Intersubjective View Research Articles

Klein, Bion, and Intersubjectivity: Becoming, Transforming, and Dreaming

Kleinian theory and practice has not typically been associated with an intersubjective approach, and the author argues that a close reading of the Kleinian literature reveals an implicit intersubjectivity. The concept of projective identification, originally intended by Klein (1946/1975d) to refer only to a change in the patient's mind in his or her perception of the analyst, has been greatly expanded to include the actual subjective experiences of the analyst in response to the analysand's projections. This has led to an emphasis on the necessity of the analyst becoming the patient's projected phantasy, a process that has been systematically explored by Bion. His writings underscore the role of a kind of dreaming process that is required on the part of both analyst and analysand to transform mutual unconscious communications. The author also addresses the further development of the Kleinian/Bionian view of intersubjectivity by the River Plate Group in Argentina and Uruguay, beginning in the early 1960s, whose contributions include the notion of a shared unconscious phantasy of the analytic couple. The paper concludes with a clinical discussion of two interlinking dreams—one by the author and the other by a female patient—that illustrate these points.

Intersubjektyvumo problematika Zhuangzi filosofijoje

The article deals with the question of intersubjectivity in Daoists’ treatise Zhuangzi and shows how in Daoism a skeptical approach towards rationality and reasonable, logical understanding is reflected in the very topic of inter-human understanding. The author argues that in Zhuangzi “self ” is treated as uncertain and contextual; thus, according to a situation, it can suddenly transform and take totally different features. A popular and often interpreted dialogue between Zhuangzi and his opponent Huizi about joy of the fish is analyzed from the point of view of intersubjectivity – the author shows how the possibility of mutual understanding between two interlocutors as well as between human being and the fish or the nature in general is treated. The author argues that intersubjective relation according to Zhuangzi is possible not on a rational or empirical level but on a deeper intuitive, empathetic level. Finally, the author shows how this topic is treated in western phenomenology and dialogical philosophy.

Marian Tolpin: Forward Edge Thinker, Clinician, and Teacher

In this tribute to Marian Tolpin, I suggest that her concept of forward and trailing edge transferences is compatible with an intersubjective systems view of development and psychoanalysis. Certainly in keeping with this approach was her insistence that the analyst monitor her countertransference and that she also interpret forward and trailing edge transference phenomena in the context of the analyst's here-and-now failures, as well as in the context of their origins in the patient's history. Marian pointed out that forward edge transference interpretations, in particular, can help the patient make sense of his or her experience, or can “make it comprehensible.” I also include a brief excerpt from an online seminar led by Marian in 2004, in which participants discussed Marian's 2002 article, “Doing Psychoanalysis of Normal Development: Forward Edge Transferences.” I describe some of the special qualities that Marian brought to her teaching, suggesting that as a teacher no less than as an analyst, she fun...

A relational psychoanalysis perspective on the necessity of acknowledging failure in order to restore the facilitating and containing features of the intersubjective relationship (the shared third)

Relational psychoanalysis has emphasized that the analyst’s awareness of her failures in recognition and hurtful re-opening of old wounds requires of her an internal struggle with self-regulation, with her own shame and guilt. This struggle takes place in the watchful presence of someone who is (sometimes hypervigilantly) listening to and monitoring the signs of the analyst’s internal state. If, in response to the patient’s hyper-arousal, the analyst retreats from the ‘music’ of mutual regulation (Knoblauch, 2000) into a dissociative use of observation in order to calm down, the patient can feel it. If, however, we are mindful of our failures, gradually we will learn together to recover from ruptures in attunement, and thus become sensitive to and use more effectively the inexplicable gaps created by the patient’s unintegrated or warring self-parts and the analyst’s failure to contain them. Thus moments of excess that fail to evoke a mirroring knowledge can serve instead to signal the unformulated, undifferentiated malaise, despair or fear. This perspective on ruptures represents an amplification of my original articulation of the process of mutual recognition as one of breakdown and restoration of intersubjective space (Benjamin, 1988). This expanded relational perspective includes the awareness of multiple self-parts that create different dyadic pairings within the same relationship and a view of intersubjectivity that emphasizes not just the fact of mutual influence (Stolorow and Atwood) but the consciousness that that there is a bi-directional dance between patient and analyst that each person registers differently – a cocreated dance governed by what we call the third (Ogden, 1994). In previous discussions of the intersubjective third I have distinguished between ‘a primordial third’, which refers to the musical or rhythmic exchange of gestures between caretaker and child as well as the procedural principles of lawful relating that underlie it, and a ‘symbolic third’, which makes use of more developed narrative elements and involves procedural rules based on consensus, negotiation, and recognition, especially recognition of the other’s separate subjectivity (Benjamin, 2004). Because of the inevitability that things will sometimes go wrong, that we will enact frightening and shameful aspects of our internal world that both Int J Psychoanal (2009) 90:441–450 doi: 10.1111/j.1745-8315.2009.00163.x

