Psychic reality in the psychoanalytic process.

The case is made for regarding psychic reality as synonymous with subjective (conscious) experience, which is inherently open to, but not reducible to, unconscious determinants. Both analyst and analysand engage in the analytic relation and interaction from the perspective of their respective psychic realities. Thus, components of the analytic relation--transference/countertransference, alliance, and real relation--are forms of psychic reality. The tensions of subjectivity and objectivity are discussed in relation to the analytic situation, especially with regard to whether the patient's or the analyst's psychic reality is to be given priority or preference. The same reality, situation, or relationship can be viewed from different perspectives and subjected to varying interpretations without any one being exclusively true or false-each may be partially true and/or partially false. The patient's recounting of his history is a part of the patient's psychic reality that intersects with a necessarily divergent account constructed by the analyst. The ensuing dialogue seeks a form of real coherence that is mutually realistic and makes realistic sense for both parties. Reliance on subjective psychic reality becomes a possible, but precarious and potentially misleading, basis for analytic understanding without other observational (verbal and behavioral) or objective data.     

医学影像诊断报告的双重属性——现状与对策

医学影像诊断报告是重要的医疗文书,在临床诊治过程中发挥重要作用。影像报告具有客观性和主观性的双重属性。一方面,报告需要客观描述影像所见,真实地记录病变特点,而另一方面,报告中又包含根据图像做出的主观评价。如何努力化解两方面要求带来的冲突,是摆在影像医生面前需要解决的问题。     

What Do Happiness Studies Study?

What do, or should, happiness studies study? Everything to which we refer with the word ‘‘happiness’’ is worth some study. But the study of subjective states covers only part of the ground covered by the word ‘‘happiness’’ and by no means all the ground central to understanding happiness. On the central use of ‘‘happiness,’’ to be happy is to be glad or satisfied or content, which suggests subjectivity, with having a good measure of what is important in life, which suggests objectivity. We find the same suggestion of both subjectivity and objectivity in the list of what enhances the quality of life. There are strong arguments in favour both of the subjectivity of what enhances life and of its objectivity. I argue that neither is right, that the story is more complicated. The conclusion of the story is that there is a list of several non-reducible features that contribute to the quality of a characteristic human life, and that anything that contributes to the quality of any human life will be one or other of these features. But there is a problem. When we speak of the quality of a human life, there may be no one thing we have in mind. Perhaps some of us are not disagreeing with one another over the nature of a ‘‘happy’’ life but speaking of different things.     

Materialism and the Subjectivity of Experience

The phenomenal properties of conscious mental states happen to be exclusively accessible from the first-person perspective. Consequently, some philosophers consider their existence to be incompatible with materialist metaphysics. In this paper I criticise one particular argument that is based on the idea that for something to be real it must (at least in principle) be accessible from an intersubjective perspective. I argue that the exclusively subjective access to phenomenal contents can be explained by the very particular nature of the epistemological relation holding between a subject and his own mental states. Accordingly, this subjectivity does not compel us to deny the possibility that phenomenal contents are ontologically objective properties. First, I present the general form of the argument that I will discuss. Second, I show that this argument makes use of a criterion of reality that is not applicable to the case of subjective experience. Third, I discuss a plausible objection and give an argument for rejecting observation models of self-knowledge of phenomenal contents. These models fall prey to the homunculus illusion.     

Being a Traveller—On Traversing the Self-Process in Qualitative Research

This paper addresses certain key questions about researching in psychology from a qualitative perspective. It debates the question of certainty versus variability—are truths fixed and universal or is there something beyond immortal, objective facts? The question of sharability versus particularity is raised—is the complete picture explained by generalisations or does one view the psychological landscape in a way that highlights the difference? The question of objectivity versus subjectivity is dwelled upon—should the researcher be a detached, neutral observer of the Other or should she let her subjectivity flow freely in the researching process? And finally, the question of neutrality versus positionality is examined—does reality come into focus only if the researcher stands at a certain distance or would her lens blur if she stands too close? Through engagement with these questions, the researcher, akin to a traveller who meanders across a littered landscape, attempts to traverse personal territories in the search of truths of human knowledge. The paper also delves into some of the unsettling aspects of qualitative research.     

Creating an Intersubjective Reality: Commentary on Paper by Arnold Rothstein

The author discusses Arnold Rothstein's paper “Compromise Formation Theory: An Intersubjective Dimension” and challenges his definition of intersubjectivity. She offers a perspective in which the import of intersubjectivity theory is less to dissolve the notion of objectivity than to grasp processes of mutual engagement, regulation, and recognition. While it is true that the recognition that the analyst is also a subject and therefore does not have exclusive knowledge is an important shift in the psychoanalytic paradigm, the author suggests that the intersubjective is far more encompassing than this. Intersubjective theory emphasizes the active creation of consensus or conflict about reality rather than merely the recognition that the analyst's perspective on reality is subjective. This cocreation produces a different emotional experience of connection, not merely a change in the quality of insight. Finally, Rothstein's case illustrates how he responds to the need for recognition and regulation. He shows us how focusing on the procedural allowed him to make an intersubjective shift, not simply an intrapsychic interpretation of compromise formation.     

