Discussions Of Intersubjectivity Research Articles

Direct social perception of others’ subjective time

In this paper, I deploy Gallagher et al.’s theory of Direct Social Perception (DSP) to help explain how we perceive others’ subjective time. This process of second-person temporal perception plays an important role in interpersonal interaction, yet is often glossed over in discussions of intersubjectivity. Using A.D. Craig (2009) ‘awareness’ model of subjective time to unify converging evidence that subjective time is embodied, affective, and situated, I argue that subjective time cannot be considered as a hidden or invisible aspect of a private mind, but is partially externally visible through our gestures, expressions, and other behaviours as they unfold within a particular context. My central thesis is that, in face to face interactions, we are able to directly perceive these visible components of other people’s subjective time. This is made possible by our “enculturated” (Menary, 2015) and enactive perceptual faculties. The process of social perception is not a passive, unidirectional affair where static information about one person’s subjective time is transmitted to the other, but rather inextricably linked with action (both at the personal and subpersonal level) and interaction effects produced by a dynamic coupling between participants. Such an enactive perspective reveals how others’ subjective time can be perceived in everyday interactions.

Getting Next to Ourselves: The Interpersonal Dimensions of Double-Consciousness

This essay explores, in a speculative and reflective, rather than heavily researched, mode how we might think as psychoanalysts about the interpersonal dimensions of double-consciousness. I begin by sharing briefly the convergence of ideas and disciplines that I am bringing together: the original conceptualization of double-consciousness in Black studies and critical race theory; and psychoanalytic discussions of intersubjectivity. I then tell two stories, both involving my experiences of incidents of racial tension in educational settings. These experiences inspired me to perform an informal online review of writing in the mental health field on guilt and rage—the powerful pair of feelings that seemed to emerge, repeatedly and consistently, in scenes of public racial discussion and confrontation. I then turn to discussing “White double-consciousness” and “Black mirroring,” extending psychoanalytic interpretations and their application to the psychic dynamics of interpersonal, interracial, relating. Double-consciousness is placed in dialogue with understandings of the mirror stage, intersubjectvity, radical openness, and thirdness, theorized, respectively, by Jacques Lacan, Philip Bromberg, Anton Hart, and Jessica Benjamin. Along the way, I also draw from the work of Frantz Fanon. Ultimately, my goal is to think with and respond to a recent call by Lynne Layton for us to develop a psychoanalytic framework for thinking about White double-consciousness.

Virginia Satir’s Transformational Systemic Therapy: A Transpersonal Approach to Family Therapy

The work of Virginia Satir, a pioneer family therapist, is examined as a transpersonal approach to family therapy. Ways in which transpersonal perspectives may be applied in family therapy are explored in Satir’s notions of grounding and centering, the evolving and transcending concept of congruence using the Self/I AM concept in the Satir iceberg model, as well as the Satir conceptualization of the therapist’s use of self. Aspects of transpersonal psychotherapy relevant to the practice of family therapy are examined, including the creation of a transpersonal space of trust in order to strengthen the therapeutic alliance, going beyond meaning in working with the family system to apply transpersonal (e.g. nondual psychotherapeutic) approaches to the therapist’s use of self in therapy. A discussion of intersubjectivity and the role of the beingness of the family therapist in promoting transcendence, awareness, and healing for the family is included. Satir family therapy is consistent with transpersonal psychotherapeutic perspectives and is therefore recommended as a prospective family therapy modality for the transpersonally-oriented psychotherapist. KEYWORDS Satir, Family Therapy, Transpersonal Psychology, Transpersonal Psychotherapy, Transcendence, Consciousness, Transformation, Intersubjectivity, Nondual Psychotherapy.

Being other: Intersubjectivity, allocentrism and the possible

AbstractThis paper engages with the issues of intersubjectivity by raising three main questions about it: What is the status of the other and of the perspective of the other? How would a social ontology that starts from the other look like? and What is the relation between intersubjectivity and the possible? In addressing these questions, I propose four main approaches to self–other relations, each one focused on a different set of theories of intersubjectivity: cognitive (being self), pragmatist (becoming other), dialogical (becoming self), and allocentric (being other). Their main premises, processes, theories and proponents, as well as implications for ethics and the emergence of novelty, are reflected on in turn. Allocentrism emerges as a useful way to shift the focus from self to other in discussions of intersubjectivity, as an ontological condition of the possible, but also as a difficult position to adopt in practice, particularly in polarized societies.

