Psychoanalysis as an Ethical Process: Ethical Intersubjectivity and Therapeutic Action

While psychoanalysis has come a long way towards recognizing the central role of ethics in human experience, there is still an overall skittishness about conceptualizing therapeutic change as essentially ethical in nature. This paper suggests that the trajectory of theory development in psychoanalysis, which has largely been seen as evolving from a “one-person” to a “two-person” view of the mind, can also be mapped out along an ethical dimension—the extent to which the theorist explicitly invokes ethics to explain “how change happens” in the analytic process. A basic heuristic to organize theories along these lines is outlined, designating psychoanalytic models as ethically neutral, ethically unilateral, or ethically intersubjective. Utilizing a clinical example in which he wanted to physically strike his patient, the author proposes his own ethically intersubjective vision of therapeutic action, which involves the co-creation of an intersubjective space that is progressively more consistent with the unconditional worth of both analyst and patient. By further appreciating the distinction between ethical and nonethical psychoanalytic approaches, we will open up new imaginative space to support theoretical innovation, clinical vitality, and the expanded responsibility of analyst and patient within the analytic process.