Between private and public: Towards a conception of the transitional subject

Elaborating upon Winnicott’s seminal contributions on the transitional object, the author proposes a conception of a transitional subject in which the patient comes into being simultaneously between private and public, subjective creation and material life, me and not‐me. By anchoring subjective creation in the real world (including the body), the patient creates a basis for authentic psychesoma as well as for both personal and symbolic contributions to the world beyond omnipotence, including the world of other subjects. In this sense, intersubjective life is seen as predicated upon transitionality, with the patient seen as simultaneously coming into being as a distinctly personal subject and, in part, as a symbol. Clinical phenomenology is described and is interpreted with respect to the need within psychoanalysis itself for a third, and for a realm of meaning‐creation that lies beyond privacy, omnipotence, and the dyad.     

Developmental trajectory of intersubjectivity in the second and third year of life: Study of fixed-population and random-individual effects

Colwyn Trevarthen claimed that babies have an intrinsic motivation to communicate and engage with others that he called intersubjectivity. Around the ninth month of life, this motivation changes and passes from person-to-person dyadic (primary intersubjectivity) to triangulate a person–person–object relationship (secondary intersubjectivity). Despite the scientific consensus on this developmental leap, few empirical studies explore the trajectory of this more complex form of intersubjectivity between the second and third year of life. One hundred and fifteen free play sessions from 27 mother–child dyads (13 girls and 14 boys) between 9 and 37 months were filmed and were categorized based on the Level of Intersubjective Attunement Scale. The data were analysed using a linear mixed-effects model. Results show both a population trajectory of the levels of intersubjective attunement and random individual differences. We discuss these results in relation to the binomial typical developmental route and interindividual variability.     

Anticipatory grief: The search for destiny

This paper explores the dynamics between a woman dying of cancer, the man she lived with for 37 years, and the clinician who worked with them during the final months of the woman's life. Psychoanalytic perspectives on transformational and transitional object-seeking as natural processes which aid the internalization of attachment to the one who is approaching death, the creation of a primary maternal preoccupation in the caretaker, the hospice as a holding environment, and the search for destiny as a metaphor for the work of anticipatory grief are integrated with the case-material.Presented at the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting,Person, Culture and Religion Pre-session, November, 1991.     

Feminist phenomenological voices

A feminist phenomenological analysis of voice, rooted in both the feminist understanding of the role of voice in identity, agency, and the creation of meaning, and the phenomenological thematization and theorization of phenomenal, lived experience, leads to a deeper understanding of the importance of the materiality of the voices with which we speak, and their role in both subjective and intersubjective experience. Starting from an analysis of the intertwined associations and imageries of the feminine, voice, and embodiment, I discuss the denaturalization and abstraction of voice in standard narratives of voice and voice metaphorization, and the corresponding forgetting of the living, bodily voice. In looking to recall a re-naturalized and immanent corporeality and retrieve the material voice through an account of embodied vocality, I consider examples of the power and immediacy of the corporeal voice in the female operatic voice, and in contrast, the compromised agency and attenuated (inter)subjectivity which attends the impaired or lost physical voice. These vocal counterpoints of presence and absence are often separated by corporeal disturbance or limitation, underscoring the importance of corporeality and the material voice as intermediary between the individual and the social world. This sets the contours of a phenomenology of embodied voice and vocality, holding implications for accounts of identity and intersubjectivity, gendered vocality and expressive agency, and an intercorporeality mediated by the living material voice.     

Emergent Monism and the Classical Doctrine of the Soul

Traditional Christian belief in the existence of human life after death within a transformed material universe should be capable of rational justification if one chooses carefully the philosophical scheme underlying those claims. One should not have to appeal simply to the power of a loving God to justify one's beliefs. A revision of Whitehead's metaphysical scheme is proposed that allows one to render these classical Christian beliefs at least plausible to a broad range of contemporary thinkers as a consequence of a cosmology based on the principle of universal intersubjectivity and the need for a common ground between opposing subjectivities.     

Trauma Triangles and Parallel Processes: Geometry and the Supervisor/Trainee/Patient Triad

Relational psychoanalytic literature is filled with discussion regarding how the concept of intersubjectivity has enhanced the space between and within patients and analysts. As the relationship between the dyad expands and contracts, prior traumatic experiences become ripe for reenactment. What happens when the therapist is a trainee and her supervisor reenacts the abuse experienced by the patient onto her? When the enactment extends beyond the dyad and moves into the triad, how can the trainee use this shared experience to create agency for both herself and the patient? And how does the institutionalized authority of the training environment expand or collapse the transitional space required for trainees to create their own analyst identity? This paper explicates a case in which the trainee was able to use a rupture in the supervisory relationship to further enter the subjugated space of the patient, ultimately empowering both to develop a new way of relating to each other that moved them out of such constricted complimentary roles.     

