Role-Reversal: A Somewhat Neglected Mirror of Heritages of the Past

Abstract

Within a clinical-theoretical framework focused on transference-countertransference dynamics, the authors reflect on role-reversal and on the reasons it has been neglected for a long time in literature. This primitive inter- and intra-psychic process, often at the forefront in our practice, will be discussed in its principal aspects (patient's unconscious identification with parents' psychic culture and concomitant dissociation of the infant part of the self), signaling how the enactment can be an inevitable element which, putting into play the past dissociated object relationships, becomes a source of mutative understanding.

Confusion of tongues: A defense mechanism and a complex communication of unwelcome children with an early broken intimacy

“…These feelings have found in analysis a place to be reactualized, interpreted, and transformed (Borgogno, 2007;Borgogno & Vigna-Taglianti, 2009, 2013Vigna-Taglianti, 2002/2004. Only through repetition and a working-through of feelings of distrust and refusal heavily acted out in the transference and played in different (active and passive) ways has it been possible for Richard to dream, around the fifth year of analysis, of his analyst's country cottage, full of the traces of many different ''passions'' of his: old skis, tennis rackets, and even a small greenhouse full of tiny plants waiting to sprout.…”

Dynamics of Creativity and Empathy in Role Reversal: Contributions from Neuroscience

“…As the homospatial process can involve the visual, auditory, kinesthetic, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory sensory modes, the therapist mentally experiences superimpositions of multiple sensory representations associated with the patient's location and psychological experience—how the patient sits, moves, experiences the taste of food, and so forth. Most important, the mental model of the patient's feelings, thoughts and experiences and the therapist's mental representation of his own feelings, thoughts and experiences, are superimposed within the therapist's working memory 3 (For further discussion of role reversal within a psychoanalytic clinical-theoretical framework, see Borgogno & Vigna–Talgianti, 2008).…”

Trauma and the Wise Baby

“…In this case, " wisdom " takes the form of knowing when the caretaker fails. Such a reversal of roles (see, e.g., Borgogno & Vigna-Taglianti, 2008 ) is typical of traumatized patients and individuals who need to believe that their wisdom and strength in tending to a parent (in this case mother and grandmother) can be a substitute for the asymmetry of the relationship. Also, when a child comes to depend upon fantasies of omnipotence and wisdom within the family, these fantasies become a part of narcissistic defenses.…”