Innen, Außen, Zwischen

The so-called “intersubjective turn” (or “relational turn”) in psychoanalysis is closely associated with the work of Winnicott. It was him who added a new dimension to the psychoanalytic theories of a separate inner world, a dimension focussing on the mediating processes between the separate spheres of psychic and external reality: a space between subject and object, drive and civilisation, Ego and reality — the “potential space” that unconsciously connects our self to the Other as well as to a shared physical and social world we live in. Winnicotts paradoxical notions of the self are traced in this paper and unwrapped from their often enigmatic, developmentally and epistemologically confusing veils: the infant who does not exist without a holding mother; who is not aware of his/her being held because of its evidence, and only has an experience when falling; who him-/herself creates that reality which is already there; who must destroy the object in order to use it; who can only be alone when another person is present. The author, starting from apparently narcissistic phenomena of the media society, rehabilitates the term of “in-between” in contemporary psychoanalytic discussion which for a long time was considered as suspect, as being part of a “non-psychoanalytic” superficial social psychology (as the intersubjective, the interpersonal or the interactive). Under the strong influence of Winnicott, and overarching the different schools, contemporary psychoanalysis is focussing on intersubjectivity and relationality. The paper is an appeal for reformulating classical intrapsychic concepts — including the theory of the unconscious—in intersubjective terms, thus unfolding a relational approach inherent in Freud’s metapsychology.     

THE MYTH AND HISTORY OF SOME PSYCHOANALYTIC CONCEPTS: THOUGHTS INSPIRED BY A READING OF ORANGE ET AL., WORKING INTERSUBJECTIVELY

In this paper the author gives her reactions to a book on the intersubjective approach that deals with major issues such as the analyst's role in the psychoanalytic process, neutrality, technique and self-disclosure. Noting that the book often adopts an antagonistic and innovative stance towards Freud, she draws attention to aspects of his theories that deal with concepts deemed by the intersubjective school to be of fundamental importance. Chief among these is the influence of the analyst on the analytic process, in terms both of his 'defects' and of his individuality in general. In opposition to the 'myth of the isolated mind' attributed by the book to Freud, the author presents some selected passages from his works that emphasise the structuring function of the object and the influence of various groups on the individual. The aim of the paper is not only to counter the oversimplified view of Freud that emerges from the book but also to put forward a theoretical position with respect to a school that is exerting an increasingly powerful attraction on both sides of the Atlantic. The author's argument is based mainly on a discussion of the detailed clinical sequences featuring in the book. She also considers some possible cultural and social determinants of the development of the intersubjective trend.     

Intersubjectivity Theory and the Dilemma of Intersubjective Motivation

This paper explores the topic of intersubjective motivation, understood as the process of being motivated by the subjectivity of other subjects. The author outlines a general conception of intersubjective motivation, arguing for the importance of that conception in advancing the relational project within psychoanalysis. The author reviews a handful of relational and intersubjective approaches, identifying and evaluating strategies that might be employed to explain the phenomenon of intersubjective motivation. Using Jessica Benjamin's theory of intersubjectivity as a starting point, the author proposes an original model of the intrapsychic conditions for intersubjective motivation identified as the intersubjective relational configuration. The clinical implications of these ideas are traced out, and an argument is made for the development of a comprehensive psychoanalytic theory of motivation, one that includes intrapsychic as well as intersubjective elements.     

Infantile defences in parent‐infant psychotherapy: The example of gaze avoidance

Findings from parent‐infant observational research have stimulated the development of intersubjective models of psychotherapeutic action. These models have brought out the infant as an interactive partner with the parent. Conversely, interest in describing the individual psyche of the baby has decreased, especially the unconscious levels of his/her experiences and representations. In parallel, clinicians and researchers have been less prone to apply classical psychoanalytic concepts when describing the internal world of the infant. The author argues that this is inconsistent with the fact that psychoanalytic theory, from its inception, was founded on speculations of the infant's mind. He investigates one such concept from classical theory; the defence. Specifically, he investigates if selective gaze avoidance in young babies may be described as a defence or even a defence mechanism. The investigation links with Selma Fraiberg's discussion of the phenomenon and also with Freud's conception of defence. The author also compares his views on the baby as a subject with those suggested by infant researchers, for example, Stern and Beebe. The discussion is illustrated by vignettes from a psychoanalytic therapy with a 3 month‐old girl and her mother.     