Eros and the Argonauts

ABSTRACTTaking its cue from Lynne Huffer’s paper on the politics of eros, this paper focuses on the relational dynamics such a politics might entail. The paper thereby suggests that the project of reimagining politics should be linked to a hermeneutics of intersubjectivity by (1) assessing Maggie Nelson’s Argonauts as exemplary in this regard; and (2) comparing what Nelson’s account of the erotics of parenting and partnering might contribute to theoretical discussions of intersubjectivity in works by Judith Butler and Amy Hollywood.

Electronic Literature as a Sword of Lightning

This essay analyzes the humanistic potential of digital poetry in the age of new media. By way of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Defence of Poetry,” theories of the posthuman, and the tradition of Marxist critique, this essay aims to identify an occasion for hope within the new media arts. Reading electronic literature through Shelley’s metaphor of poetry as a “sword of lightning, ever unsheathed, which consumes the scabbard that would contain it,” Heckman analyzes the ethical dimensions of literature against the backdrop of technocapitalism and instrumental theories of the human. The essay concludes with a discussion of intersubjectivity, politics, and love.

The Interface Between Attachment and Intersubjectivity: Another Contribution from Karlen Lyons-Ruth

Karlen Lyons-Ruth's latest very important article places the mechanisms of attachment in a new, intersubjective context against a background of evolutionary biology. The present discussion adds a further way to think about Lyons-Ruth's discussion of intersubjectivity, relating it to the work of the Hungarian developmentalists Csibra and Gergely. Their theory makes the intersubjective processes highlighted by Lyons-Ruth central in human evolution and individual development. The human mind is unique in that it learns about the meaning of the external world—especially the social and emotional world—through another subjectivity; that means that the other person must be available to “teach.” Lyons-Ruth's findings are compatible with the prediction, from Csibra and Gergely's theory, that the withdrawal of the caregiver would be crucial to later pathology. It means the absence of the essential source of information both about the self (through contingent mirroring) and about loved others and the rest of the world. Because the study sample size is small, the finding of an absence of interaction between genes and environmental influences cannot be conclusive.

Folk Psychology and the Biological Basis of Intersubjectivity

Recent philosophical discussions of intersubjectivity generally start by stating or assuming that our ability to understand and interact with others is enabled by a ‘folk psychology’ or ‘theory of mind’. Folk psychology is characterized as the ability to attribute intentional states, such as beliefs and desires, to others, in order to predict and explain their behaviour. Many authors claim that this ability is not merely one amongst many constituents of interpersonal understanding but an underlying core that enables social life. For example, Churchland states that folk psychology ‘embodies our baseline understanding’ of others (1996, p. 3). Currie and Sterelny similarly assert that ‘our basic grip on the social world depends on our being able to see our fellows as motivated by beliefs and desires we sometimes share and sometimes do not’ (2000, p. 143). And, as Frith and Happé put it, ‘this ability appears to be a prerequisite for normal social interaction: in everyday life we make sense of each other’s behaviour by appeal to a belief-desire psychology’ (1999, p. 2).

Folk Psychology and the Biological Basis of Intersubjectivity

Recent philosophical discussions of intersubjectivity generally start by stating or assuming that our ability to understand and interact with others is enabled by a ‘folk psychology’ or ‘theory of mind’. Folk psychology is characterized as the ability to attribute intentional states, such as beliefs and desires, to others, in order to predict and explain their behaviour. Many authors claim that this ability is not merely one amongst many constituents of interpersonal understanding but an underlying core that enables social life. For example, Churchland states that folk psychology ‘embodies our baseline understanding’ of others (1996, p. 3). Currie and Sterelny similarly assert that ‘our basic grip on the social world depends on our being able to see our fellows as motivated by beliefs and desires we sometimes share and sometimes do not’ (2000, p. 143). And, as Frith and Happe put it, ‘this ability appears to be a prerequisite for normal social interaction: in everyday life we make sense of each other's behaviour by appeal to a belief-desire psychology’ (1999, p. 2).

‘Why Sally Never Calls Bobby “I” ’ Revisited: an Alternative Perspective on Language and Early Self Development

In this article, I consider the question posed by Boesch (2003) in his commentary that appeared in response to issues raised in Coehlo and Figueiredo’s (2003) discussion of intersubjectivity. I begin with an overview of an alternative view of language to the one adopted in Boesch’s question, one that starts from a usage-based approach. Next I move on to consider empirical findings from recent research that examines language and the construction of self. Agreeing with Boesch’s central claim, this article nevertheless offers a distinct view of the connection between language and human development suggesting that language not only provides a tool for the researcher, but also provides a powerful means for the child to come to interpret culturally sanctioned ways of being in the world.

Discussion of intersubjectivity — the challenge and opportunity for accounting

Discussion of intersubjectivity — the challenge and opportunity for accounting