Regarding Difference: Respecting Others

An important aspect of contemporary psychoanalytic theory is a preoccupation with issues of knowledge of self and other; this is frequently linked in to a preoccupation with matters of difference and similarity. It is commonplace, and yet an important insight from psychoanalytic theory and practice, that knowing that the other is separate from and yet interlinked with the self marks an essential maturational transition. This emotional, cognitive, and moral move, though, is insecure and increases anxiety that tests our abilities to stay within depressive position functioning. The attempt to stay within depressive functioning is taxing and provokes anxiety. This paper has been written in the aftermath of 9/11, the war in Iraq, and the subsequent political fall-out from these events. Our thinking, feelings, and fantasies, consciously and unconsciously, are inevitably influenced by these political events. It is one of our contentions that the political and the personal are inextricably linked and form seemingly private responses. We draw on aspects of psychoanalytic theory and personal experience to think about and explore some of the anxiety provoking emotions that arise when one is confronted to think, know, and recognise those who are other than oneself.

We claim that being able to acknowledge, know, and respect difference - our own and that of others - is one of the paths through to richness in private and social relationships. While much emphasis is placed in contemporary theory on difference, diversity, and otherness, alongside this, however, is the matter of similarity. As Eric Miller has argued

[W]e need to remind ourselves of the obvious point that there can be no sameness unless there is also difference. No inclusion without exclusion … we therefore have a strong proclivity to turn difference into polarization: there is no me without other. (Miller, 2002, p. 76)