Developmental perspectives on the bipersonal field

A discussion of "Truth Therapy/Lie Therapy," by Robert Langs, M.D. Certain parallels are drawn between those aspects of the psychotherapeutic situation of which Langs writes and the developmental situation between the young child and his or her primary objects. Infantile issues are replayed in therapy, most clearly in the content of neurotic structures. But also, the capacity for "truth therapy," or the limitations which impose "lie therapy," either for the patient or for the therapist, reflect the outcome of development challenges, i.e., in character structure in particular. A developmentally conceived explication of Lang's typology of "lie patients" and "lie therapists" is offered. Questions are posed as to how to conceptualize the therapeutic situation as a developmental process.