ABSTRACT
Thinking about human development as a potential created by the connections between human minds defines an essential aspect of contemporary psychoanalysis. This understanding of intersubjectivity was implicitly prefigured by early relational thinkers who advocated that psychoanalysis itself was a discipline that develops in a “meeting of minds” rather than by in a single enduring “truth” about human psychology. This chapter will offer clinical examples to demonstrate that, while an understanding of theory will always have importance in relational work, the factor most fundamental to the patient’s growth and change is the analyst’s ability to use herself in a manner that lends to the activation of each patient’s unique capacity for this vitalizing intersubjective meaning making within the analytic dyad, a process that enlivens, deepens and expands the complexity of subjectivity of both patient and analyst.
