Washington Center for Psychoanalysis

VanDerHeide (2009) reconfigured the classical concept of mirroring selfobject experience to encompass a relational, nonlinear dynamic systems perspective. In response, I present a brief study of the metaphorical notion of the mirror and an examination of the Narcissus myth focusing on the failure of early mirroring. A consideration of the tenets of a systems perspective informs the unpacking of a clinical example presented in VanDerHeide's article. In the face of a chronic pattern of aversiveness and humiliation, and at the “edge of chaos,” a creative and novel attunement and authenticity emerge intersubjectively moving the therapist and her patient from mirroring selfobject experience to twinship selfobject experience.