Husserl and Nagel on subjectivity and the limits of physical objectivity

Thomas Nagel argues that the subjective character of mind inevitably eludes philosophical efforts to incorporate the mental into a single, complete, physically objective view of the world. Nagel sees contemporary philosophy as caught on the horns of a dilemma – one either follows phenomenology in making all objective phenomena subjective, or one follows physicalism in making all subjective phenomena objective. He contends that both approaches lead to different but equally untenable forms of idealism and suggests that we currently lack the forms of understanding required to tackle the question of how to relate the subjective and objective aspects of experience. This paper draws a number of positive comparisons between Nagel's position on subjectivity and that of the later Husserl. It is argued that Nagel is wrong to dismiss phenomenology as idealist, thus clearing the way for a plausible Husserlian interpretation of his position. Husserl's more developed treatment of the relationships between subjectivity and objectivity can be employed to clarify, strengthen and elaborate Nagel's claims in a number of ways. However, the comparison also serves to show that Nagel does not go far enough in his critique of physical objectivism. The paper concludes by remarking on the continuing relevance of some central Husserlian themes as a critique of and positive alternative to deeply sedimented objectivist assumptions currently prevalent in Anglo-American philosophy.     

IRREDUCIBLE SUBJECTIVITY AND INTERACTIONISM: A CRITIQUE1

The authors offer a critique of the privileging of subjectivity in psychoanalysis characteristic of what Hanly has called interactionism, with specific reference to the work of Renik. First, Renik's argument for the irreducible subjectivity of the analyst is explored and critiqued from a philosophical perspective. The need for and plausibility of a subtler notion of objectivity that takes into account the limitations of human subjectivity and that analysts can meaningfully pursue is defended. Second, Renik's ‘re‐visioning’ of psychoanalysis, which follows from his notion of irreducible subjectivity, is explored and critiqued. Renik's view of enactments is contrasted with a ‘totalistic’ perspective of countertransference that allows for important, finer conceptual distinctions. Renik's conceptualisation of countertransference enactments is characterised as a ‘special case’ of countertransference as a vice. Next, Renik's view of transference is critiqued for privileging the adaptive dimensions of transference, and for potentially sidelining archaic dimensions. Finally, Renik's conclusions and ‘revisioning’ of psychoanalysis are shown to follow from his modifying or jettisoning certain features of the analytic situation and process. These features and their implications are elaborated on. The conclusion outlines the extent to which the arguments presented can be extended to other advocates of interactionism.     

Psychology—Tensions between Objectivity and Subjectivity

The self is often defined in terms of its presentational appearances. This may easily end up in a denial of the internal aspects of the self, which is very often related to a tendency to avoid the tension between the internal and the external, but also between subjectivity and objectivity. In this paper this ambition is regarded in a historical perspective, in which Fichte and Hegel both represent attempts at abolishing the tension, whereas Kant and Kierkegaard represent the opposite. History shows that an eradication of the tension between subjectivity and objectivity implies a deterioration of psychology as well. Thus the conclusion is that psychology is primarily to be defined in terms of the tension between subjectivity and objectivity, which requires an accurate understanding and the inclusion of both of them.     

Claiming Subjectivity: Re-Storying Clinical Psychology and Myself

This article explores becoming a clinical psychologist later in life. Drawing on the author’s experience as a developmental psychologist who becomes a clinical respecialization student, it traces shifts in narratives of identity, belongingness, perspectives on psychology, and ways of knowing that both influence and construct her perspective on age and midlife. The paradigm shifts of going from professor, to student and intern, and philosophical shifts, transitioning from a stance of objectivity, to one informed by deep subjectivity, are considered. The ways that age matters is pondered as an artifact of the larger social construction of aging. The article proposes that a rich later-in-life perspective often includes the capacity to utilize self-knowledge and affective interpretation that nurtures subjectivity. The capacity to summon subjectivity facilitates rich authentic empathic connection with patients in clinical practice. The author explores the process of learning and re-storying herself in a manner that draws on self-reflection, clinical subjectivities, the life-learned ability to be humble, and a theory-informed lens of clinical psychology that is truly different from developmental psychology. The promise for future contributions to both clinical work and the greater field by “new” clinicians at midlife is explored.     

