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Intersubjectivity is a construct used to describe the relational dimension of the psychoanalytic process. Its definition may vary depending on the specific theoretical and philosophical tradition to which it is applied. The particular understanding of intersubjectivity espoused by Buirski and Haglund in Making Sense Together is founded on two assumptions: “that our subjectivity (our moment-by-moment experience of ourselves and the world) emerges within a dynamic, fluid context of interfacing subjectivities, and that we can never completely bracket our subjectivities to observe things as they really exist” (pp. xix-xx). One's subjective experience is made up of patterns based on repeated emotional experience with parents and caregivers (Orange, Atwood & Stolorow, 1997). In the words of the authors, “A central organizing concept of intersubjective theory is that our experience of ourselves is fundamental to how we operate in the world. Our subjective experience is the phenomenology of all that one might be aware of at any given moment and much of what is out of awareness, as well. Over time, the complex interweaving of individual abilities and temperament, relational configurations with caregivers during infancy and childhood, and the lucky or harsh realties of one's life circumstances converge to form patterns” (pp. 1-2). The need to maintain patterns, these organizations of experience, is the source of human motivation (Stolorow, Atwood & Brandchaft, 1994). In treatment, we hope to understand these patterns in the context of a relationship that becomes a new lived experience and the basis of new organizing patterns.
Buirski and Haglund's interactional view of treatment draws upon