Triebsphäre und Urkindheit des Ich

This paper explores Husserl’s late manuscripts in order to sketch a phenomenological description of drives and the dimension of passive constitution that belongs to them. Although this topic touches upon psychological issues, it will be shown that a specifically phenomenological approach allows us to recognize the transcendental significance of instincts. By means of the phenomenological reduction, drives reveal a peculiar subject, the ‘original child’, which is described not as a figure of developmental psychology but as a transcendental subject pre-forming the way the world appears to us. Drives work constantly and passively as obscure sources of sense, and the original child is always involved in the constitution of the world. Sharpening our understanding of the inner structure of subjectivity by digging into deeper constitutive levels has important consequences for our view of intersubjectivity: it is not only the individual subject’s consciousness but equally the relation between human subjects which is necessarily rooted in the dimension of drives. Accordingly, collective teleology cannot be considered a late product of human cooperation. Instead, it is an original and pre-predicative impulse.

Bion’s Ego Psychology: Implications for an Intersubjective View of Psychic Structure

Of all Freud’s writings, Bion was most deeply influenced by “Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning” (1911), and the author asserts that much of Bion’s major theoretical thinking may be seen as an elaboration of this paper. Bion’s introduction of the concept of alpha function, which “may be regarded as a structure” (Bion 1962, p. 26), constitutes what the author calls “Bion’s ego psychology.” A clinical implication of Bion’s ego psychology is a focus upon the unconscious interaction between the analyst’s and the patient’s communicating alpha functions. Clinical material from the analysis of an adolescent is offered to illustrate the author’s points.

To Disagree, We Must Also Agree: How Intersubjectivity Structures and Perpetuates Discourse in a Mathematics Classroom

Learning in a socially mediated context like a classroom places emphasis on the ability of learners to communicate their ideas to others, and for members of a class to achieve shared meaning or intersubjectivity (IS). We take a participatory view of IS, where both consensual agreement and disagreement are regarded as aspects of a common set of processes that mediate collective activity. Interlocutors need not demonstrate convergence toward a common idea or solution to exhibit IS and, indeed, they appear to need a shared understanding to express substantive disagreement through divergent views. Multilevel, multimodal analyses of videotape of a middle school mathematics classroom, including speech, gestures, drawing, and object use, reveal a discourse that is organized into recurrent sequences of event triads. The dynamics toward and away from convergent ideas appears to be instrumental in fostering sustained and engaging discourse and influencing the representations that students propose during problem solving. Participants frequently exhibited IS, but, as allowed for in the participatory view, the interactions did not seem to convert many students from their initial interpretations. Instead, disagreements and a desire to establish common understanding appeared to lead participants to express their divergent views in more refined and accessible ways. Advancement of our understanding of the role that IS serves in socially mediated learning has the potential to inform both educational theory and emerging areas in embodied cognition and cognitive neuroscience that addresses imitation and empathy, and thus help to bridge research between brain function and social cognition.