The Knowledge Argument and Objectivity

In this paper I argue that Frank Jackson’s Knowledge Argument is better considered not as an argument against physicalism, but as an argument that objective theories must be incomplete. I argue that despite the apparent diversity of responses to the knowledge argument, they all boil down to a response according to which genuine epistemic gains are made when an individual has an experience. I call this the acquaintance response. I then argue that this response violates an intuitive stricture on the objectivity of theories. Therefore, the knowledge argument does show that objective theories cannot provide a complete understanding of the world. The result, however, is that both objective dualism and objective physicalism are refuted by the argument. In the end it is suggested that the notion of “subjective physicalism” is one that should be pursued.     

The development of epistemological understanding

We propose the coordination of the subjective and objective dimensions of knowing as the essence of what develops in the attainment of mature epistemological understanding. Initially, the objective dimension dominates, to the exclusion of subjectivity; subsequently, the subjective dimension assumes an ascendant position and the objective is abandoned, and, finally, the two are coordinated. This progression, we further postulate, tends to occur in a systematic order across different judgment domains (personal taste, aesthetic, value, and truth), with the orders the reverse of one another in the two major transitions that constitute this progression. These predictions are supported among a sample of seven groups of children, adolescents, and adults varying in age, education, and life experience. Subjectivity is most readily acknowledged in personal taste and aesthetic judgments and least readily in truth judgments. Once subjectivity is accepted and becomes dominant, objectivity is reintegrated in the reverse order, i.e., most readily with respect to truth judgments. Not predicted, however, was the finding that for a number of individuals, both transitions proved most difficult in the values domain.     

The Embodied Subjective Perspective

Perspective is a distinctive feature of external perception. There is a question of how to account for perceptual constancy in spite of changing perspectives. Alva Noe proposes the notion of ＂perspectival property＂ [P-property] and appeals to the perspectival aspect of perceptual content. His proposal conflicts with perceptual experiences and hence incurs many criticisms. Drawing on Husserl＇s phenomenology and Gibsonian psychology, I propose the notion of ＂perspectival awareness＂ [P-awareness]. I will argue that P-awareness is embodied pre-thematic self-awareness instead of the experience of a special kind of objective property. With the notion of P-awareness in mind, I then elaborate on the embodied subjective feature of perspective.     

Experiential self‐understanding

The notion of insight is at one and the same time central to psychoanalysis and to the self‐understanding that is part of everyday life. Through clinical material and critical engagement with contemporary philosophical work on self‐knowledge, this paper clarifies one crucial aspect of this key notion. Self‐understanding of the sort we have in mind, while of course involving cognitive elements, is not sufficiently accounted for by cognition about one's affects, motivations, or other aspects of the psyche, nor by the simple conjunction of such cognition with felt affect, motivational urges, etc. Nor is it best modelled in terms of internal self‐observation. Rather, it is the product of an ongoing process of the unfolding articulation of one's psychic life. The notion of experience is important here in three ways. First, lived experience is that out of which the self‐understanding arises. Second, this self‐understanding is a development and articulation of these aspects of our inner lives; it is a part of that same lived perspective. And third, this understanding in turn shapes one's experience of one's inner world: as it is attained, one's experience of oneself thereby changes. Central here is the emphasis upon a developing process involving the ability to speak from one's subjective perspective while experiencing one's subjective perspective as the perspective that it is.     

Affective Experiences and Honesty in the Interaction: Discussion of Holly Levenkron's Paper

Anchoring her views in the work of Benjamin and other American relational authors, Levenkron asserts that intersubjective relatedness in which there is recognition of separate realities is essentially the only form of relatedness. Framing growth as coming about through the recognition of another's subjectivity provides a basis for “confrontation” and for a more direct injection of the analyst's subjectivity into the analytic encounter. More specifically, it fosters the expression of the analyst's subjectivity from what this author calls the “other-centered” and “self” perspectives.

In contrast, the recognition of selfobject and caretaking relatedness positions the analyst to express directly aspects of the analyst's subjectivity pertaining to mirroring, idealizing, and twinship selfobject needs. Kohut and classical self psychologists have delineated selfobject needs and the selfobject dimension of relatedness and transference and have emphasized the consistent use of the empathic listening/experiencing perspective. American relational theorists have delineated intersubjective relatedness and the usefulness of the other-centered listening/experiencing perspective. This author focuses on an integrative theory including three forms of relatedness and different listening/experiencing perspectives. Different listening/experiencing perspectives and forms of relatedness fundamentally influence analysts' affective experiences within the analytic encounter as exemplified in Levenkron's case.     

