Modern society shapes us since childhood to be transactional in the relational field.

What is being transactional?

When we are transactional, we refer to time in what the ancient Greeks referred to as chronos, which is measured time, i.e. the tick of the clock—which I call the “horizontal” dimension of time. This conceptualization of time refers to the fleeting unfolding of our life, which is finite. This stance transpires in statements such as “I don’t have time,” or “Take your time!” This kind of time runs through our fingers like sand in an hourglass. In his book, Valley of Diamonds, author John Gary Sparks wrote:

There are two errors in the visualization of time as the space between two ticks of a clock. First, that picture ignores the quality of time between the ticks; it dismisses the idea that there are qualitatively different moments in life. And, second, it conceives of time as linear – the yardstick. But time is not merely a straight line; it is also cyclic, rhythmic. (p.154)

What is referred to as Kairos?

Ancient Greeks held a concept and a word for a different kind of time: kairos. Sparks wrote:

Kairos was what the Greeks in antiquity understood as the qualitative aspect of time. For them chronos (as in chronometer) designated time as duration; kairos, time as quality. If time were a yardstick, chronos would be the space between the ticks of the yardstick clock and kairos would be the quality of the space between the ticks. Not all moments have the same kairos. Where the space between the ticks is always identical, the quality of what happens there need not be. (p.150)

How to change our relationship to time?

In order to change our experience of time, the invitation is to shift from a transactional way of interacting to an experiential way of being with others in the relational field. This entails valuing the quality of the process and embodying a spirit of exploration and curiosity. This type of exploration can be “horizontal” with other human beings and can also include an instantaneous exploration with our transcendental self, so that in a given moment we allow ourselves to pause to encourage the conditions for a transcendental relationship to emerge, allowing ourselves to “not know,” to question ourselves, or perhaps to correct ourselves or to muse in the presence of others. It requires that we do not give in to the social obligation of having an answer or expressing oneself verbally. Remaining silent to search within is at times a better choice.

In one of the prefaces to his Obra poética, the poet Jorge Luis Borges said, “Poetry lies in the meeting of poem and reader, not in the lines and symbols printed on pages of a book. What is essential is the thrill, the almost physical emotion that comes with each reading.” I want to expand this approach to the practice of psychotherapy, echoing a psychoanalytic perspective. I infer that Borges invites us to let something unknown, unfathomable, and unpredictable emerge from the encounter, reminding us that this encounter is more than the sum of its parts.

What is needed for the healing process to naturally emerge?

Linking psychoanalysis to complexity theory, psychoanalytic author John Turtz wrote:

Psychoanalysis is inherently messy and mysterious. The mysteries of the psychoanalytic process are viewed through the lens of chaos and complexity theory. The analyst–analysand relationship is an example of a nonlinear dynamic system, meaning that it is continuously changing, adapting, and coevolving; deterministic predictability is lost in the process of continuous adaptation. The fractal nature of the psychoanalytic relationship and the emerging qualities that arise from its self-organizing system and from bottom-up therapeutic approaches are explored and examined in relationship to the nature of healing. The analyst must tolerate chaos, uncertainty, and messiness for the healing process to naturally emerge. In addition, the age-old question of free will versus determinism is examined from the perspective of complexity theory. (2020)

Much earlier, in his Notes on Memory and Desire (1967), psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion advised psychoanalysts as follows:

Do not remember past sessions. The greater the impulse to remember what has been said or done, the more the need to resist it. … The supposed events must not be allowed to occupy the mind. Otherwise, the evolution of the session will not be observed at the only time when it can be observed—while it is taking place.

How can progress be measured?

He also advised psychoanalysts to “Start by avoiding any desires for the approaching end of the session (or week, or term). Desires for results, ‘cure’ or even understanding must not be allowed to proliferate.” He further explained:

Progress will be measured by the increased number and variety of moods, ideas, and attitudes seen in any given session. There will be less clogging of the sessions by the repetition of material that should have disappeared and, consequently, a quickened tempo within each session.