The Political Philosophy of Intersubjectivity and the Logic of Discourse

This paper is concerned with the competing and complimentary relationships between intersubjectivity and discursive logic. It contends that the ultimate failure of Husserlian phenomenology is a testament to the dilemma of subjectivist philosophy. Indeed, political philosophy requires a paradigm-shift from subjectivity to intersubjectivity. With this in mind, this paper examines the classical encounter between morality and ethical life in connection with discursive ethics. While it argues that Habermas still retains a strong residue of subjectivist philosophy, it attempts to clarify the discursive analysis of Foucault and probes into its applicability to practical philosophy.     

The codification of intersubjectivity in the diachronic change <Emphasis Type="Italic">AD locative</Emphasis> &gt; <Emphasis Type="Italic">A</Emphasis>(<Emphasis Type="Italic">D</Emphasis>) <Emphasis Type="Italic">indirect object</Emphasis> in Spanish

The principal aim of this paper is to analyze the relationship between intersubjectivity and grammar. We argue that intersubjectivity represents, on the one hand, a prerequisite for the development of language as a symbolic system, and therefore also for the development of grammar. Furthermore, we attempt to show that language, and especially grammar, codify intersubjectivity. That is to say, grammatical constructions represent the intersubjective interactions that situated agents maintain in different pragmatic contects. We call this phenomenon the meta-representational capacity of language. Our main object of analysis is the development of the ditransitive construction (give something to someone - dar algo a alguien) in the Spanish language. The evolution of this construction makes it clear that there is an important correlation between the degree of complexity of the codified intersubjective interaction and grammatically obligatory nature and the prominence of the grammatical construction that codifies it: the greater the complexity, the greater its obligatoriness, and vice versa.     

Ferenczi's "Teratoma": A Result,not a Process

In Martin Stanton's 1990 monograph Sandor Ferenczi: Reconsidering Active Intervention , one of six exegetical chapters was titled "Teratoma", using Ferenczi's own word for malformations of (psychic) development. Since then, there has been a tendency in the larger Ferenczi literature to use "teratoma" as a metaphor, leading to the creation of many odd readings and contexts for this very specific, medical, anatomic term. When Stanton becomes expansive in viewing the teratoma as a "transitional object" which "negotiates a relationship between the growth of ideal-ego ideas in oneself and the outside 'influence' of inner systems of thought" (p. 176), he is entering the play-space that opened between Ferenczi and Groddeck during the 20s as Ferenczi's relationship with Freud became increasingly constricted. What this misses is that Ferenczi was a physician, as was Groddeck. For all their fanciful explorations of mind and body relatedness, for both Ferenczi and Groddeck there would be a shared background of certain basic terminology. In that medical terminology, "teratoma" refers to variable numbers of primordial germ cells in the embryo, which in the course of development become displaced, sequestered and grotesquely overgrown; they can never become the tissues they were meant to be. Their potential is forever squandered. "Monsters" they may be; "doubles" they may seem; but they are utterly non-viable. In his metaphorical application of the term "teratoma" to the natural history of (psychic) trauma, Ferenczi proposes a biological and psychological isomorphism that is both clinically illuminating and intuitively prophetic of the course of treatment of trauma, which he was discovering. Clinical and literary material are used to explore the gap between the anatomic teratoma and the psychic teratoma.     

Embryos created for research purposes.

The creation of embryos for research use has drawn a great deal of criticism. It is difficult to defend an ethical distinction between what one can do to "spare" embryos and what one can do to "research" embryos. The strongest ground on which to argue against the creation of embryos for research is a symbolic one, having to do with respect for human life. Ronald Dworkin's work in Life's Dominion on the symbolic meaning of the abortion debate throws a helpful light on this dispute. By understanding the basic question to be, Does the creation of research embryos weaken or insult our communal respect for the sanctity of human life in some way that in vitro fertilization (IVF) or the experimental use of "spare" embryos does not?, the debate can move in a more constructive direction.     

