ABSTRACT
Relational psychoanalysis contributes at least six signifi cant dimensions for effectively treating dissociative multiplicity and internalized perpetration.
1. The relational model of mind views personality as a system of selves in relationship – the unconscious and psychopathology are defi ned by lack of intactness of self-state linkages 1 (Aron, 1996 ; Bromberg, 1998; 2011; Howell, 2011 ). A major therapeutic commitment involves providing bridging/linking functions so that various
aspects of the patient’s psyche, self, history, and identity can be reconfi gured without the patient’s over-reliance on dissociative solutions and unconscious traumatic re-enactments. Helping the patient co-construct a richer subjective world, the therapist provides a scaffold for the patient’s subjective experiencing through refl ective listening, improvisational communication, and analysis of enactments. The therapist not only embraces the client’s subjectivity but actually deepens the patient’s experience of him or herself by giving voice to aspects of the patient’s experience, which for numerous reasons (dissociation, programming, denial), are not being felt or represented.
