Transformance Talk 21: “Finding, Forming and Transforming the Self: A Journey From No Self to Core Self“

Presented by Annika Medbo, MA

Based on her brand new article in Transformance: The AEDP Journal, Volume 13

The Talk: “Working with the Unformed Self: New Clinical Tools in AEDP” explores innovative therapeutic approaches for clients with profoundly unformed self-states.

The Journal article and its companion Transformance Talk introduce two new conceptual frameworks: the Triangle of Finding and Rescuing the Self, and the Triangle of The Emerging Self. These tools guide clinicians in navigating maladaptive State 2 affective experiences, providing a visual roadmap for helping clients move from maladaptive to adaptive emotional states. Building on Eileen Russell’s work on agency, will, and desire as State 2 affective experiences, this article and Talk examine how neglect, exploitation, and oppression create developmental gaps in self-formation. Readers will learn how to effectively engage with clients’ maladaptive affects as pathways to their inner emotional lives. Special emphasis is placed on the therapeutic necessity of witnessing and connecting with split-off parts of the self, demonstrating how this process enables clients to develop a felt sense of self—an essential precursor to deeper emotional transformation and healing.

The Journal article is grounded in many ways in Eileen Russell’s (2021) ideas around State 2 affective experiences that “neglect, exploitation, and oppression of any kind leave holes in the development of self” (p.244), a deficit that Fosha has similarly described as unformed experience (Fosha, 2013). Ms. Medbo proposes that when working with clients who present with an unformed Self, we must connect with our patient within the realm of State 2 maladaptive affect; it is there that we encounter the neglected split-off part of the Self, needing to be rescued. As was true for her patient, the maladaptive affective experience might be the (yet) only “road” to their inner emotional life. Without being recognized, witnessed, and felt in the presence of a safe ‘other’ the split-off divided self cannot be unified, and the True Self cannot form and transform. Simply said, the patient needs to know they have a Self and have a felt sense of that Self before they can feel about and for the Self.

Transformance Talks are free for Institute members. We recommend that you read the article before the Talk – looking forward to seeing you -and hearing from you – there!

Transformance: The AEDP Journal, Preview (first article) of Volume 13: here’s the pdf.

The Presenter:

Annika Medbo, Licensed Psychotherapist
Annika Medbo, is an Adjunct faculty member of AEDP™ Institute, Licensed Psychotherapist, Licensed Physiotherapist, AEDP Certified Supervisor and teacher. She has a private practice in Stockholm. Annika´s clinical interests are in trauma and dissociation with a special interest in the use and development of non-verbal processes that can work to enhance and facilitate growth and healing. This interest started before AEDP when Annika was working in psychiatric clinics and striving to meet her patients “beyond diagnosis”, listen to the nonverbal “calls” for connection, rather than focusing on defences and pathology. Her interest for nonverbal processes expanded when she supervised psychotherapy students in Infant Observation at a major Psychotherapy Institute in Stockholm.
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