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CJP 3(1):43-70 (1995)

Selfobject and Intersubjective Theory: Part 2, A Dialectical Critique of the Intersubjective Perspective

Author: Donald L. Carveth

I

At one time it had been a sign of madness to believe that the earth goes round the sun: today, to believe that the past is unalterable. … Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense.
-George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

Although the intersubjective perspective in psychoanalytic theory and therapy is widely regarded as an offshoot of self psychology, its authors (Atwood & Stolorow 1984, 1993; Stolorow, Brandchaft & Atwood 1987; Stolorow & Atwood 1992; Stolorow, Atwood & Brandchaft 1994) locate its roots in existential phenomenology, hermeneutics, structuralism, and the personological psychology of Henry Murray (1938). They argue further that their perspective subsumes and transcends selfobject theory.

In Structures of Subjectivity, Atwood and Stolorow (1984) outline their approach as follows:

In its most general form, our thesis … is that psychoanalysis seeks to illuminate phenomena that emerge within a specific psychological field constituted by the intersection of two subjectivities—that of the patient and that of the analyst. [P]sychoanalysis is pictured here as a science of the intersubjective, focused on the interplay between the differently organized subjective worlds of the observer and the observed.
Page 43
The observational stance is always one within, rather than outside, the intersubjective field … being observed, a fact that guarantees the centrality of introspection and empathy as the methods of observation. [pp. 41-42]

Applying this general perspective in the clinical and developmental domains, the authors argue that “… clinical phenomena cannot be understood apart from the intersubjective contexts in which they take form” (p. 64), any more than the developmental process can be understood outside the “specific intersubjective contexts that facilitate or obstruct the child's negotiation of critical developmental tasks” (p. 65). Just as in the clini

CJP 3(1):43-70 (1995)

Selfobject and Intersubjective Theory: Part 2, A Dialectical Critique of the Intersubjective Perspective

Author: Donald L. Carveth

I

At one time it had been a sign of madness to believe that the earth goes round the sun: today, to believe that the past is unalterable. … Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense.
-George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

In Structures of Subjectivity, Atwood and Stolorow (1984) outline their approach as follows:

In its most general form, our thesis … is that psychoanalysis seeks to illuminate phenomena that emerge within a specific psychological field constituted by the intersection of two subjectivities—that of the patient and that of the analyst. [P]sychoanalysis is pictured here as a science of the intersubjective, focused on the interplay between the differently organized subjective worlds of the observer and the observed.
Page 43
The observational stance is always one within, rather than outside, the intersubjective field … being observed, a fact that guarantees the centrality of introspection and empathy as the methods of observation. [pp. 41-42]