The Phallus and the Person: Commentary on Paper by Taras Babiak

This discussion of Babiak's clinical account traces the macrotrajectory of Bart's therapeutic process toward broadly competent personhood rather than narrowly phallic compensation. The steps toward accomplishing this complex macrotransition are delineated in the microtrajectory of the “crunch” session between Babiak and Bart, during which Babiak traverses shock and challenge by introducing between them empathic recognition, evidence of mentalization, survival of boundaries and containing limits, down-regulation of raw affective urgency, “paternal” improvisation and a metaphorization of concrete action imperatives, interpretive linking, and a negotiation process that widened potential space for an eventual approach to intersubjectivity.