Recognition and reflection in infancy and psychotherapy

Psychoanalysts of various persuasions share a commitment to reflection and recognition as core values in everyday clinical work. Being understood and kept in mind by another person is seen as a crucial aspect of both child development and psychoanalyses. In various approaches, reflective relationships have a number of progressive effects: enhancing the senses of personal and interpersonal coherence and security, personal agency, the capacity to understand that other people have other minds, and that there is a separate “reality” in the world that has its own, more or less stable qualities; that is, a sense of “objectivity.” Recognition and thinking are both content and process, at the vital intersection between the individual and the social surround. When these dynamics break down, internal and external space collapse, and there is an absence of vitality, agency, empathy, and the like. With other analytic approaches in the background, this paper emphasizes parallels between the attachment researchers’ emphasis on reflection, psychological coherence and “mentalization,” and the Bionian conceptualization of “thinking” as a special developmental achievement. In addition, an aspect of transference is clarified as a state of mind without “metacognition.”