Sullivan und die intersubjektive Sichtweise

The author sees H.S. Sullivan??s (1892?C1949) interpersonal theory as the best theoretical framework for the contemporary intersubjective perspective in psychoanalysis and presents it in its pluridimensional articulation. After having extended Freud??s therapeutic approach to psychotic patients, Sullivan developed both a developmental psychology and a psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic technique based on the ??interpersonal field?? as the basic unit of study. To the pluridimensional character of his theory also belongs its application to the cultural and social aspects of our personal identity. Because the contemporary psychoanalytic authors who shaped the intersubjective perspective limited themselves to the clinical dimension, Sullivan??s interpersonal theory can still provide the theoretical framework which any psychoanalytic perspective needs.     

Interpretation in the Context of Supervision

The author looks into the issue of interpretation and traces its evolution both from mere opinion, and from the point of view of the historical development of hermeneutics. In supervision interpretive dissonance may occur at several levels starting with the patient himself as well as his “gatekeepers,” and going up to the supervisor. The relationship between interpretation and supervision is examined in this context, taking into consideration the subjective and intersubjective levels of scientific inquiry. Supervision enhances the complexity of interpretation by introducing yet a third subjectivity that questions the supervisee's interpretation. This has advantages and shortcomings, as supervisors are not always aware that it is ultimately in the supervisee-patient situation where hypotheses are tested and confirmed. Theory alone cannot supersede the intersubjective situation. It is pointed out that psychoanalytic curricula should be reexamined in order to include semiotic science and its application to interpretation and supervision.     

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.     

Reflections on Janine Puget's Paper

In my discussion of Janine Puget's deeply thought-provoking paper, I focus on her central argument that the subject's interior world and the world of intersubjective relationships answer to different logics and evolve along separate developmental paths. Puget's argument hinges on a notion of the other, and of otherness as disruptive and traumatic to the subject. My discussion aims to problematize this notion on two fronts. First, I suggest that otherness is not only external to the subject. I point to some ways in which psychoanalysis conceives of otherness and of the other as integral to the constitution and development of the subject. Further, I argue that individuals sometimes desire and actively seek otherness. I engage in this context the question of social displacement and immigration, Puget's other main concern in her paper. Life tourists, as Puget calls them, are a paradox of will and necessity, where the prospect of confronting otherness and being othered is both a threat and a life-affirming recourse. Yet there seems to be more involved in immigration than the psychology of individuals or their relationships. Drawing on my personal and clinical experience as an immigrant working with other immigrants, I suggest that beyond the self-other relation, we can recognize otherness on a third dimension, that of collective, socio-political, normative discourse. Looking at the psychoanalytic notion of Oedipus, I suggest the possibility that Puget's view of the subjective and intersubjective as disparate captures the effect this third, social dimension of human life on the construction of subjectivity and of human relating. I argue that the fault line Puget recognizes may be understood as the effect, within subjectivity, of social power.     

‘The newspaper reader’: On the meaning of concrete objects in a psychoanalytic treatment1

The author investigates the meaning of concrete objects in the psychoanalytic treatment of a severely disturbed patient for the development of his inner world and the analytic process. She includes a survey of relevant theoretical concepts with an emphasis on Winnicott and Bion. It is shown that the objects served basic defensive functions both within the analytic relationship and for the precarious intrapsychic state of the patient. The author describes the technical dealing that led to a structural change. From the comparison of the initial dream and a later dream, Mr N's inner development from total inclusion in the object to triadic reality of separated, repaired objects becomes discernible. The author shows how this progress was facilitated by his use of concrete objects as links between his psychotic and non‐psychotic parts, as well as by the specifi c way the analyst handled the paradoxical transference‐ countertransference. She also illustrates the thesis that the developmental steps described are crucial for the capability to digest psychic pain by symbolization instead of discharging it in a destructive‐violent way.     

