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and reflections about him or herself. Additionally, as emphasized in self psychology and attachment theory, subject-to-subject intimacy is based on and necessary for each person to sense into the state of mind, perspective and strivings of the other (empathy [Kohut, 1971] and mentalization [Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist, & Target 2002]). Along with helping to account for empathic perception, intersubjectivity of the field helps to explain three other concepts central to Self Psychology: a focus on adaptive strivings, disruption-restoration sequences, and the ambiance that develops in the field. In its focal point of entry into developments in the intersubjective analytic field, Self Psychology tends to give precedence to inferences about a patient’s positive strivings (as a leading edge) while many other relational theories give precedence to interpreting maladaptive conflictual strivings (as following, i.e., a trailing edge). The ambiance - the general affective state, that is more than the individual subjectivities of the members of any intimate dyad – that forms in the intersubjective field of an ongoing analysis has a profound effect on both analyst and analysand and the outcome of the treatment. (See also entry SELF, THE UNCONSCIOUS, INTERSUBJECTIVITY Field in Infant Research: Beatrice Beebe, Frank Lachmann, Daniel N. Stern and others Conceptualizations emerging out of developmental-psychoanalytic research (Beebe 2000; Beebe, Jaffe, Lachmann, Feldstein, Crown, & Jasnow, 2000; Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist & Target, 2002; George, Kaplan, & Main, 1985–1996; Harpaz-Rotem & Bergman, 2006; Steele, 2010; D.N. Stern, 1985; D.N. Stern et al., 1998; Tronick, 2002) drew, among others, on Spitz (1950), Bowlby (1958), Mahler, Pine and Bergman (1975), Ainsworth, Blehar,Waters and Wall (1978), Winnicott (1971), and various early theories of mutual regulation (Bateson, 1972). After Main and Goldwyn’s (1998) construction of the Adult Attachment Interview, the trend was toward longitudinal studies and the dynamic processes underlying behavior. Internalization, representation, and mutual affective regulation (Tronick, 2002; Field, 1995) were inferred from closely monitored infant and caregiver interactional matrices of the partner’s gaze, facial expression, touch, and vocal rhythm and cadence, together with verbal narratives (Beebe, Jaffe, Lachmann, Feldstein, Crown, & Jasnow, 2000; Cohen & Beebe, 2002). Overall, research findings (Beebe & Lachmann, 2002) indicate that caregiver-infant affective-cognitive interactions set the pattern and tone of relatedness in mutual affective regulation. Tracking moment-to-moment interactions, Beebe, Lachmann and Jaffe (1997) propose the systems model of inherent field theory underlying “a system defined by the constant interactive process which exists between its components …” (p. 215). Such interactive system emerges as a function of the dyad; it is not “permanent,” but rather is in a constant process of potential reorganization and non-linear transformational active restructuring (Sameroff 1983; Sameroff and Chandler, 1976). In addition, this non-linear
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