Two Bodies in the Room: An Intersubjective View of Female Objectification

This article discusses the effects of female sexual objectification on developing subjectivity and the importance of exploring the patient's associations to the female analyst's body in psychoanalytic work. The patient's subjective responses to the analyst's body can challenge intricate defenses against dependency that are socially constructed, centered on the female body, and tied to bad internal objects. By tending to the other body in the room and also allowing her body to be used as both an object and subject, the analyst offers the potential for an embodied relationship in which the patient may reflect on her interpersonal experience.

Four‐month‐olds Make Triangular Bids to Father and Mother During Trilogue Play with Still‐face

AbstractA new observational procedure, Trilogue Play with Still‐face, revealed 4‐month‐olds’ capacities to address both their fathers and mothers, by rapidly shifting gaze and affect between them. Infants were observed in four interactive contexts: (1) ‘3‐together’ play with both parents; (2) ‘2 + 1’ play with one parent engaging and the other as third party; (3) the same, with one parent posing a still‐face; (4) ‘3‐together’ play. Infants were able to discriminate between the four contexts. They coordinated three social poles of attention in each one. Their affect configurations were context sensitive. These findings demonstrate the infant's social capacities for triangular, three‐person interactions, in addition to dyadic, two‐person, and triadic, two‐person plus object, ones. They support a view of intersubjectivity as primary and point to a promising field of investigation for the study of family process.

Beyond Doer and Done To: an Intersubjective View of Thirdness

Analytic work based on the intersubjective view of two participating subjectivities requires discipline rooted in an orientation to the structural conditions of thirdness. The author proposes a theory that includes an early form of thirdness involving union experiences and accommodation, called the one in the third, as well as later moral and symbolic forms of thirdness that introduce differentiation, the third in the one. Clinically, the concept of a co-created or shared intersubjective thirdness helps to elucidate the breakdown into the twoness of complementarity in impasses and enactments and suggests how recognition is restored through surrender.

An Expanded View of Intersubjectivity in Infancy and its Application to Psychoanalysis

We consider the relevance of forms of intersubjectivity in infancy to the nonverbal and implicit dimension of intersubjectivity in psychoanalysis. The term forms of intersubjectivity, within the adult explicit and implicit modes and the infant presymbolic implicit mode, is offered to clarify the multiple meanings of intersubjectivity. The ideas of infant intersubjectivity of Meltzoff, Trevarthen, and Stern that have particular relevance for psychoanalysis are highlighted: the dialogic origin of mind, the role of correspondences, and the idea that symbolic forms of intersubjectivity are built on presymbolic forms. We build on their work to define a fourth position: that the full range of patterns of interactive regulation provides the broadest definition of the presymbolic origins of intersubjectivity, with correspondence being only one of many critical patterns. We additionally address the place of interactive regulation, problems with the concept of matching, the role of self-regulation, the role of difference, and the “balance model” of self- and interactive regulation. We take the position that all forms of interactive regulation are relevant to the possibility of perceiving and aligning oneself with the moment-by-moment process of the other. A broadened understanding of intersubjectivity in infancy sets the stage for a more fruitful exchange between infant researchers and psychoanalysts.

“Higher Powers and Infernal Regions”: Models of Mind in Freud's Interpretation of Dreams and Contemporary Psychoanalysis, and Their Implications for Pastoral Theology

Freud's “topographical” model of conscious and unconscious had a powerful early influence on pastoral psychology. The hegemony of this so-called “depth”-oriented repression model is being challenged on a number of fronts. The increasing recognition of the mutability of memory, and the politicization of repressed memory has called the idea of the repression barrier under scrutiny. Psychoanalytic thinkers and neurobiologists are separately rejecting the concept of repression in favor of dissociative processes and multiple mental states. Postmodernists question the notion of unitary self. This article explores the importance of these critiques for theological anthropology, and suggests their implications toward a new, more multiple and mutable imago Dei. The article concludes with implications of the new models of mind, emphasizing dissociation and multiplicity, toward a constructivist, intersubjective view of meaning-making in pastoral praxis.

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, enactive, 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.

