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Personication,4 the transaction between perception and conceptualization which leads to the formation of an impression of another human being, plays a major part in all forms of psychotherapy. Without knowing how the patient personicates himself and others including the therapist and how the therapist personicates himself and others including the patient and the people the patient mentions, one cannot even begin to discuss the transactions between therapist and patient. It is all the more astounding that there are almost no studies looking at psychotherapy in terms of personication, of the way in which the parties involved form impressions of each other. This paper presents an attempt to fill that gap by means of a phenomenal analysis of personication in psychotherapy.
All psychotherapy begins with some form of diagnosis. Diagnosis is one kind of personication: the diagnostician forms an impression of the patient. This aspect of personication has been discussed in detail by Kaminski.5 He drew attention to the influence on the diagnosis of (1) the duration of the process in the diagnostician (personicator), (2) the relative permanence of the characteristics within the patient (personicatee), (3) the state of the diagnostician (personicator) as determined by momentary and/or long-range circumstances, (4) the focal range of characteristics under observation (which characteristics is the diagnostician or therapist looking for and perceiving and to what extent?) and (5) the diagnostician's theoretical frame of reference. However, Kaminski did not discuss the transactions in psychotherapy which follow the first diagnosis and frequently lead to revisions of that original diagnosis.
A diagnosis is a “first impression” of another human being. The