Be somebody else: Improvisation, momentum and psychoanalysis as social psychotherapy

Abstract This paper re‐evaluates improvisation as a central dynamic in psychoanalytic practice, allowing practitioners to harness momentum and address the states of being ‘stuck’ described by Freud, Jung, Lacan and other analytic thinkers. It takes up Freud's nachträglichkeit , the effects of Derrida's différance, and the affect‐focused neuropsychoanalytic approaches cultivated by Solms, Panksepp and others. It proceeds to show how a discourse on sociality developed by Fred Moten and others in the context of Black and performance studies can contribute to psychotherapeutic understanding of the effect of intimacy and the sharing of difference. Interesting connections emerge between an understanding of blackness and an understanding of transference as ‘movement’. Improvisation helps participants in therapy shift between homeostatic balancing and entropic pulls, stimulating emotional flexibility. This paper advocates for psychoanalysis as a social psychotherapy. Clinically, it emphasises the possibilities of fluidity and receptiveness over an emphasis on integration, attachment and individuation.