Fred Dallmayr: The Odyssey of Reconciling Reason

In Twilight of Subjectivity (1981) Fred Dallmayr plots a course which takes him through an unbelievably productive period from 1981 to the present. I propose to honor Professor Dallmayr, whose uncanny ability has manifested itself in an attempt to rethink the post-enlightenment tradition, by following his work of this period through a series of reflections that begin with Hegel and end with Heidegger. In Twilight of Subjectivity, Dallmayr makes the argument that we are "be? yond possessive individualism" (Dallmayr, 1981, p. 8). Although Nozick's entitlement theory and Sartre's early writings are said to be representative of possessive individualism, critiques by Voegelin, Althusser, Foucault and Derrida set the stage for a kind of postor anti-humanism which transforms the very idea of what it is to be human. Dallmayr, rather than being a strict antihumanist, wants to have a deflated concept of human beings; not a "master of reality" but rather, following Heidegger, a "shepherd of being." Merleau Ponty, Adorno and, above all, Heidegger substantiate this view. Dallmayr wants to establish an idea of intersubjectivity "once the subject is removed from the cornerstone of social analysis." He argues that a reinterpreted un? derstanding of Mitsein will provide the basis for this view. Here, the crux of the argument is to show that L?with and Theunissen are essentially wrong in their egological interpretations of the early Heidegger. The later Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, Luk?cs and Adorno are brought to the fore to support this argument. The discussion ends with a typology of modes of sociality including communalism, association, movement and community. This reconstructed view of intersubjectivity will lead to a different view of the relationship between human beings and nature, reflecting Marx's view of the humanization of nature and the naturalization of man. Here Dallmayr relies on Derrida and Ricoeur to provide him with a non-teleological un? derstanding of the relationship between human beings and nature. From this analysis it is concluded that we can get another understanding of politics and the good life.

Learning From Broken Rules: Individualism, Bureaucracy, and Ethics

The authors discuss findings from a qualitative research project concerning applied ethics that was undertaken at a general family counseling agency in southern Ontario. Interview data suggested that workers need to dialogue about ethical dilemmas, but that such dialogue demands a high level of risk taking that feels unsafe in the organization. This finding led the researchers to examine their own sense of breaking rules by suggesting an intersubjective view of ethics that requires a safe space for ethical dialogue. The authors critique the individualistic tendency of professional ethics as an effect of power that is tied to the history of professionalism, and discuss the role of bureaucracies in diminishing a central role for ethics in helping services. The authors call for elaboration of critical perspectives on ethics in order to promote the centrality of ethics in the helping professions.

Analyzing information systems development: A comparison and analysis of eight is development approaches

This paper analyses two fundamental assumptions associated with the analysis and design of information systems:: (1) the assumed organizational role of information systems, and (2) the view of information requirements. In the case of the first assumption, it distinguishes three alternatives: a technical view, a sociotechnical view, and a social view. In the case of the second assumption, again three alternatives are explored: an objective view, a subjective view, and an intersubjective view. The paper points out the importance of these assumptions from the viewpoint of IS development through the analysis of eight IS development approaches: Information Modelling, Decision Support Systems, the Socio-Technical Approach, the Infological Approach, the Interactionist approach, the Speech Act-based approach, Soft Systems Methodology and the Scandinavian Trade Unionist approach. The first four are established traditions and the last four, newer and more emerging as IS development approaches. The analysis shows that the first two established traditions have a technical-mechanistic view of the organizational role of information systems, the view of the socio-technical tradition being socio-technical and the infological approach reflecting all three views. Most of the emerging approaches emphasize the social nature of information systems. In the case of information requirements, the differences between the established and emerging approaches are not as striking. While the objective and subjective views dominate the established traditions, only the Speech Act-based approach and Soft Systems Methodology among the emerging approaches seem to emphasize the intersubjective nature of information requirements.

An intersubjective view of self psychology

This article locates self psychology within the context of the evolving paradigm for psychoanalysis that the author calls intersubjectivity theory. It is argued that Kohut contributed significantly to the new paradigm but stopped short of fully embracing it. Self psychology and intersubjectivity theory are compared and contrasted, and an intersubjective view is offered of the patient's transference, the analyst's transference, and the system created by their reciprocal interaction.