Intersubjectivity and interaction in the analytic relationship: a mainstream view

The authors conceptualize intersubjectivity as a meta-theory that reflects the inherent nature of human relatedness and is conceptually independent of any particular theory of mind or school of psychoanalysis. Their view of intersubjectivity joins the emotional life of the analyst to that of the patient and places the analytic relationship at the center of the analytic process. They contrast intersubjectivity with traditional classical conflict theory so as to clarify the relevance of intersubjectivity for psychoanalytic clinical theory and therapeutic practice. In so doing, they hope to direct analysts more firmly toward the study of the unconscious dyadic contributions to the affective, inactive, and interactive dimensions of the analytic situation and their impact upon the patient's actions within and experience of the analytic relationship. To illustrate their thesis, two hours from an analysis are presented in detail.     

DIMENSIONS OF INTERSUBJECTIVITY IN MAHĀYĀNA-BUDDHISM AND RELATIONAL PSYCHOANALYSIS

Buddhism has become one of the main dialogue partners for different psychotherapeutic approaches. As a psychological ethical system, it offers structural elements that are compatible with psychotherapeutic theory and practice. A main concept in Mahāyāna-Buddhism and postmodern psychoanalysis is intersubjectivity. In relational psychoanalysis the individual is analysed within a matrix of relationships that turn out to be the central power in her/his psychological development. By realising why one has become the present individual and how personal development is connected with relationships, the freedom to choose and create a life that is independent from inner restrictions should be strengthened. In Mahāyāna-Buddhism, intersubjectivity is the result of an understanding of all phenomena as being in interdependent connection. Human beings are a collection of different phenomena and in constant interchange with everything else. Personal happiness and freedom from suffering depends on how this interchange can be realised in experience. The article focuses on the philosophical psychological fundaments in both approaches and emphasises clarification of to what the term ‘intersubjectivity’ exactly refers. This clarification is essential for the current dialogues, as well as further perspectives in this interdisciplinary field.     

Imaginary companions in childhood and adult creativity.

Case material is presented to illustrate the thesis that the ability to create an imaginary companion during childhood is an early expression of the special ego aptitudes found in creative individuals in adult life. Such "companions" allow these children to attempt to master creatively a variety of narcissistic mortifications suffered in reality and to displace unacceptable affects. In creative adults who had imaginary companions in childhood, the early fantasies serve as an organizing schema in memory for the childhood traumata. Stimuli in adult life which evoke the earlier traumata may revive the original imaginary companion fantasies. These then serve as nodal bases for the creation of specific adult works of art.     

The Longitudinal Relationship Between Satisfaction with Transitional Care and Social and Emotional Quality of Life Among Chronically Ill Adolescents

This study aimed to identify the relationship between satisfaction with transitional care and quality of life of chronically ill adolescents over time. This longitudinal study included adolescents with type I diabetes, juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), and neuromuscular disorders (NMD). At baseline 138 respondents (response rate 31 %) filled in a questionnaire and 188 about 1 year later (response rate 43 %). Analysis of variance showed that adolescents with diabetes reported the highest physical quality of life, followed in order by those with NMD and JIA (p?≤?0.01). Adolescents with diabetes reported the highest social quality of life, followed in order by those with JIA and NMD (both at p?≤?0.001). Univariate analyses showed that satisfaction with transitional care at T0 was significantly related to emotional and physical quality of life at T1 (both at p?≤?0.05). At T1, satisfaction with transitional care was significantly related to the emotional, physical, and social domains of quality of life (all at p?≤?0.001). Multiple regression analyses revealed that satisfaction with transitional care at T1 was related to emotional (β -0.20; p?≤?0.05) and social (β -0.35; p?≤?0.01) quality of life domains over time. This indicates that lower gap scores, which measured differences between ‘best care’ and ‘current care,’ are associated with better social and emotional quality of life in this sample of adolescents. Satisfaction with transitional care and social and emotional quality of life are related over time.     

