Advances in Relational Psychotherapy

Different Angles of Vision: From Relational psychoanalyzis, Ego-Psychology to Research

Although the Relational Movement represents a huge paradigm shift, Nancy McWilliams – having been trained in the tradition of Kohut and Sullivan – initially felt that certain relational ideas were already active in classical psychoanalyzis. She later became aware of the extreme rigidity in which some colleagues had been trained, and which contributed to the genesis of the ‘relational turn’. The new honesty about the analyst’s true feelings, and the inevitability of enactments, recognition of therapeutic change via the processes of repair and meta-communication were – she argues – a remarkable development leading to important advances in technical skills. Dr McWilliams discusses her vision for a more fully integrated school of psychotherapy that combines relational skills, self-psychology, an understanding of character and a diagnostic model that allows for psychopathology, based on a platform of sound research, offering an illuminating picture of the current state of the field.