Developmentally, we are all exposed to relational trauma: disconfirmation of aspects of oneself as having legitimate existence in the world of others. A wave of dysregulated affect - a "tsunami" - hits the mind, and if relationally unprocessed leaves a shadow that weakens future ability to interpersonally regulate affect and participate in spontaneous human interchange. Bromberg explores the nature of the therapeutic relationship that shrinks the shadow of the tsunami and facilitates "the growth of the relational mind." Expanding on the self-state perspective of previous books, the analytic relationship is illuminated as an opportunity for two people to inhabit the dissociatively enacted shadow of the past, allowing it to be cognitively symbolized by new cocreated experience via state-sharing, thought, and language. This frees our natural capacity to feel trust and joy as part of an enduring regulatory stability and permits us to live with creativity, love, and a greater sense of meaning. Contents: Schore, Foreword. Preface. Part I: Affect Regulation and Clinical Process. Shrinking the Tsunami. Part II: Uncertainty. "It Never Entered My Mind." "Mentalize This!" Minding the Dissociative Gap. Part III: Stumbling Along and Hanging In. Truth and Human Relatedness. If This Be Technique, Make the Most of It! "Grown-up" Words: A Perspective on Unconscious Fantasy. Part IV: The Reach of Intersubjectivity. "The Nearness of You": A Personal Book-end. About the Author: A preeminent author on the understanding of trauma and dissociative phenomena, Philip M. Bromberg, Ph.D., is the author of Standing in the Spaces: Essays on Clinical Process, Trauma, and Dissociation (Analytic Press, 1998) and Awakening the Dreamer: Clinical Journeys (Analytic Press, 2006). He is Training and Supervising Analyst, William Alanson White Institute, and Adjunct Clinical Professor of Psychology, New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. Co-Editor Emeritus of the Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Dr. Bromberg serves on the editorial boards of Psychoanalytic Dialogues, Psychoanalytic Inquiry, and Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis. He lectures widely throughout the United States and is actively involved in the training of mental health professionals.
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