Forms of vitality, mirroring and psychotherapy. A Daniel Stern’s Legacy

Resumen

The exponential growth of neurosciences solicited psychotherapies to investigate extensively their epistemological bases and clinical practices. Affective dynamics and clinical dialogue have been reinterpreted in the light of theories concerning the caregiver-baby dyad, strengthening the idea that what happens during therapy can be better understood through the conceptual grid of the intersubjective paradigm. This paper promotes a conception of relational psychotherapy that stresses the role of vitality forms as a global organizer of interpersonal experience and transforming implicit memories into self-reflexive representations. By connecting Stern's theoretical construct to the intersubjective paradigm, we consider vitality forms to be a fecund construct in clinical settings.