S. Montana Katz on Field Theory and Context in Psychoanalysis

A critical concept for psychoanalysis, and for field theories in particular in this regard, is to understand the idea of context as multiply indexical. This means that a context is to be understood not only as a process, but as a process with variable components that are ever changing. To say that something is indexical is to say that there are many dimensions along which a context may vary.

A simple example of a sentence with indices is “I am here now.” This sentence has three indices: I, here, and now. There are three dimensions along which the context described by this sentence can change, in part: the speaker, the place, and the time. A constellation that includes a [parent] and an infant will include many more than three indices. Any real-life situation, including a therapeutic process between analyst and analysand, could hold a potentially infinite number of indices.

from Katz, S. M. (2016). Contemporary psychoanalytic field theory: Stories, dreams, and metaphor. Routledge.