Paper Session B

3. The Therapeutic Alliance:
Coupled Oscillators in Biological Synchrony

Self Psychology Page | 23rd Conference Program

Overview

This paper is an application of some principles of non-linear dynamic systems theory to expand our understanding of the therapeutic alliance in self psychology. The therapeutic alliance is understood as an aspect of a selfobject, a shared created experience in the process of a partnership between analyst and patient. Biologists and other scientists have used dynamic systems theory to describe shared behavior patterns that organize the lives of individuals forming a system, sometimes identifying the agents and parameters of change in the process of the system.

Applying the principles of spontaneous organization in biological processes to the embodied behavior and experience of the analytic dyad, patients and their analysts work together in an alliance that can be organized in several different ways. A synchronous alliance is characterized by symmetrical experiences and behaviors of the dyadic partners, when there is a feeling of being "in step," as in empathic attunement. An anti-synchronous alliance is when the partners are together but at odds, similar to music when a syncopated counterpoint plays parallel to the main melodic line. In the analytic dyad, this is exemplified by repetitious patterned behavior when the analyst does one thing and the patient does another, still responding to one another but experiencing different things in tandem. A third type of dyadic organization is incoherence, when the system is unable to achieve synchrony or anti-synchrony. This can be an impasse or it might be a phase transition which is followed by a spontaneous re-organization into new patterns related to growth and development in the patient’s self. Clinical vignettes are described to illustrate each type of alliance.

Self Psychology Page | 23rd Conference Program