Yours, Mine, and Ours: Recognizing and Making Sense of Dissociative Attunement with Clients

It has been hypothesized that non-verbal, somatosensory communication between individuals is facilitated via mirror neurons. Regardless of its mechanism, this exchange is also known to manifest in the therapeutic relationship. In treatment, it has been characterized as both radical empathy, resonance, and right-brain-to-right-brain communication. Within the context of psychodynamic psychotherapy, it can be understood as the ‘raw material’ comprising transference-countertransference and possibly a trance-related phenomenon. The term ‘dissociative attunement’ – coined by Karen Hoppenwasser – is the lens through which we will consider this powerful form of subconscious communication.

Empathic attunement to somatosensory information unconsciously communicated by the client with a complex trauma history can serve as a powerful conduit for information needed to help them work through dissociated memory material. Information about the client’s experience may present itself to the therapist in ways that the client may not yet recognize in themselves, and which may not be immediately obvious to the therapist without some means for recognizing, stepping back from, and contextualizing it for the client. At times, it can be challenging for the therapist to be concurrently a part of and apart from this attunement as it unfolds.

This training draws upon the available clinical and scientific literatures spanning over a hundred years to the present to explore dissociative attunement as it manifests between the client and therapist.

• First, existing, psychodynamic, attachment, and dissociation-aware conceptualizations will be used to contextualize this phenomenon;
• next, the evolution of scientific research that has lent support to these theories will be summarized;
• followed by a practical, integrative technique for recognizing, framing, and bringing to consciousness dissociated material will be described and illustrated, via brief case examples;
• Finally, the toll that this level of ongoing, deeply-experienced empathic resonance can have upon the therapist, and the concomitant necessity of self-supervision, appropriate boundaries, and peer consultation will be addressed.

Learning Objectives

1. Particpants will be able to describe two ways of contextualising dissociative attunement
2. Participants will be able to summarise at least two studies suggesting mirror neuron function at the emotional level
3. Participants will be able to explain the possible role of trance in dissociative attunement
4. Particiapnt will be able to name and describe at least two manifestations of empathic attunement in the psychotherapy relationship
5. Participants will be able to name and briefly describe the four components of Lyons-Ruth’s model for coherent communication