Neuroscience and the therapist's love for the patient: Intersubjective space, the embodied imagination, and transformation

Current neuroscience, particularly the work of Schore and Porges, is profoundly concerned with the vicissitudes of love. To the extent the therapist is able to love his patient and to receive the patient's love for him, the potential healing power of psychotherapy is deepened and enhanced. Furthermore, when love is able to arise in the intersubjective space created by patient and therapist, the embodied imagination is especially accessible. The existence of a core self, of an intelligence that some call soul, or essence, or true self (versus personality or structure or ego) is explored. "The barriers to love," (thoughts, emotions, and sensations arising in the psyche/soma) from which both patient and therapist turn away via hypo or hyper-arousal are addressed in terms of current neuroscience theory and clinical examples.