The Many in the One: Multiple Self States in Combined Psychotherapy

Abstract

According to some relational approaches, mental health is expressed by the ability to move between various self-states while maintaining the adequate presence of the illusion that the self is continuous in time and space. Patients undergoing combined therapy are granted with the inimitable space existing between the two forms of therapyindividual and group therapy. Within the combined therapy patients, as well as therapists, are challenged by the multiplicity of selfstates arising in light of this complex situation as part of a mutual intersubjective process. The article analyses the advantages of the combined therapy in light of the theories dealing with multiple self states. A clinical vignette will be presented to illustrate the theoretical notions.

On Reverie: Using Clinical Facts while Conducting My Group

“…Maybe for them Amira was a brave little sister who had acted out and realized some of their own wishes. I believe these reactions might be a good example to what I have termed ‘imaginary self-state’ (Levin, 2017), which is a self-state related to fantasies and wishes and not necessarily to the real life experiences of both patients and therapists. A new symbolic space opened up and the group had made much use of it.…”