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We begin by locating our approach (Dorpat and Miller, 1992) within the matrix of psychoanalytic theories in use today. Our theorizing departs from classical psychoanalysis in that we do not subscribe to the idea that unconscious, wishful fantasies distort a person's perception or conception of reality or determine his or her psychopathology. Like many object relations and self psychological theories our theory holds that the organization and content of a person's mind are the products of his or her actual, interpersonal history and that the interactions he or she forms with others as well as his or her interpretations of these interactions reflect this developmental history.
With our colleagues involved in research and its application to clinical processes (Stern, 1985; Luborsky and Crits-Christoph, 1990; Singer and Salovey, 1991; Horowitz, 1991) we hypothesize that the analytic interaction triggers the activation of mental organizations of experience and knowledge, called “schemata,” within the minds of the patient and the analyst. These schemata organize and interpret the patient's and the analyst's individual experience of the interaction. We depart from most schema theorists in our view that schemata do not systematically distort a person's perception and conception of an interaction.
As a consequence of this theory of the mind we strongly support the relational psychoanalysts' position that what the patient and the analyst consciously and especially unconsciously say and do in