ABSTRACT
Self and other constitute each other. Self and other redistribute themselves along variable axes of power. In the therapy context, ruptures and chronic deformations of self-other relatedness are given a chance to play themselves out in a self-other context that keeps growing. The very notions of self and other are problematic. The otherness of self is proverbial. Les came to therapy for something more than mere survival. In therapy Les’s own experiencing was given voice. Lynn was reborn through the otherness of the silent self. Lynn touched the otherness of self when she fell into emptiness and came face to face with her own mysteriousness. M. Balint writes of an interpenetrating, harmonious mix-up of self and other, as if something like water or air were the medium through which self-other arise, blend, evolve. Therapy provides opportunities for re-processing experience. One of the breath taking things about therapy is how a new couple develops in a psychic cesspool.
