ABSTRACT
Given that projective identification creates an emotionally charged interpersonal environment, effective therapy warrants a highly structured, contained engagement with clients. In this chapter, we set the stage for the emotional tone and attitudes Dialogue Therapists will assume in their work with couples, i.e., “ways to be,” or the “be-attitudes” when doing DT. These attitudes include informed discovery and objective empathy. Informed discovery is an attitude of mind that values seeing through confusion to understanding, through “facts” to truth. Objective empathy requires holding a tension between “feeling intuitively into” a situation or person, while holding one’s own subjectivity as a studied awareness (some analysts call this “bracketing”). Partners coming to DT do well to approach their work with attitudes of equanimity, curiosity, and “no-fault”/no blame. When these attitudes are in place, partners can more easily use skills which are valued in DT: Mindful Listening, accurate Witnessing of each other, Speaking for Yourself, containment of difficult emotions, and constraint regarding destructive impulses. This chapter discusses the therapeutic value of these attitudes and skills, which DT therapists help partners access as the therapy gets underway.
