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TTHE CONCEPT SYMBIOSIS REFERS to the living together, in more or less intimate association, or close union, of two dissimilar organisms, as in parasitism. This living together of the dissimilar is usually for a mutual, beneficial relationship. For humans this perforce necessitates an interpersonal relationship or field. And this field, in general, is described by M. Cohen (1953) as follows:
The interpersonal field … is made up of the interaction of a variety of dynamisms of two or more organisms. Some of these dynamisms are conjunctive (for example, the need for intimacy) and lead to an interaction of a situation, with a resolution or reduction of tension; others, which involve anxiety, are disjunctive and lead to disintegration of the situation; sometimes a dynamism can be nonoperative, since there is no corresponding dynamism brought to the situation by the other person. The patterns of interaction are those established in earlier living; and to the extent that anxiety processes have entered into the formation of these patterns, they will be inappropriate and inadequate. (p. xv.)
Cohen is describing an evident social field. I put this at the beginning of this paper because it informs how I perceive the analytic situation. As such it is a basic assumption from which all my assertions follow. Of course, the idea of symbiosis, usually used in a pejorative way, or at least to imply severe dependency, is not the same as the concept of an interpersonal field. The interpersonal situation contains all relationships, especially those between therapist