In my last blog ‘What is the unconscious?’, I attempted a very brief explanation of what we might mean and understand when we refer to the unconscious and how exploring this unknown territory is an integral aspect of the therapeutic alliance. This alliance can be described as an intersubjective (between two people) process, in which Thomas Ogden identified a phenomenon which he named ‘the analytic third’ – ‘ the jointly created unconscious life of the analytic pair’ (2004).
The old adage tells us: two heads are better than one. When two systems, substances or minds meet, they can mingle, merge or meld and experience a transformative process, so that when they separate again, each is changed by the experience. I referred to the concept of neural synchronisation or coupling in my previous blog, which can show, using fMRI readings, the coordinated mapping of brain regions reflected across two subjects when they are engaged in joint storytelling. Perhaps what we can see in the images produced in these studies is ‘the jointly created unconscious life of the analytic pair’ made visible? This process of combination and creation is the third space or analytic third where new thoughts, forms and ways of being are created.
The theory of third space also emerges in a sociocultural tradition which describes the individual mind as a hybrid emerging from a triad of individual, community and cultural artefacts shared over generations similar to Jung’s theory of a collective unconscious. Physical locations can be contextualised as existing across a trio of spaces: the domestic (home and family), the civic or professional (schools, libraries, community hubs, workspaces) and the individual (bars, restaurants, night clubs, shopping centres, leisure centres).
How do we use these spaces, physically and psychologically?
I suppose I am asking which one of these or combinations gives us a sense of safety or security. Does our individual hybridisation of these spaces create a composite third or base that we depend on or live from? Perhaps the answer is a fluid, interchangeable one, sometimes the workspace is where we retreat to feel a sense of purpose that the unrecognised efforts involved in domestic or family life can sadly fail to provide. Or perhaps, home is where we feel completed, accepted and at ease in contrast to the sometimes unreasonable expectations of our professional environments. Can we most relax in a social environment where we ‘let our hair down’ and give over to behaviours that would be deemed unacceptable in our family home or workplace, or is this an anxiety producing space where comparisons of our social standing are accentuated? Or do we enjoy the anonymity of a public library, sports or shopping centre where we can exist alongside but unconnected to other members of the public similarly engaged in commonplace everyday individual pursuits?
A safe space of our own…
I quoted Winnicott in my last blog, his hope that his work would enable, “the patient [to] find his or her own self, and will be able to exist and feel real. Feeling real is more than existing, it is finding a way to exist as oneself, and to have a self into which to retreat for relaxation. Winnicott (1971).
Attachment theorists speak of a ‘secure base’ from which the infant can explore their worlds, the physical and psychological. They conceive of this as a primary relationship, an attachment to a caring individual who helps the infant develop that sense of self:
The sense of self comes on the basis of an unintegrated state which, however, by definition, is not observed and remembered by the individual, and which is lost unless observed and mirrored back by someone who is trusted and who justifies the trust and meets the dependence. Winnicott (1971).
We can think of the analytic third as an unconscious space in the therapeutic alliance, co-created, that can provide a psychological secure base to develop and live from creatively. Perhaps the room where the analytic pair meet, virtual or real could also be considered a third space? One that combines the experiences of the domestic, individual, professional and civic lives. And if we explore this space with curiosity we can, perhaps, use the opportunities it provides to approach a sense of being that is mediated through the unconscious alliance of two individuals, putting their minds together to create a potential space for the individual’s most creative expression of themselves.
I have tried to draw attention to the importance … of a third area, that of play, which expands into creative living and into the whole cultural life of man … [this] intermediate area of experiencing is an area that exists as a resting place for the individual engaged in the perpetual human task of keeping inner and outer reality separate yet interrelated … it can be looked upon as sacred to the individual in that it is here that the individual experiences creative living. Winnicott (1971)
The magic ingredient
In ‘A General Theory of Love’ authors Lewis et al describe how our human emotions, relationships and psychotherapy work: ‘Loving is mutuality; loving is synchronous attunement and modulation. As such, adult love depends critically upon knowing the other … Loving derives from intimacy, the prolonged and detailed surveillance of a foreign soul.’
It might be useful to think about the work done in a therapeutic alliance in these terms, as Freud said, ‘Psychoanalysis is in essence a cure through love’.
Shiraz El Showk is a Training Member of the Association for Group and Individual Psychotherapy (AGIP) and a registered Training member of the UKCP, She is experienced in Psychodynamic counselling and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy work with individuals, on both long and short term basis. She is available at our Brighton & Hove Practice, Lewes Practice and Online.
Further reading by Shiaz –
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