Critical refl ections on intersubjectivity in psychoanalysis1

The authors review the philosophical trend known as postmodernism and the way it has infl uenced a part of psychoanalytic thought, concluding with some comments on the qualities and shortcomings of the new developments. The authors consider the origins and the cultural and aesthetic‐philosophical meaning of postmodernism, identifying some key concepts such as deconstructionism, the disappearance of the ‘individual subject’ and individual identity, and the rejection of ‘in‐depth’ models of psychoanalysis. Then they examine various, wide‐ranging developments in psychoanalytic thought and treatment. They review the intersubjective fi eld in psychoanalysis, especially in the USA, and then explore whether the underlying lack of truth to be discovered, stressed by these ‘new view’ statements, or the fact that the ‘truth’ only exists in linguistic‐narrative constructions is consistent with basic analytic concepts such as the unconscious, phantasy, transference and countertransference, which recall the tri‐dimensional nature of inner psychic reality. The psychoanalytic process is a condition activated through a bond that is able to hold and contain the relationship of the analytic couple and the patient's unconscious world and not through hermeneutic or narrative constructions.     

Subjectivity, objectivity, and triangular space

The author reviews his ideas on subjectivity, objectivity, and the third position in the psychoanalytic encounter, particularly in clinical work with borderline and narcissistic patients. Using the theories of Melanie Klein and Wilfred Bion as a basis, the author describes his concept of triangular space. A case presentation of a particular type of narcissistic patient illustrates the principles discussed.     

Verlorenes Objekt, Trennung und Anerkennung

Zusammenfassung. Die Verarbeitung von Trennungserfahrungen ist für die Psychoanalyse ein zentrales Anliegen. Trennungserfahrungen spielen in verschiedenen analytischen Konzepten eine Rolle. Zun?chst mu? daher gekl?rt werden, welche verschiedenen Dimensionen des Themas „Trennung” in der psychoanalytischen Theorie ausgearbeitet worden sind. Da? Trennungen verarbeitet werden k?nnen, ist an bestimmte Voraussetzungen geknüpft. Die Folgen von Trennungserfahrungen sind v.a. aus einer intrapsychischen Perspektive beschrieben worden. Diese Betrachtungsweise mu? durch eine intersubjektive erg?nzt werden. Klinische Konzepte früher Trennungspathologien und die neuere S?uglingsforschung weisen auf die Bedeutung der intersubjektiven Perspektive für die Psychoanalyse hin. Intrapsychische und intersubjektive Perspektive schlie?en einander nicht aus, sondern verschr?nken sich miteinander. Wesentlich für dieses Wechselspiel ist der Begriff der Anerkennung, der in Anlehnung an Benjamin eingeführt wird. Er ist hilfreich, um die ethischen Implikationen der psychoanalytischen Trennungsmodelle zu bedenken.

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The lost object, separation and recognition. About the foundation of psychoanalytic therapy and psychoanalytic ethics concerning the experience of separation

Summary. There exists not only one psychoanalytic concept of ”separation”. Instead, it covers a wide range of psychoanalytic constructs, such as separation in Mahler’s terms, object loss, castration, the Lacanian model of psychic representation and so forth. The first aim of the present paper is to clarify the various concepts. As will be shown, most psychoanalytic concepts focus on the intrapsychic dimension of separation processes. Nevertheless, the working through of separation experiences is bound to intersubjective experiences as can be shown in reference to the clinical concepts on very early interpersonal pathology and to the contemporary research on infantile development. The intersubjective and intrapsychic perspectives do not contradict, but supplement each other. J. Benjamin has introduced the term ”recognition” into the psychoanalytic debate. Recognition is a major link between the two perspectives. It is helpful to outline the ethical consequences that can be drawn from the psychoanalytic concepts on ”separations”.

     

The psychoanalytic vision of Hans Loewald

Hans Loewald is a comprehensive and original theorist on a par with any major post-Freudian thinker, yet neither his ideas nor his person have become the basis for a Loewaldian school or approach, and he is not as well known as other innovators of comparable quality. In this paper the author attempts to characterize the scope and depth of Loewald's theory-his vision of the psyche and psychic life, or metapsychology, his characterization of the psychoanalytic process, and his vision of the clinical and human goals of psychoanalysis. She suggests that Loewald holds in all of these realms, and without apparent contradiction, a doubled-emphatically ego-psychological and emphatically object-relational-perspective, and an equal commitment to both the first topography and the structural theory. His views throughout are undergirded by a bi-directional developmental view that centers on differentiation and integration. The paper includes brief reflections on how to assess psychoanalytic theories, like Loewald's, developed before empirical research that seems to challenge them.     

