ABSTRACT

We have seen from our previous points that much of what passes between therapist and client happens at the implicit level of experience. This can partly be accounted for by neuroscienti®c explanations of relational exchange based, for example, on the actions of mirror neurons and right hemisphere to right hemisphere communication processes. Through this process each party in¯uences the other within that particular dyad leading to a particular form of regulatory process. A key challenge here to the psychotherapist is that the major exchanges are not going to be based on conscious linguistic exchange ± what we are working with is the `communication cure', not the `talking cure'. Stern has had a particular interest in studying these communication processes within the therapeutic setting and in extrapolating also from infant studies as outlined earlier (Stern and The Boston Change Process Study Group, 2003). He highlights the importance of `adaptive oscillators' in the intersubjective matrix of therapist and client. He describes these as `little clocks in different muscle groups that can get into synchronization with something outside and can get re-set all the time, so that they synchronize' (p. 24). Here we can see the profoundly body-based process in which therapist and client are engaged, what Stern refers to as a form of `psycho-ethology'. Engaging in this process means that the therapist has, ®rst of all, to accept the idea of implicit relational exchange; no mean feat since many forms of psychotherapy training will have emphasized verbal exchange with the therapist apparently in control. Working with implicit processes involves the therapeutic dyad in a much less controllable process of spontaneous exchange, improvisation and co-creation.