There are some people who make us feel calm, there are some who make us feel confident. There are also people who depress us, or make us feel insecure, or angry, or anxious.

While there is certainly something about them that makes us feel this way, there is also something about us that reacts to them that way. Conversely, we ourselves have the same effect on others: we can make them feel confident, or anxious, or loved and appreciated. They affect us and we affect them.

Entanglement

But it is very easy to get confused. Everything seems to get tangled up in the in-between, so that it’s impossible to whose feelings belong to whom. Untangling it all seems impossible because it’s so messy and confusing.

Getting Untangled and Staying Untangled

This is the goal of intersubjective therapy: learning how to have relationships without getting tangled up.

Because the same thing will happen at the beginning of your therapy. Even the simplest interactions bring up feelings and associations (for both of us), and those feelings and associations will start to tie themselves up in knots. In other words, from the first moment you meet, we are both reacting to each other, activating thoughts and feelings and memories, both positive and negative.

Looking at these thoughts and memories, and the words and actions which bring them up, helps you figure out which feelings are yours and which are mine. Comparing our perceptions of stories and events helps you see your own experiences more clearly. And gradually, you develop a strong sense of where you end and where I begin.

Untangling In Therapy

Doing this in the safe, controlled environment of therapy takes the confusion and the stress out of the situation. I’ve spent years learning how to be in the in-between, but without getting confused and tangled up, too.

My job is to help you see how and where things are tangled, and help you identify each of the different strings that is tying you up in different ways. You will begin to disentangle yourself from it all and see clearly what is happening within yourself and between the two of you.

Untangling in Real Life

The more adept you become at doing this in therapy, the better you will get at doing it with the people in your life. And eventually you will be able to disentangle yourself and your relationships without having to cut anyone out of your life. And if you do need to separate yourself from someone permanently, you will be clear and confident about why and how best to do it.

Goals and Boundaries

These are the basic goals of intersubjective therapy:

  • To understand the dynamics of your relationships and whose emotions belong to whom.
  • To figure out what form you want your relationships to have and how much energy you want to devote to them.
  • To establish boundaries for yourself which allow you to maintain your connections without getting tangled up.

Boundaries are the foundation of what we call “mental health,” and with them come confidence, agency, understanding, and self-control. Being able to set healthy, flexible boundaries is essential to building healthy relationships, with others and with yourself. This is one of the main goals of every form of therapy, but it is the core of the intersubjective approach.