The Self-as-Subject in Psychoanalysis: I. The Nature of Subjectivity

This essay explores the nature of subjectivity as an integral aspect of the psychology of the self, understood as a supraordinate theoretical construct synonymous with the human person. Aspects of agency and subjectivity are distinguished: Agency is attributed to the self-as-agent, encompassing all actions of the self (conscious, preconscious, unconscious) while the self-as-subject is the author of all conscious (and by implication preconscious) mental action. Self-as-agent and self-as-subject are the same in all conscious activity, but not in unconscious activity. Unconscious action has no subject, only agency. Unconscious derivatives achieve functional subjectivity insofar as they are incorporated and integrated with conscious experience. Dissociative phenomena reflecting different degrees of divided subjectivity are discussed. Subjective and objective self are distinguished—the subject can never be known as object. If objectified, as in introspection, it becomes thereby an object and remains distinct from the introspecting subject. The subject is only experienced in the performance of an action rather than known after the

fashion of objects. Implications of this understanding of the nature of the subject and subjectivity for analytic theory and praxis are explored in a subsequent paper.