The Dyadic Transaction

The Dyadic Transaction presents unique, pioneering research on the nature of psychoanalytic therapeutic process by three leading practitioners. An original work published for the first time, its basic findings foreshadow many of the results and new methods of research in subsequent psychoanalytic studies and continue to be highly relevant today. The volume demonstrates that the process of psychotherapy is a consequence of reciprocal interaction between the psychotherapist and the patient, rather than merely the result of actions of the therapist. The Dyadic Transaction sheds new and important light on how and why psychotherapy works.
A team of three experienced psychoanalysts discretely and independently recorded their personal observations during a series of therapy sessions. At the same time, the psychoanalyst conducting the therapy also recorded impressions of each session. The results show that the therapist is not a neutral, impersonal conveyer of interpretations, but an active participant in verbal and nonverbal interaction. Nonverbal aspects of this exchange in both therapist and the patient are a thoroughly original aspect of this study.
Organized by Franz Alexander, one of the great pioneers in psychoanalysis and psychiatry, this experimental approach offers extraordinarily valuable insight into the nature of the complexities of the psychotherapeutic process. The Dyadic Transaction should prove to be a necessary source of material for psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, psychologists, and psychiatrists.

Samuel Eisenstein is Clinical Professor, Emeritus, Department of Psychiatry, University of Southern California School of Medicine and former dean and past president of the Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute.