| Abstract: | 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. |
