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Impasse Clarification Within the Transference-Countertransference Matrix

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Impasse Clarification Within the Transference-Countertransference Matrix Impasse Clarification within the Transference-Countertransference Matrix Ray Little Abstract unsatisfied childhood need will be projected This article describes a relational approach onto the therapist who will be experienced by to deconfusion of Child-Parent ego state re- the patient as the source of possible satisfaction lational units, with particular emphasis on of the need (positive pole of transference) as the client’s experience of the impasse be- well as its frustration (negative pole of transfer- tween him or her and the therapist in terms ence)” (p. 204). of the repeated relationship and the needed In this article I develop Novellino‘s initial de- relationship. The repeated relationship rep- scription and draw on the work of Stern to de- resents the repetitive dimension of the trans- scribe the way in which both poles of the rela- ference, while the needed relationship repre- tionship need to be worked with therapeutically. sents the selfobject and developmental ar- rest facet of the transference. The author The Emerging Conflict also makes reference to and differentiates When clients first enter therapy they are not the therapeutically required relationship. necessarily experiencing a conflict, although ______ they may desire something different. The con- flict will slowly emerge in the transference, and In my clinical practice I have often noticed if the therapist works within the transference how an impasse gradually emerges in the thera- rather than with the transference (Little, 2005b), peutic relationship between the client’s view of then the conflict will gradually become mani- me as the person he or she longs for me to be fest in the therapeutic dyad. When this occurs, and perhaps who I am and the person the client the conflict between the repeated relationship is frightened I am or will become. This could and the needed relationship can be addressed be described, on the one hand, as the pull to and the two aspects integrated. The advantage repeat a script-based experience for the client of working within the transference is that the through playing psychological games and, on feelings and fantasies are alive in the dyad of the other, the longing for something transfor- the client and therapist, including the thera- mative to occur that will replace what was mis- pist’s feelings and fantasies. It is also the place sing developmentally. What comes alive in the where the past and present come together, with therapeutic dyad is the therapist as the feared the therapist as both the needed and feared “bad” object and the therapist as the needed object. The therapist will, to some extent, both “good” object. When the client and therapist confirm and disconfirm the client’s fears. have reached the place of impasse (Bromberg, 1998; Goulding & Goulding, 1979), there ex- Relational Schemas: The Internalization of ists a conflict in which both client and therapist Relationships experience energy equally in that which repre- I will start by examining the internalization sents a reexperiencing of the repeated relation- of relational experiences; this perspective on ship and that which represents the needed rela- development constitutes a relational model of tionship (Stern, 1994). Novellino (1985) touched the mind. In their earliest experiences, infants on this process when he described a transfer- grow, develop, and learn to relate to their envi- ence neurosis as a manifestation of a Child- ronment and those who occupy it; they inter- Parent impasse in which the Parent is projected nalize those experiences as relational schemas onto the therapist and an unmet need is present (Žvelc, 2009). That is, we internalize the ex- in the Child. He went on to describe how “the perience of the whole relationship with the Vol. 41, No. 1, January 2011 23 RAY LITTLE other, at a particular moment in time, as self- infant’s developmental capacities. This concep- other relational schemas. These early internali- tualization represents a reformulation of Mah- zations are laid down in implicit memory. ler, Pine, and Bergman’s (1975) symbiotic phase Infants’ early experiences vary in their affec- of development into what Kernberg (2000) tive intensity. During quiet periods that are less calls “transitional symbiotic states” (p. 864). emotionally intense, they internalize their ex- periences in ways that do not have a major im- Ego State Relational Units pact on their motivational systems (Yeomans, If all goes well for the infant, and there is Clarkin, & Kernberg, 2002). That is, infants sufficient holding/containing from the environ- take in the environment largely through evolv- ment and nothing untoward happens, then a ing cognitive learning. They also have more process of integration will begin to take place. emotionally charged experiences, which are The infant will begin to combine the various usually related to a need or a wish for pleasure internalized experiences into a whole. In doing or to a