The subjective experience of an impasse in psychotherapeutic interaction

This article is devoted to the metaphorical description of the subjective world of a person experiencing an intrapsychic or interpersonal impasse. Based on the work “Impasse and Intimacy: Applying Berne’s Concept of Script Protocol” by W.F. Cornell and M.N. Landaiche (2006) the author of the article gives a brief overview of the phenomenon of an impasse, which can occur both in the client’s inner world and in the interaction between the psychologist and the client. In the latter case, the impasse acts as an interpersonal process that disrupts the work of a psychotherapeutic alliance. The uniqueness of living both an individual impasse and an impasse arising in a therapeutic relationship depends on individual unconscious relational patterns (primal protocols). In the article, the author’s attention is more focused on the subjective experiences of a person who is in a state of impasse, including the examples of mythology. Throughout its development, humanity has had many experiences of being in the impasses and getting out of them, and has captured these experiences, along with other products of the collective unconscious, in myths, legends, and fairy tales. Understanding the subjective experience of an impasse is very important from the point of view that the primal protocol is not verbalized by the client, therefore images, metaphors, metaphorical stories can help bring the living of this experience into a verbal plan, allowing us to discuss what is happening. The statements of clients describing the inner experience of impasses are given with their consent.