Dyadically expanded states of consciousness and the process of therapeutic change

Humans strongly seek emotional connectedness because it expands individual states of consciousness into more coherent and complex dyadic states. The Dyadic Expansion of Consciousness Hypothesis, grounded in the Mutual Regulation Model of infant–adult interaction, explains this drive. When mutual regulation of affect succeeds, it generates shared intersubjective states; when it fails, the infant's mental health suffers. The same process applies to patient–therapist relationships, where collaborative regulation of affect can produce therapeutic change.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This paper addresses an intersubjective issue that arises out of our model of therapeutic change: Why do humans so strongly seek states of emotional connectedness and intersubjectivity and why does the failure to achieve connectedness have such a damaging effect on the mental health of the infant? A hypothesis is offered—the Dyadic Expansion of Consciousness Hypothesis—as an attempt to explain these phenomena. This hypothesis is based on the Mutual Regulation Model (MRM) of infant–adult interaction. The MRM describes the microregulatory social-emotional process of communication that generates (or fails to generate) dyadic intersubjective states of shared consciousness. In particular, the Dyadic Consciousness hypothesis argues that each individual, in one case the infant and mother or in another the patient and the therapist, is a self-organizing system that creates his or her own states of consciousness (states of brain organization), which can be expanded into more coherent and complex states in collaboration with another self-organizing system. Critically understanding how the mutual regulation of affect functions to create dyadic states of consciousness also can help us understand what produces change in the therapeutic process. © 1998 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health