Intersubjectivity
French: intersubjectivité |
Jacques Lacan
Early Work
Speech
When Lacan begins -- in 1953 -- to analyze in detail the function of speech in psychoanalysis, he emphasizes that speech is essentially an intersubjective process.
"The allocution of the subject entails an allocutor" and therefore "the locutor is constituted in it as intersubjectivity."[1]
Language
The term "intersubjectivity" thus possesses, at this point in Lacan's work, a positive value, since it draws attention to the importance of language in psychoanalysis and emphasizes the fact that the unconscious is "transindividual."
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is thus to be conceived in intersubjective rather than intrasubjective terms.
Later Work
Reciprocity and Symmetry
However, by 1960 the term "intersubjectivity" has come to acquire negative connotations for Lacan.
It is now associated, not with speech as such, but with the notions of reciprocity and symmetry that characterize the dual relationship;[2] that is, with the imaginary rather than with the symbolic.
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is no longer to be conceived of in terms of intersubjectivity.[3]
Transference
Indeed, the experience of transference is precisely what undermines the notion of intersubjectivity.[4]
See Also
References
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Écrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. London: Tavistock Publications, 1977. p. 49
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre VIII. Le transfert, 1960-61. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p. 20
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. Le Séminaire. Livre VIII. Le transfert, 1960-61. Ed. Jacques-Alain Miller. Paris: Seuil, 1991. p. 20
- ↑ Lacan, Jacques. (1967) "Proposition du 9 octubre 1967 sur le psychanalyste de l'École," Scilicet, no. 1 (1968) pp. 14-30