Introduction

On May 16, 1980, The Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies presented a program entitled A Dialogue with Marie Coleman Nelson: Her Theories and Techniques in Paradigmatic Therapy. To continue its recognition of the significance of her work, the Journal presents here a tribute in the form of this issue dedicated to her.

Paradigmatic psychotherapy provides a link between ego psychology, object relations theory, and the role concepts of sociologists George Herbert Mead, Charles Cooley, and Benjamin Nelson. It evolved in response to therapeutic needs that could not be met by standard methods of interpretation.

The term “paradigm” implies essentially a “setting forth by example.” Paradigmatic techniques involve the intentional and systematic setting forth of examples by the analyst to assist the patient toward emotional understanding of his intrapsychic processes and his relationships with others. Clinically, paradigmatic therapy utilizes many interventions familiar to modern analysts, as well as role enactment, fantasy participation, and other procedures to facilitate the achievement of insight. The procedures of this psychotherapy are especially effective with characterological and ego syntonic resistances, and Marie Coleman Nelson was a shaper of much of the theory and techniques of paradigmatic psychotherapy.

Apart from her innovative techniques and her more than three decades as a psychoanalyst, it is worth noting that she is one of an