Billy and the Thirteen Blackbirds: The Co-Creation of Meaning in a Child Analysis Session.

The author uses the microanalysis of a single videotaped session with a neurodiverse child to find insights into the process by which change takes place in analysis. In this analytic play session, change is generated through a rhythm of "match, disruption, and reunion" on top of which, like a carrier wave, a narrative is co-created about the "stability" of the relationship. In keeping with the theme of Jonathan Palmer's inspiring paper relating psychoanalysis with the creative act of painting, the author links her observations of the clinical session with two other forms of art – a Wallace Stevens poem ("Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird") and an essay on Romanesque art by the art historian, Meyer Schapiro. Both the psychoanalytic session and these examples of art illustrate the centrality of co-creation in the dyads (analyst-patient, author-reader, and sculptor-viewer). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]