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III. A. DEFINING CHARACTERISTICS This discussion of clinical application relies on the conception of the field (the awareness of which arrives specifically through a diffuse attentional set) in all ways discussed above. This includes specifically the ways of conceiving the field as explicated by the Barangers, Kancyper and other Latin American writers where the field is viewed largely as an intersubjective, ‘bi-personal’ fantasy jointly constructed by the analytic couple. Complementary to this is the European conception of the field largely explicated by the Italian Post-Bionian Field Theorists and well explicated by Ferro, Civitarese and others cited above. This perspective conceives of the field in a more expanded way, including a ‘dream field’ that may involve characters (multi-subjective), props and contexts, indeed everything that may enter the dream of the analytic couple and field. Latin American Cassorla combines both trends in depicting the complexity of the field in his ‘acute and chronic enactments’, ‘dreaming field’ and the ‘Theatre model’ of the field. In the North American conceptualizations, reliance is on the work originally set out by Langs and further expanded by Levine and Brown and other North American writers (such as Ogden, Foehl and Donnel B. Stern) contributing to this way of conceiving analytic process. III. Aa. Directed Attentional Set The first stance, a directed attentional set , involves the identification of relational patterns and/or defensive tendencies and personality organization that are the focus of clinical attention. These will usually emerge in the transference/countertransference experience and may also reflect repetitions linked to the analysand’s historical narrative. In this attentional set, the analyst searches, recognizes, and identifies patterns of relating in the here-and-now. The analyst’s mode of listening (and experiencing) is aimed at the identification of conscious or unconscious repetitious modes of relating that constrict the analysand’s subjective experience and, consequently, the interactional field. These can also surface or develop through the experience of mutual enactments and are then scrutinized by the analyst in one of two ways: 1) through the recognition of constricting repetitions based on expectations from past experience (as in historical reconstruction); or, 2) as novel experience with the analyst, facilitating growth through the introduction of new understanding of old relational patterns and consequently, freeing the interpersonal field. Both of these analytic processes revolve around the recognition of unconscious relational patterns or defensive repetitions in the here-and-now that structure the unconscious transference/countertransference matrix. For example, Katz (2017) refers to a detailed inquiry into the emerging personal myths of the analysand and describes how analysands recapitulate relationships with primary caregivers based on these personal myths. Derived from Levenson, Katz states, “[T]he interpersonal field contracts the analysand’s “disease,” which consists of lived recursively generated patterns of experience.” The aim of this mode of intervention is “to extricate the analytic couple out of the diseased field. … One way that this is approached is by means of a detailed inquiry into the emerging personal myths and resulting patterns to open up new possibilities for the analysand” (Katz, 2017, p. 36-37). Here, the mode of readiness in the analyst foregrounds a directed attentional
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