The discovery of an internal other – in everyday life, in illness and in art

Abstract

In everyday life, we can find our own autonomy taken over by the contrary agenda of an inner other and this experience is also reflected in our language. Commonly used phrases about ‘being in two minds’ or ‘not being in your right mind’ show that such experiences are not confined to major mental illness. Despite this, our clinical discourse usually demands that people be dealt with as single entities such as ‘the patient’; ‘he’; ‘you’ and ‘I’. In order to explore this matter further, I draw on the personal experiences of ‘Outsider artists’ who find themselves driven to produce their art by an agency that they do not know or understand. I then explore the contributions of some psychoanalytic authors, including McDougal, Bion, Winnicott, and Jung who have recognized and described this autonomous internal agency. I also explore how philosophers such as Heidegger and Bakhtin address the experience of ‘being in the world’ in a way that can also allow more recognition of the existence of an internal other. Finally, I discuss how Samuel Beckett's late prose depicts the disturbing consequences of this internal situation.