fear or a wish to get away from pain (p. so, the child moves from the realm of ideal, 13). These are periods of high affective inten- perfect providers linked to a good self and sity, and when internalized as self-other rela- sadistic persecutors linked to a bad self to that tional schemas, they have an impact on the of “good enough” self and other. This results, motivational system, that is, whether the infant ultimately, in object constancy (Hartmann, learns to avoid or seek out people and situa- 1964). However, because of the infant’s rela- tions. These emotionally charged periods are tive immaturity, he or she may be unable to described by Kernberg (2004) as consisting of cope with the unsatisfactory and frustrating as- “peak affect states” (p. 9) and usually involve pects of his or her experience and therefore the “laying down of affect-laden memory struc- cannot integrate them. Failure of integration tures and may facilitate the internalization of may also be a result of the infant’s or child’s primitive object relations organized along the experience of primary caretakers who were not axis of rewarding, or all-good, or, aversive, or containing or holding but were overly aggres- all-bad ones” (Yeomans et al., 2002, p. 15). sive or misattuned in some way. The predomi- All-good refers to pleasurable, tolerable ex- nance of aggressive internalized self-other ex- periences that may be exciting but are also periences over idealized self-other experiences comforting and satisfying. These relational dy- may also lead to a lack of integration (Kern- ads involve an “ideal image of a perfect nurtur- berg, Yeomans, Clarkin, & Levy, 2008, p. ing other and a satisfied self” (Yeomans et al., 602). This lack probably accounts for my clini- 2002, p. 6). All-bad refers to exciting but non- cal experiences in which people present with gratifying, frustrating, or rejecting experiences ego state relational units that contain those ex- (Seinfeld, 1991). These relational dyads refer periences that were intolerable. These are re- to a “totally negative image of a depriving or played out of awareness as psychological games even abusive other and a needy, helpless self” (Berne, 1964/1966). Those experiences that the (p. 6). infant can integrate result in the “conscious The early normal segregation that is implied organization of experience” (Rubens, 1994, p. by this formulation is motivated by the infant’s 166). Yeomans et al. (2002) wrote that in “chil- incapacity to tolerate both good and bad ex- dren who go on to develop borderline person- periences within the same relationship and the ality disorder, this process of integration does desire to protect the good from the bad. There- not evolve, and a more permanent division fore, the child feels that it is necessary to keep between the idealized and persecutory sectors them apart to preserve the good relationship of peak-affect experiences remains as a stable, and protect it from the “danger of destruction pathological intrapsychic structure” (p. 7). by the hatred associated with the ‘bad’ ones” The terms tolerable and intolerable are used (Yeomans et al., 2002, p. 16). This process is here in a technical manner to refer to experi- independent of the parents’ abilities to manage ences that were either bearable or unbearable good and bad experiences and refers to the and does not refer to whether or not the child 24 Transactional Analysis Journal IMPASSE CLARIFICATION WITHIN THE TRANSFERENCE-COUNTERTRANSFERENCE MATRIX had his or her needs gratified. What makes an experiences as located in unconscious implicit experience bearable is a mixture of the child’s memory. On the other hand, those experiences capacities to integrate and the environment’s that have been internalized and integrated re- facilitation. sult in self-other relational schemas that are Although we internalize every experience flexible, capable of evolving, and available for throughout infancy and childhood, not all seem updating. These self-other relational schemas to result in fixated ego state relational units. If are seen as aspects of the integrating Adult ego there is a failure of integration, it is the intoler- state (Erskine, 1988). Summers (2009) de- ably exciting/disappointing and intolerably re- scribed them as part of nonconscious implicit jecting/attacking relational experiences that memory and consisting of “good enough self- will be introjected and become fixated as other interactions” (Summers, 2010). Child-Parent ego state relational units (Little, In summary, I am distinguishing between two 2006a). On the other hand, the tolerable good- kinds of relational schemas. On the one hand, enough experiences are integrated as relational there are those that consist of the internaliza- schemas in the integrating Adult ego state. tion of tolerable, good-enough experiences in Rubens (1994) referred to the intolerable nonconscious implicit memory. These non- fixated relationships as “structuring internaliza- structuring internalizations are an aspect of the tions” and tolerable experiences as “nonstruc- integrating Adult ego state and represent auto- turing internalizations” (pp.
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