of couple interaction developed by the Institute of Marital Studies at the Tavistock Centre in London. I then show the paralels between relational thinking and Jung’s approach to clinical practice and discuss some of the dilemmas around the analyst’s subjectivity and personal participation in the analystic relationship that are common to both traditions. My aim is to show that a relational approach to the practice of Jungian analysis is both "traditional" and "radical2, being rooted in the traditions of the past while opening up pathways towards future development and clinical innovation.

Keywords: Interaction, interpretation, intersubjectivity, mutuality, patterns of relationg, recognition

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Warren Colman, Riportando tutto a casa: come sono diventato un analista relazionale in "STUDI JUNGHIANI" 37-38/2013, pp 81-104, DOI: 10.3280/JUN2013-037005