Self across time: the diachronic unity of bodily existence

The debate on personal persistence has been characterized by a dichotomy which is due to its still Cartesian framwork: On the one side we find proponents of psychological continuity who connect, in Locke’s tradition, the persistence of the person with the constancy of the first-person perspective in retrospection. On the other side, proponents of a biological approach take diachronic identity to consist in the continuity of the organism as the carrier of personal existence from a third-person-perspective. Thus, what accounts for someone’s persistence over time, is the continuity of his mind on the one hand, and the continuity of his body on the other. In contrast to those views, the paper intends to show that bodily existence represents the basis of selfhood across time, both as the continuity of the experiential self and as the continuity of the autopoietic organism. On the one hand, the lived body conveys a continuity of the self from a first-person perspective, namely a pre-reflective feeling of sameness or a felt constancy of subjectivity. Moreover, an analysis of awakening and sleep shows that there is a continuous transition from full wakefulness to periods of deep sleep which may thus not be regarded as a complete interruption of subjective experience. On the other hand, this constancy converges with the continuity of the organismic life process as conceived from a third-person perspective. Thus, the experiential self of bodily subjectivity and the autopoietic self of the living organism should be regarded as two aspects of one and the same life process. Finally, the lived body also exhibits a specific form of memory that results from the continual embodiment of existence: it consists of all the affinities, capacities and experiences, which a person has acquired throughout his life. Thus, it provides a continuity of self that must not be actively produced through remembering, but rather integrates the person’s entire past in his present being and potentiality.     

Reconstruction and perceptual experience: further thoughts on psychoanalytic listening

Freud's monumental shift to the fantasy theory heralded the view that "it is psychical and not material reality" which is our sole domain of inquiry. Yet despite theoretical agreement and cogent technical admonitions against concerning ourselves with absolute or "external" truths, psychoanalytic listening betrays a stance in which the analyst attunes to a reality other than that of the patient's inner world, assuming the position of arbiter--even if a silent one--of what is or is not "distorted" in the patient's perceptual experience. The central impact of perception as a significant component of the patient's inner experience--past and present--goes unattended. Clinical examples from differing theoretical persuasions are reviewed to demonstrate this occurrence. An alternative mode of listening is considered which assumes an underlying shift in outlook, suspending any notion that we can "know" what is "correct" in the patient's perception, while sharpening attunement to its clinical impact--as may be evidenced by a shift in affect or state, a turn of phrase, or the transient appearance of a symptom or old behavior. It is argued that such a stance will lead to a more singular focus on the patient's psychic reality, permitting the emergence of a deepening realm of psychic phenomena, enhancing the capacity of self-observation, and richly facilitating the reconstructive process.     

Authority as paradox: The transformations of Don Quijote

The author's contention is that the analysand's temporary attribution of authority to the analyst is inherent in the analytic situation; this is seen as a transitional and paradoxical form of authority pertaining neither to internal nor external reality, but dwelling in the analytic third. The author proposes a conceptualization of psychoanalytic authority as a form of aesthetic authority according to Gadamer's defi nitions. While the scientifi c and hermeneutic codes for the understanding of authority in psychoanalysis assume that the main issue at stake is the delimitation of the objectivity or the subjectivity of the analyst's knowledge, this aesthetic perspective centres on the analysand's attribution of a claim of truth to analytic interpretations, and on the experience of recognition. The experience of recognition of a possible truth is particular and context-bound, as well as self-transformational. A reading of three episodes from Cervantes's The history of Don Quixote de la Mancha illuminates the transitional and paradoxical character of aesthetic authority within a transformational dialogue. These episodes are read as dramatizations of different positions vis-à-vis the paradoxical authority that characterizes transformational dialogues.     

Phenomenology,Objectivity, and the Explanatory Gap

There has been much recent discussion of whether Husserlian phenomenology might be relevant to the explanatory gap—the problem of explaining how conscious experience arises from nonexperiential events or processes. However, some phenomenologists have argued that the explanatory gap is a confused problem, because it starts by assuming a false distinction between the subjective and the objective. Rather than trying to solve this problem, they claim that phenomenology should dissolve it by undermining the distinction upon which it is based. I shall argue that adopting a phenomenological approach does not provide reason to think that the explanatory gap is not a genuine problem. In assessing the assumptions underlying the gap, we must distinguish between objectivity understood as a stance we can take toward the world and objectivity as the world's having a structure independent of any experience. The explanatory gap can be understood as the problem of finding a place for consciousness in this objective structure. This does not force us to take an objective stance or reduce the methods of phenomenology to those of the natural sciences.     

The Search for Objectivity in the Study of Subjectivity Reply to Commentary

Two central questions raised by Spezzano's commentary have to do with the extent to which we seek objectivity in psychoanalytic theory and practice, and the extent to which one or another set of methods (e.g., clinical observation) is adequate or optimal for generating that knowledge. A discipline and treatment devoted to understanding subjectivity is nevertheless devoted to objective knowledge about a patient's subjectivity, defenses, and so forth and requires valid theories to guide exploration, inference, and intervention. Seeking objective knowledge does not require a naïve empiricism ignorant of the limits of objectivity. We would do well to use multiple methods to learn about how the mind works and what leads to therapeutic change.