Table Of ContentROBERT LANGS
CLINICAL PRACTICE
AND THE
ARCHITECTURE OF THE MIND
Foreword by
Arthur H. Feiner
KARNAC BOOKS
CLINICAL PRACTICE
AND
THE ARCHITECTURE
OF THE MIND
Robert Langs
CLINICAL P R A C T I CE
AND
T HE A R C H I T E C T U RE
OF T HE MIND
Robert Langs
Foreword by
Arthur H. Feiner
London
KARNAC BOOKS
First published in English in 1995 by
H. Karnac (Books) Ltd,
118 Finchley Road,
London NW3 5HT
Copyright © 1995 by Robert Langs
The rights of Robert Langs to be identified as author of this work have
been asserted in accordance with §§ 77 and 78 of the Copyright
Design and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Langs, Robert
Clinical Practice and the Architecture
of the Mind
I. Title
616.8914
ISBN 978 1 85575 088 3
Printed in Great Britain by BPC Wheatons Ltd, Exeter
CONTENTS
FOREWORD by Arthur H. Feiner vii
Part I
Observation and architecture
1 The fundamentals of psychotherapy 3
2 Some basic tenets 10
3 Issues of adaptation for patients and therapists 17
Part II
Pursuing the design of the mind
4 The classical models of the mind 31
5 The communicative-adaptational model of the mind 41
Vi CONTENTS
6 Some features of the emotion-processing mind 52
7 The conscious system of the mind 65
8 Probing the deep unconscious system of the mind 80
9 Essential features of the deep unconscious system 97
Part HI
Consequences of the architecture of the mind
10 Techniques of therapy
and the design of the mind 113
11 Syndromes of dysfunctional design 124
REFERENCES 143
INDEX 145
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FOREWORD
Arthur H. Feiner, Ph.D.
I
first became familiar with Robert Langs's work when,
as editor of Contemporary Psychoanalysts, a paper of his
about collusion and misalliances caught my eye. It was an
exciting introduction to his work. We began publishing his
writings in 1975, and continued to do so enthusiastically,
because we believe Langs has something to say to all psycho
therapists. This current volume is the culmination of all his
seminal thinking: his is a fecund mind at work. And it is a
labour of love, growing out of more than 30 years' interest
in the theory and dynamics of psychotherapeutic practice and
his desire to base psychoanalysis and psychotherapy on the
realities of what goes on communicatively between patient and
therapist, and what goes on intrapsychically in each as well.
Dr Langs was trained as an orthodox psychoanalyst. In
addition to his clinical experience and acumen and training, he
has the further enviable gift of being a prodigious writer of
clarity and incisiveness. This aspect of his evident talents is
reflected in the many papers and books he has published or
has edited, as well as their outstanding merit and the original
ity of their contributions.
vii
Viii FOREWORD
Early in his career, following the production of a two
volume exposition of psychoanalytic theory and technique,
Langs began trenchant revisions and extensions, which even
tuated in what he called an adaptational-interactional point of
view, with its particular emphasis on frame maintenance.
With this current publication he has gone beyond that
in an attempt to describe the structure of the human mind
and how it reveals itself in empowered psychotherapy, which
is his term for his evolved, now matured, communicational
approach. Since he is clear that his conclusions come from
what is evident in the therapeutic process, what he writes
is immediately applicable as a powerful contribution to thera
peutic action.
Any study of the human mind requires that we look at how
humans interpret their worlds. This book echoes that dictum
as an interpretation of the human acts of interpretation. The
study is difficult because as researchers we are caught in a
dilemma. Our minds are the object of study as well as the
agent of the study. This means that our struggle to describe
the limitations of the human mind is itself subject to those
limitations and blind spots. Fortunately, Langs courageously
moves in this direction, sometimes subjecting himself to the
same scrutiny.
With any knowledge comes awe and mystery, if we take the
time to look deeply enough. And with this brilliant effort—more
wondering, producing more knowledge—we are seduced into
penetrating deeper and deeper into the labyrinth of our being.
As therapists, this is where we need to go. If the physicist can
tell us that the atoms of our brains are constantly being re
placed—that is, the ones that were there a week ago are not
there now—we can legitimately ask: what is the mind? How is
it possible that the atoms of today remember and react to what
went on with the atoms of a year ago, atoms that have long ago
been replaced? There is no easy answer.
Although therapists probably take it for granted, one of the
more remarkable things that Langs has discovered is that our
deep unconscious processing system is largely in contradis
tinction to our conscious system, which functions practically,
keeping us oriented towards the real world. We often respond
consciously to negative stimuli (e.g. therapists* mistaken inter
FOREWORD ix
ventions) with endorsement and, much to our chagrin, even by
asking for more of the same. On the other hand, our deep
unconscious system seems ever available to protest against
these self-abusive, destructive situations. What this suggests
is that self-definition has two parts. One functions homeo
statically in the world around, defensively perhaps; but the
other—deeper, and far out of awareness—functions in a more
visionary way, implying, not least, how things might be better.
But the messages are cryptic and need careful monitoring and
decoding, for them to be useful at all. Langs's contribution is
particularly practical in that decoding search so that therapy
and its purpose, change, becomes viable.
Man's uniqueness follows his growth as an individual
dependably related to the history of his species. This is not
a history reflected in genes and chromosomes but, rather, as
J. Bruner points out, reflected in the culture external to him,
and wider in scope than is embodied in any one person's view
or experience. Therefore the growth of mind is always a growth
encouraged and assisted from the outside. Langs's work,
therefore, becomes a searchlight helpful in scrutinizing the
real effects of our assumed assists in response to someone
asking for help. The destructiveness as well as the expansive
ness and enhancement of therapy, and how these are
accomplished, are our responsibilities as a mini-cultural
experience transcending the bounds of an individual's self
hurtfulness or competence. It seems logical, then, that the
relief and transformation of the limits to growth depend on how
therapy engages the individual in using his intellectual and
emotional potential.
By spelling out the various meanings of decoded triggers,
or those stimuli to which patient and therapist respond
adaptationally, Langs has set us on a journey of exciting
discovery. His reminder of the significance of the total setting
of psychotherapy—the background framework, the therapists'
interventions, as well as the patients' responses, and the
patterning of these from session to session—sharpens our
inquiry.
While we do not have any complete sense of all of the
possibilities of the growth of a person, Langs's effort to reveal
and understand the structure and the process of the mind
