ABSTRACT
The scenario concept helps the therapist compile and formulate what takes place unconsciously within the relational dynamics of the therapy session. The concept implies that the therapist constructs an inner dialogue that he assumes is taking place in the patient between a particular self-representation and a particular object-representation. Although the scenario concept may provide the therapist with a comprehensive understanding of the patient’s unconscious relational dynamics, the pattern as a whole does not allow for an interpretation that “encompasses everything” at once. A range of concepts have been launched to describe the dynamics between the patient and the therapist: projection, projective identification, “container-contained”, role casting, “enactment”, actualization, and transference–countertransference. The concepts of projective identification and “container-contained” are also valuable with regard to capturing and expressing the complexity of the relational dynamics. If projective identification covers all the aspects of the dynamics of the interplay between the patient and the analyst, the concept no longer has a specific contribution to offer.
