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‘A cacophony of theories: contributions towards a story-based understanding of analytic treatment’ by Soren Ekstrom
( J. Anal. Psychol., 2002, 47, 3, 339-358)
The internet discussion forum had a disappointing response to this fascinating paper. Admittedly, there were some server problems which caused a bit of delay, but most of the emails were asking whether there had been any contributions from others rather than submitting contributions themselves.
One contribution was from Gonzalo Martinez of Las Vegas, New Mexico, USA, who began by wondering whether a sense of loneliness amongst analysts is denied or perhaps whether Jungians tend to be ‘introverted, reserved and secretive’. He continues:
I admire Ekstrom's emphasis on the dyadic nature of therapeutic interactions, as opposed to literary intellectualizing when for example ‘Jungian amplification’ is practised on written material. In my humble opinion amplification should mostly stay in the therapist's mind, as a means to get oriented in the treatment situation. It's also important to heed Ekstrom's recommendation of sticking to a language describing the particulars of what happened in the treatment situation. I take that as saying that when writing clinical narratives a phenomenological approach should take priority over pre-made concepts. Further on he comments that typical Jungian language is descriptively weak, one sided and non-relational. That sounds to me like saying we often neglect the transference-countertransference aspects in the here-and-now while we remain stuck mentally in theory. I feel it's hard to apply that statement universally instead of individually to some therapists having that bias.
Talking about the Penn Project, Ekstrom mentions that Luborsky and his team described some relevant factors, as when looking at the outcome with groups of patients, including ‘The therapist's as well as the patient's ability to assist in internalizing gains’. I also found that point as universally applicable to any ki