Commentary by a Psychoanalytical Phenomenological Psychotherapist

Although the therapist does not explicitly outline the purpose of her presentation of her work with Brian in her introduction, my impression is that she is keen to engage with other perspectives which might throw light on her intense feelings of frustration in her relationship with him and her experience of how ‘so often in our sessions we seem to be going round and round, getting nowhere’. It is in this spirit that I want to address the questions that arise for me in reading this case presentation.

I would have welcomed more directly reported speech of the patient throughout the presentation as I am often unsure whether the language is that of the patient or that of the therapist. For example, did Brian say he had ‘repressed’ his sexuality or is this the therapist's word? Are the descriptions of his mother as ‘dominant and forceful’ and his father as ‘ineffectual’ the therapist's or Brian's? The contribution of phenomenological thought to the practice of psychotherapy is primarily its emphasis on the description of experiences rather than on an explanation of them. This allows for greater attention to the uniqueness of the patient's world, consciously and unconsciously, whether conveyed in the languages of images, words or embodiment. In this case, since a central struggle for Brian is the question of how to be alive and separate from his parents, a sensitivity on the part of the therapist to the individuality of his own language would be especially crucial to the work.

The therapist goes on to interpret the relations between the parents as ‘a very disparate internalized parental couple’. The concept of the ‘internalized parental couple’ is, I think, restrictive since it is underpinned by particular views of normality and pathology. My interest would be in what the specific dynamics between Brian's intrusive mother and his ineffectual father meant for Brian. One interpretation is that