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This article by Steven Knoblauch intrigued me as much for the ways it reverberates within the intersubjective layers of the analytic world, as for the clinical ideas it offers concerning the intersubjective space of analysis. It was presented at a 2004 Conference entitled ‘The Interplay of Implicit and Explicit Processes in Psychoanalysis’, suggesting that awareness of the existence and importance of non-verbal, unconscious communication has become an emerging focus of attention in psychoanalysis, at least in relational psychoanalysis.
The heart of the paper is a description of how the author attends to the intersubjective dialogue within the analytic hour in a way that expands analytic attention beyond ‘the symbolizing process of free association’ (p. 815), to the non-verbal communication that takes place between analyst and analysand, both consciously and unconsciously. This non-verbal communication is referred to as ‘subsymbolic’, and includes both affective and embodied communication: e.g., subtle shifts by the analysand in facial expression and posture, vocal tone and rhythm, as well as the analyst's