Obstacles to oedipal passion

Many new theoretical and technical developments have extended our understandings of triangular conflicts in the psychoanalytic setting. Yet until recently psychoanalysis has lacked theoretical concepts for passion and, most particularly, for oedipal passion. Contemporary psychoanalytic understandings of the nature of oedipal passion help explain why it is both difficult to articulate and why it continues to be "forgotten". The author argues that individual resistances to oedipal passions reappear and are reinforced in collective theories that distance us from oedipal issues. She presents two clinical cases that illustrate enactments around, and resistances to, oedipal passions within both analyst and patient.     

Neutrality,tenderness and the analyst's subjectivity

Addressing the rôle of the analyst in the psychoanalytic relationship, the author takes issue with the emphasis on acknowledging the analyst's subjectivity and the critique of concepts like neutrality and abstinence as these issues are presented in the relational tradition. He advocates a better articulation and emphasis of these concepts in the service of understanding the impact of the analyst's subjectivity, and demonstrates how the mere loosening up of analytic neutrality and abstinence and an acceptance of the analyst's self-disclosure make transference analysis more difficult to handle. Such an attitude also increases the risk for ethically dubious conduct, since there is a close link between clinical methods and ethical standards in psychoanalysis. In conclusion, the author points to the importance of the analyst's continuous self-reflection and countertransference analysis.     

Future and potentiality in the psychoanalytic process

A perspective is delineated on the dimension of the future in the psychoanalytic situation. Clinical manifestations are presented of the tension between actuality and potentiality that characterizes the treatment situation. This tension, an aspect of the intersubjective field that exists between patient and analyst, involves the analyst's hopes, expectations, anticipations, sense of purpose, and therapeutic intent, facets of the analyst's subjectivity that affect the clinical process. The question of the patient's individuality and autonomy is raised in the context of the notion of the "true self." To understand potentiality in the clinical situation, it is argued, the intersubjective emphasis on the inevitable mutual influence between analyst and patient must be complemented by a view of the self as emerging from within and gaining coherence through the unfolding of inherent dispositions and potentialities.     

The patient's transference experience of the analyst's gender: Projection,factuality, interpretation,or construction

The constructivist/relational perspective has challenged the analyst's emotional superiority, her omniscience, and her relative removal from the psychoanalytic dialogue. It at first appears to be antithetical to treatment approaches that emphasize the analyst's holding functions. In this essay I examine the holding model and its resolution from a relational perspective. I propose that the current discomfort with the holding function is related to its apparent, but not necessarily real, implications. I discuss the analyst's and patient's subjectivity during periods of holding. I believe that the holding process is essential when the patient has intensely toxic reactions to “knowing”; the analyst and is therefore not yet able to stand a mutual analytic experience. During holding, the patient experiences an illusion of analytictic attunement. This requires that the analyst's dysjunctive subjectivity be contained within the analyst, but not that it be abandoned. Ultimately, it is the transition from the holding position toward collaborative interchange that will allow analyst and patient explicitly to address and ultimately to integrate dependence and mutuality within the psychoanalytic setting and thereby engage in an intersubjective dialogue. The movement toward mutuality will require that the analyst of the holding situation begin to fail in ways that increasingly expose her externality and thus her subjectivity to the patient.     

A psychoanalytical phenomenology of perversion1

After stating that the current tasks of psychoanalytic research should fundamentally include the exploration of the analyst's mental processes in sessions with the patient, the author describes the analytical relation as one having an intersubjective nature. Seen from the outside, the analytical relation evidences two poles: a symmetric structural pole where both analyst and patient share a single world and a single approach to reality, and a functional asymmetric pole that defines the assignment of the respective roles. In the analysis of a perverse patient, the symmetry‐asymmetry polarities acquire some very particular characteristics. Seen from the perspective of the analyst's subjectivity, perversion appears in the analyst's mind as a surreptitious and unexpected transgression of the basic agreement that facilitates and structures intersubjective encounters. It may go as far as altering the Aristotelian rules of logic. When coming into contact with the psychic reality of a perverse patient, what happens in the analyst's mind is that a world takes shape. This world is misleadingly coloured by an erotisation that sooner or later will acquire some characteristics of violence. The perverse nucleus, as a false reality, remains dangling in mid‐air as an experience that is inaccessible to the analyst's empathy. The only way the analyst can reach it is from the ‘periphery’ of the patient's psychic reality, by trying in an indirect way to lead him back to his intersubjective roots. At this point, the author's intention is to explain this intersubjective phenomenon in terms of metapsychological and empirical research‐based theories. Finally, some ideas on the psychogenesis of perversion are set forth.     

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.