Introduction in Symposium on the meaning and practice of intersubjectivity in psychoanalysis

  • Psychoanalysis may be seen as caught between two different trends of disenchanted modernity: rationalization, which leads to the framing of our work as a professional discipline subordinate to the dictates of instrumental rationality, and self-analysis, which frees us from the dictates of orthodoxy, inequality, and authority. But a further difficulty lies within the aspect of enlightenment, which has not only provided a greater role for our subjectivity but disguised relations of authority, conformity, and objectiflcation in our work. Psychoanalysis has objectified the other while idealizing its knowledge as objective, has paradoxically denied the very subjectivity that must serve as the source of the analyst's knowledge. However, the reaction against this condition, which may tend to produce counter-ideals of not-knowing and mutuality, must also be carefully deconstructed. Differences in the meaning given by different schools to the use of the analyst's subjectivity suggest that pluralism will make new knowledge demands on psychoanalysts. Analytic training should include the development of critical abilities that help to meet these demands within a context of education as a collaborative, democratic process. Knowledge itself can be used homeo-pathically as an antidote to the old ideal of the knowing authority.

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Metadaten
Author:Jessica Benjamin
Parent Title (English):Psychoanalytic Dialogues Vol. 07 (1997), pp. 781-802.
Document Type:Articles
Language:English
Year of first Publication:1997
Release Date:2017/11/20
Format:xerox upon request / Fotokopie auf Anfrage
IdNo:Benjamin_J_1997
Erich Fromm's Library and Erich Fromm Archive:Articles / Artikel
Licence (German):
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