From a one-person field to a two-person (relational) psychologyIn focusing upon the transformative power that comes into play when one is held
within the context of a neutral yet caring relationship, Horney anticipated those
contemporary analytic theorists who postulate the necessity of conceptualizing a
two-person or relational model of psychotherapy (e.g. Gill 1983; Hoffman 1998;
Jacoby 1984; Mitchell 1997)—a model of therapeutic involvement that recognizes
the mutual influence of therapist on patient and vice versa. Moreover, it could be
argued that Horney anticipated the intersubjective theorists (Stolorow, Atwood, and
Brandchaft 1994) as she reflected upon the impact that this kind of therapeutic
relatedness has—both consciously and unconsciously—upon both members of the
therapeutic dyad. However, Horney did not go far enough in this direction; I would
like to go a little further down this road.
Analytic theorists such as Winnicott, Kohut, Lichtenberg, Hoffman, Fosshage,
and Mitchell have guaranteed that the importance of mutual interrelatedness in the
therapeutic process has not been neglected in the contemporary perspective. These
theorists have forayed deeply into the realm of a two-person psychology. In doing so,
they have elaborated upon the dynamics of psychoanalytic treatment from the
nuanced perspective of a two-person field (combining the intrapsychic material of
both patient and analyst—and the interaction of the two). They describe and
champion the interconnectedness of two subjectivities—two minds. They seem to
understand this interconnectedness, the depth of it, and the degree to which it involves
both a conscious connection and, at the same time, a deep, unconscious connection
—one to the other. The contemporary emphasis upon the role of projective
identification and its use in the analytic hour is one of the many benefits of working
with the patient from the perspective of this two-person relational matrix.
In writing of this profound interrelationship, these authors echo Jung’s (1969)
conceptualization of the ‘mutual unconscious’ and the ‘non-individual psyche’ (pp.
169–76)—a mutual mind space in which the sharing of certain unconscious contents
is commonplace. Jung (1969) had been formulating a two-person matrix or
two-person field long before the interpersonal-intersubjective theorists emerged onto
the scene. (See CW 16.) Jung spoke of a ‘common ground’ in which there is the
‘transference of unconscious material from the self to a separate other...transpiring
in a psychic dimension which transcends the boundaries and limitations of the
individual’ (Kopf 1998:279). In fact, Jung (1969) went so far as to say that if the
doctor or analyst does not change as a result of the psychotherapy, there is no therapy
at all. Jacoby (1984) and Perry (1997) extended Jung’s contribution to this
everevolving conversation as they focused on, among other topics, the vicissitudes of
countertransference within this interactional field.
Kopf (1998) compares Jung’s position on this ‘common ground’ concept—and
the sharing of unconscious material—with similar ideas espoused by the Zen Master
Dogen in an engaging article entitled: ‘In the face of the other: psychic interwovenness
in Dogen and Jung’. Here we find that such a conception of ‘psychic interwovenness’
is not new; it dates at least as far back as the thirteenth century (c. 1200–53). Dogen
84 MELVIN E.MILLER