马克思思想与后现代性

马克思与后现代都致力于实现从实体主义和本质主义的思维方式向实践的和关系性的思维方式的转变,但马克思思想中蕴含的历史自我意识则与后现代主义的历史相对主义形成了一种批判性的对话。后现代性语境下的马克思思想提醒我们反思当代西方思想的人类性价值以及当代精神的过渡性状况。作为马克思核心论阈的社会与社会化的人给后现代哲学所关注的核心问题主体间性提供了一种有效的反省与治疗价值。     

“Is It Me,or Isn't It?”—Transplanted Organs and Their Donors as Transitional Objects

There are indications in psychosomatic transplant literature that the "transitional space" (in the D.W. Winnicott's sense) plays an important part in the psychic integration of an transplanted organ or its donor. The present case study is based on a semi-standard textbook interview carried out in the course of a qualitative research program with 20 male and female patients following a lung transplant. Two transcribed passages in the text, which relate to the transplanted organ and its donor, were interpreted from the point of view of Winnicott's "transitional phenomenon" model. The case study made it clear that, even years after a lung transplant, the patient experiences the organ and donor as transitional objects. The donor, as perceived by the patient, is a living, omnipotent person who is really present and to whom the recipient attributes ideal (personality) qualities. The transplanted lung, however, insofar as a psychosomatic integration of the organ has only partially succeeded, remains in the possession of both the donor and the recipient. The donor, as a typical transitional object, performs a creative function in helping the patient to cope with everyday life. The employment of the donor or the transplanted organ as "transitional object" may be seen, above all, as a positive assimilation strategy. On the other hand, transitional phenomena may also draw attention to desintegrative processes in surmounting an organ transplant. These clinical questions are discussed at the end of the paper.     

Explicating the Key Notions of Copresence and Verification in Relation to Husserl’s Use of the Term Direct to Describe Empathy

Zahavi and Gallagher’s contemporary direct perception model of intersubjectivity has its roots in the phenomenological project of Edmund Husserl. Some authors (Smith in Philos Phenomenol Res 81(3):731–748, 2010; Krueger in Phenomenol Cogn Sci 11:149–173, 2012; Bohl and Gangopadhyay in Philos Explor 17(2):203–222, 2014) have utilised, and criticised, Husserl’s model of direct empathic perception. This essay seeks to correct certain misunderstandings of Husserl notion of direct empathic perception and thus, by proxy, clarify the contemporary direct perception model, through an exegesis of Husserlian texts. In the first half of this essay I clarify the analogy between the directness of regular material object perception and the directness of empathic perception via a clarification of Husserl’s notion of co-presence. I argue that contemporary renditions of Husserl’s account which stress the dis-analogy between these two types of perception (Smith 2010; Krueger 2012) are based on a superficial and incorrect rendering of Husserl’s notion of co-presence. In the second half of this essay I clarify the notion of verification. I argue that, for Husserl, behaviour does not verify mental life. Instead, empathic verification occurs via the relation between concepts and intuitions. In my conclusions I show how contemporary authors misunderstand the fundamental nature of Husserl’s account of empathy because of the downgraded status of psychic life within contemporary cognitive science.     

Existence in time: development or catastrophe

The experience of existing in time is closely bound up with the phenomenology of the depressive position and, as such, represents a major developmental achievement. However, for some patients, awareness of time and their place in it is felt not as offering the possibility of development, but instead is dreaded as an imminent catastrophe that has to be evaded. This is achieved through the creation of an illusory timeless world, which, although offering some relief compounds the feeling of threat. The author draws on material from Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) and on clinical material from a psychoanalysis to illustrate the attractions and dangers of life in this illusory world, where the "picture in the attic" represents the threat that can never be fully faced nor fully erased. The link between the awareness of time passing and the capacity to mourn is discussed in relation to Freud's paper "On Transience" (1916), which in the author's view anticipates certain features of the depressive position as described by Klein (1935, 1940). The author makes further observations on the relation between instantiation in time, which brings a world of causes and consequences, as well as the capacity for bearing guilt.     

Introduction: A Systems View

Our goal in this series of four papers is a further refinement of a theory of interaction for psychoanalysis, with a specific focus on the concept of intersubjectivity. Psychoanalysis has addressed the concept of intersubjectivity primarily in the verbal/explicit mode. In contrast, infant research has addressed the concept of intersubjectivity in the nonverbal/implicit mode of action sequences, or procedural knowledge. We propose that an integration of explicit/linguistic with implicit/nonverbal theories of intersubjectivity is essential to a deeper understanding of therapeutic action in psychoanalysis today. To shed light on an implicit/nonverbal dimension of intersubjectivity in psychoanalysis, we include concepts from adult psychoanalysis, infant research, developmental systems theories, and nonverbal communication, particularly the distinction between implicit processing out of awareness and explicit processing at the declarative/verbal level. We conclude with an adult psychoanalytic case illustrating the integration of implicit/nonverbal forms of intersubjectivity into adult treatment.