Key words: relational psychoanalysis, empirical research in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy
The relational psychoanalysis lives a season of critical developments and careful reflections, from both its protagonists and authors who place themselves in different paradigms.
Dialogue and open debate are essential constituent parts from the beginning of the relational movement, as we see in Psychoanalytic Dialogues. A Journal of Relational Perspectives.
The article deals with some epistemological considerations on typical problems of theoretical psychoanalysis, and reflects on some outcomes of Barness’s research on core competencies of relational psychoanalysis, highlighting its importance through a partial critical contextualization in the current panorama of theoretical and empirical psychoanalytic research.
The relational therapist conceives his mind as open; a metaphorical space where the patient can move to discover and feel alive. It is through the process of recognition that the mind lives and grows, in existence and in psychotherapy.