Why is having an agenda transactional?

A therapist that intends to cure, fix, or even help the client has an agenda that has a transactional quality. A client that comes to a therapist to be advised or helped (what many contemporary coaches are trained to do) is surrendering their capacity for critical thinking, self-inquiry, or agency. They remain in the child position when their task is to further individuate. The absence of an agenda or intended result allows for nonlinear exploration, the way a swimmer discovers a coral reef or a school of fish when her attention is not fixed on a destination to reach. This is the archetypal feminine stance that Gareth Hill evokes in his book, Masculine and Feminine (2001).

By transactional, I do not only mean a material exchange of goods or money, but the agenda to give something or get something in return, which is a conscious attempt to control an outcome and prevent healing, which is “to become whole.”

How to become whole, that is to say, to heal?

To become whole requires allowing the unconscious to become conscious, therefore enriching our experience and understanding by inviting dimensions of our being that, in a given moment, are not known to us (sensations, feelings, and transpersonal experiences in the immediacy of the encounter). Regarding the process of writing, author Marguerite Duras evoked in her book Choked Creativity a stance that can apply to the therapeutic encounter:

Women have been in the dark for centuries. They don’t know each other. Or just partly. And when women write, they translate this darkness. Men don’t translate. They start from a theoretical platform, already existing, already developed. Women’s writing is really about translating from the unknown, as a new way of communicating, rather than from an already formed language.

Ogden (1991, p. 16) wrote, “An analytic experience like all other experiences, does not come to us in words. An analytic experience cannot be told or written. An experience is what it is.” In that respect, words are also transactional in the sense that they convey a certain narrative to be heard by the listener. However, much of the healing that happens in a therapeutic relationship happens through nonverbal exchange, for example, by the way we are heard, the body posture and expression of the listener, their level of tension or relaxation, and their capacity for understanding verbal and nonverbal content as well as the “in-between”—name it the “unconscious” exchange—which, if made conscious, offers insights that were until now unavailable. From a neurobiological perspective, such unconscious exchange has to do with our primal brain, concerned with safety and survival, and our emotional brain, seat of implicit memories (see an upcoming article on the subject) and early developmental history, and concerned with pleasure and the avoidance of displeasure.

What is the problem with an isolated focus on efficiency?

In his book Kinds of Power, in the chapter regarding efficiency, James Hillman wrote:

Two insanely dangerous consequences result from raising efficiency to the level of an independent principle. First, it favors short-term thinking—no looking ahead down the line; and it produces insensitive feeling—no looking around at the life values being lived so efficiently. Second, means become ends, that is, doing something becomes a full justification of doing regardless of what you do. (p.39)

What is more than knowledge?

Transactional modes of therapeutic encounters reduce their richness and mystery and live under the low roof of efficiency as a principle. There is an agenda, an aim in mind that prevents exploration into unknown territories where mystery, revelation, and possibilities of understanding emanate from other sources than pre-regurgitated cognitive putations. By reclaiming the potential of non-transactional ways of relating, we affirm that we are more than com-puting robots; we posit that the compilation of thousands of years of knowledge, however impressive, is little compared to the aliveness of our intuition and feelings bathing in an unutterable atmosphere of grace. I aim to offer such a container in my practice, while keeping a respectful seat at the table for pragmatism and mundane solutions.

References

Bion, W. R. (1967). Notes on memory and desire. https://sites.google.com/view/somnus/psychoanalysis/wilfried-bion/wilfred-bion-notes-on-memory-and-desire

Borges, J. L. Obra poética.

Hill, G. S. (2001). Masculine and feminine: The natural flow of opposites in the psyche. Shambhala Publications.

Ogden, T. H. (1991).

Sparks, J. G. (2010). Valley of diamonds: Adventures in number and time with Marie-Louise von Franz.

Turtz, J. S. (2020). Mysteries of the psychoanalytic process: Reflections on chaos, complexity, and emergence. The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 80(2), 176–195.