Psychic Song and Dance: Dissociation and Duets in the Analysis of Trauma

The author offers observations on the nature of pathological dissociation, emphasizing the compartmentalization of unsymbolized affective experience. The irrelevance of personal agency and intentionality in the pathogenesis of dissociative psychopathology along with the deficiency in symbolization that is a sequela of trauma present special problems for traditional as well as for Relational approaches to technique. To a significant extent, "technique" must be replaced by the analyst's way of being. The author posits, as metaphor and model for this way of being, a notion of "psychoanalytic duets" occurring in the realms of both prosody and action-song and dance. An extended clinical vignette is presented to illustrate these ideas and to point toward a transformational effect of this kind of duetting.