Key Perspectives for Psychotherapy  Series One

Module 1: The relational self: how we come to be who we are

What does a developing self need - and what happens when it doesn't get it?

 

Overview

Drawing on the object relations tradition - Freud, Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott - as well as Kohut’s self psychology - it makes the case that the self is not a biological given but a relational achievement. .ts failures are not individual pathology but the intelligible consequences of relational environments that could not provide what the developing self needed. Freud gave us the first framework for personality and concepts we still use, like depression, neuroses, and narcissism. Klein showed us that the internal world is not a passive record of external events but an active, creative, and sometimes distorting process.

Fairbairn radicalised this insight: the infant is object-seeking, and when the object fails, the child takes the badness inside to preserve the attachment at the cost of the self's own coherence. Winnicott gave us the holding environment and the true and false self. Kohut gave us the selfobject needs that every self requires to develop the internal structure for regulation, cohesion and direction. Together these thinkers illuminate a central challenge of psychological development: negotiating the tension between relatedness and self-definition.

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Learning outcomes

 

• Articulate the core argument of the object relations tradition in accessible clinical language

• Develop a better grasp of Klein's ideas on primitive defences and the significance of symbol formation

• Understand Fairbairn's account of infantile dependency and splitting as the foundation of neurotic suffering

• Connect the concepts of holding environment, true and false self, and selfobject needs to your own clinical practice

• Begin to think developmentally about the clients you work with

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Module 2: The past in the present room: understanding transferential phenomena

Why does the past keep showing up in the room - and what is it trying to do?

 

Overview

Transference is one of the most influential concepts in psychotherapy, yet its meaning has evolved significantly since Freud first introduced it. This workshop traces that evolution from Freud's understanding of transference as the repetition of past relationships, through Klein's formulation of transference as the expression of the client's internal object world, to Kohut's selfobject transferences and contemporary relational approaches that view transference as a co-created interpersonal process. Drawing on Relational Transactional Analysis, participants will explore how developmental needs, relational expectations, and early adaptations emerge within the therapeutic relationship through mirroring, idealizing, twinship, projective, and transformational transferences. The workshop will also introduce a mentalizing perspective on transference, examining how psychic equivalence, teleological thinking, and pretend mode can signal moments when here-and-now thinking is not on.

 

Learning outcomes

 

• Describe the evolution of transference theory from Freud to contemporary relational psychoanalysis

• Explain how object relations theorists transformed our understanding of transference and internal relational experience

• Recognise transferential processes as they emerge within the therapeutic relationship

• Understand the relationship between transference, symbolization, and mentalizing

• Use Relational TA concepts to formulate transferential phenomena in clinically meaningful ways

• Make use of transferential communications in the moment to deepen therapeutic understanding and support change

 

Module 3  Working with what happens between us: the therapeutic relationship as instrument

The how to: what does it mean to use the relationship itself as the primary instrument of change?

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Overview

There is a fundamental difference between interpreting transference from a distance and working within the transferential relationship as a co-created relational event. This session addresses that difference - and its clinical consequences. Drawing on Relational TA's concept of co-transference, Erskine's Presence, and MBT's shared responsibility for the 

relational field, participants examine what it means for both parties to be contributing to and maintaining what happens between them. The therapist's subjectivity is always present; the question is not whether it influences the encounter but whether the therapist is making conscious use of it. The session also introduces a critical distinction: the difference between the not-knowing stance as a technique and as an epistemological and ethical commitment.

 

Learning outcomes

 

• Understand co-transference as a co-created relational field rather than a one-way phenomenon

• Distinguish between interpreting transference and working within it relationally

• Articulate the not-knowing stance as both epistemological position and ethical commitment

• Identify your own default relational patterns in the therapeutic encounter