Deepening the Treatment

Integrated Child & Adult Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (ICAPP)
2021-22, 2nd Block — Mondays, 6:30-7:45pm
Donald Schimmel, PhD

View Whole Syllabus

December 6, 2021 — Enactments

[37 pages]

Katz, G. (2014), Ch4-5 in The Play Within the Play: The Enacted Dimension of Psychoanalysis. pp37-48.

1. What does Katz mean by “dual dimensionality?” (p. 38)
2. How does Katz describe the process of therapeutic action with regard to the enacted dimension of treatment? (p.40)
3. What are the two systems of memory and how do they relate to the dual dimensionality Katz is describing? (p.41)
4. How does Katz define “experiential insight,” and how does he distinguish this from “an experience with a new, ‘better’ object? (pp.47-48)
5. Katz describes two vignettes that illustrate enactment. What were the enactments and what does Katz say was enacted in each? (ch. 5)

Wachtel, P. (2008), Ch10, “Enactments, New Relational Experience, and Implicit Relational Knowing” in Relational Theory and the Practice of Psychotherapy, pp220-244

1. What is the distinction between procedural and declarative memory? (p. 239) How do these memory systems map on to those which Katz describes?
2. What is “implicit relational knowing,” according to the Boston Process of Change Study Group? (p. 241)   How is this expressed or revealed in the therapeutic relationship?  (Can you think of examples from your work with patients?)
3. What is the “something more than interpretation” that is required for deep therapeutic change to occur, and which we provide for our patients? How does this occur? (pp. 240-242)
4. What does Eagle argue is necessary for change in the dimension of the patient’s procedural knowledge? (p. 242)   How does this bear on the question of verbal interpretation, according to Eagle and Wachtel? (p. 243) What is meant by the “music” of the therapeutic material? (p. 243)

Optional Reading

Jacobs, T.J. (1986). On Countertransference Enactments. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 34:289-307.