Early Childhood Experience and the Therapeutic Relationship (Ce ARTICLE: 2 CE Credits‪)‬

The author uses examples from her caseload of 57 years of doing analytically oriented psychotherapy to explore what similarity existed between the various ways the patients had connected with the therapist in the therapeutic relationship and their earliest experiences with their mother or mothering persons. A number of former patients cooperated with her study by comparing the reconstruction of their early childhood life with the memory of the relationship they once had with the therapist. When these data were drawn together, it was possible to conclude that the more secure the mother/infant bond, the more solid had been the therapeutic alliance. Likewise, the degrees of insecurity existing in that crucial period of life had affected the manner in which the patients had related to the therapist and had determined what adaptations the therapist had needed to make in the analytically oriented psychotherapy. **********