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In classical psychoanalytic models, treatment can be understood as enabling patients to repossess their own agency—to take responsibility for themselves as agents in relation to their own motives and impulses (“Where id was, there shall ego be”). How the question of agency is understood developmentally and as part of the treatment process in relational psychoanalytic perspectives has been less clearly articulated.
In this article, we suggest that the attainment of the ability to experience oneself as an agent emerges from complex interpersonal and intrapsychic processes in infancy and early childhood and represents a kind of “glue” that provides the foundation for a feeling of personal coherence. We also suggest that the development of a sense of agency is predicated on the negotiation of recognition and mutual impact with parents early in life. When those negotiations go awry, the child's capacity for agency can be disrupted. We suggest that many of the difficulties patients experience in their lives can be understood in this developmental context.
An earlier version of this article was presented at a symposium at the spring meeting of the Division of psychoanalysis (39), Denver, CO, February, 1997. Thanks to Jody Davies, Ph.D., Irene Fast, Ph.D., Patricia Hertz, LICSW, Miki Rahmani, M.A., Natalie Shavit, M.A., Jessica Slavin, and Hanoch Yerushalmi, Ph.D., for their careful reading and comment. Some of the central ideas elaborated here were developed in a chapter by Jonathan H. Slavin, Ph.D. (1997).
Linda Pollock, Psy.D. is a member of the faculty, Boston Institute for Psychotherapy; past president, Massachusetts Association for Psychoanalytic Psychology; and Consulting Psychologist, Counseling Center, Tufts University, Medford, MA.
Jonathan H. Slavin, Ph.D. is Director, Counseling Center, Tufts University, Medford, MA; past-president, Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis; past president, Division of Psychoanalysis (39), American Psychological Association; Scholar in Residence, Counseling Service, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel; and Honorary Chair, Psychoanalytic Division, Wuhan Branch, China Medical Association.
© 1998 The Analytic Press, Inc.
From this perspective, the crux of psychoanalytic treatment often hinges on the renegotiation of recognition and mutual impact, which facilitates the restoration of the patient's sense of personal agency not only in relation to internal impulses but also in the relational world. We elaborate these issues with a clinical example and explore the challenge to analysts in negotiating both their own and their patients' agency in a complex relational context.