The foundational level of psychodynamic meaning: implicit process in relation to conflict, defense and the dynamic unconscious.

Traditionally, intrapsychic entities such as conflict and defense were assumed to determine what happened at the interactive level. The interactive level was seen merely as the instantiation of such deeper forces. The authors delineate the upsidedown theoretical conception of the relationship between the supposedly 'superficial' layer of immediate interaction and the supposedly 'profound' layer of intrapsychic entities such as conflict and defense. Here they suggest that the interactive process itself is primary and generates the raw material from which they draw the generalized abstractions that they term conflicts, defenses and phantasy. Conflicts and defenses are shown to be born and reside in the domain of interaction. It follows that relational living out is the deep layer of experience, while the abstractions used to describe the repetitive aspects of these relational strategies, such as conflict and defense, are secondary descriptors of the deep level, but not the level itself, and exist further from the lived experience. These relational processes have largely been written about abstractly and even metaphorically, however, rather than in terms of specific exchanges at the local level of the interaction. Here the authors are redefining the intrapsychic as lived experience that is represented at the implicit level. They suggest that conflict and defense, as explicated in language, are useful abstractions, which are derived from the implicit level of lived interactions. However, they are secondary. The past is carried forward into the present at the level of lived experience. As such, the level of relational action is the foundation for the grasping of the psychodynamics to which the analyst will respond implicitly and interpretively.

Explicating the implicit: the local level and the microprocess of change in the analytic situation.

This paper proposes a method of examining the micro-events of the analytic process that borrows heavily from developmental research. The increasing importance of illuminating the microprocess of interaction to understanding the process of change in analytic treatment is emphasised. A set of constructs and terminology is proposed for the study of the moment-to-moment interactive process in psychoanalytic therapy referred to as the local level. A theory of therapeutic action based on 'local-level' process is then explicated. Its central element involves a step-by-step process of 'fitting together', which leads to changes in implicit knowing through alteration of emotional procedures.

The neural correlates of 'vitality form' recognition: an fMRI study: this work is dedicated to Daniel Stern, whose immeasurable contribution to science has inspired our research.

The observation of goal-directed actions performed by another individual allows one to understand what that individual is doing and why he/she is doing it. Important information about others' behaviour is also carried out by the dynamics of the observed action. Action dynamics characterize the 'vitality form' of an action describing the cognitive and affective relation between the performing agent and the action recipient. Here, using the fMRI technique, we assessed the neural correlates of vitality form recognition presenting participants with videos showing two actors executing actions with different vitality forms: energetic and gentle. The participants viewed the actions in two tasks. In one task (what), they had to focus on the goal of the presented action; in the other task (how), they had to focus on the vitality form. For both tasks, activations were found in the action observation/execution circuit. Most interestingly, the contrast how vs what revealed activation in right dorso-central insula, highlighting the involvement, in the recognition of vitality form, of an anatomical region connecting somatosensory areas with the medial temporal region and, in particular, with the hippocampus. This somatosensory-insular-limbic circuit could underlie the observers' capacity to understand the vitality forms conveyed by the observed action.

Impaired vitality form recognition in autism.

Along with the understanding of the goal of an action ("what" is done) and the intention underlying it ("why" it is done), social interactions largely depend on the appraisal of the action from the dynamics of the movement: "how" it is performed (its "vitality form"). Do individuals with autism, especially children, possess this capacity? Here we show that, unlike typically developing individuals, individuals with autism reveal severe deficits in recognizing vitality forms, and their capacity to appraise them does not improve with age. Deficit in vitality form recognition appears, therefore, to be a newly recognized trait marker of autism.