The Shadow of the Tsunami: and the Growth of the Relational Mind

Developmentally, we are all exposed to relational trauma: disconfirmation of aspects of oneself as having legitimate existence in the world of others. A wave of dysregulated affect - a "tsunami" - hits the mind, and if relationally unprocessed leaves a shadow that weakens future ability to interpersonally regulate affect and participate in spontaneous human interchange. Bromberg explores the nature of the therapeutic relationship that shrinks the shadow of the tsunami and facilitates "the growth of the relational mind." Expanding on the self-state perspective of previous books, the analytic relationship is illuminated as an opportunity for two people to inhabit the dissociatively enacted shadow of the past, allowing it to be cognitively symbolized by new cocreated experience via state-sharing, thought, and language. This frees our natural capacity to feel trust and joy as part of an enduring regulatory stability and permits us to live with creativity, love, and a greater sense of meaning.