Intersubjectivity In Psychoanalysis And Literature

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

The topic of intersubjectivity gains interesting insight in areas far removed from psychotherapy, such as literature. And we are not talking about the relationship between the characters, as it might seem at first glance. In this area, everything is just fine - in the literature there are many examples of how various forms of intersubjectivity received artistic rethinking through the depiction of the characters' ways of being for each other. Moreover, the literary genre denotes the limits of semantic expressiveness, that is, modern literature will describe the concept of intersubjectivity, which will also be recognized as modernist. From this it can be concluded that the understanding of intersubjectivity is implicit. That is, in relationships, we unfold that mode of intersubjectivity that we unconsciously share. And that means that this method can be reflected. We will talk about intersubjectivity models later, but now I would like to return to the reflection of this topic in the literature.

The problem arises here when we shift our gaze from the relationship between characters to the relationship between the writer and the reader. Although it immediately becomes unclear what kind of relationship we are talking about. Since it is completely unclear who this writer is, and even more so, to which reader he is addressing. And this misunderstanding is not even approximately compensated by the flirtatious appeals of some authors from the pages of their book to an imaginary reader. You might as well preach to birds.

Modern literature courageously ignored the absence of a communicative bridge between reader and writer. The impression given by the book was entirely determined by the skill of the author. The writer used the genre rut to “awaken” certain feelings in the reader - driving, horror, excitement, indignation. This conspiracy between the reader and the writer is metaphorically reminiscent of a situation about a bad joke, at the end of which you need to say the word "shovel" - this means that after that you can start laughing.

That is, the Art Nouveau genre assumes that the work should make a certain impression on the reader. If this does not happen, it's okay - either the writer turned out to be very mediocre, or the reader is a fool. The main thing is that this impression was assumed. It is as if the contents of the author's psyche are directly, but with different quantitative and qualitative losses, transferred to the reader. This process of transgression itself was not covered in any way, since by default, this communication channel worked properly.

If we draw a parallel with the therapeutic relationship, then modern psychotherapy views the therapist's interpretation as a self-worth fighting unit. It must penetrate the mind of the client and take its rightful place in spite of various circumstances. If the client doesn't accept the interpretation, that's resistance. Or kung fu therapist is not good enough. The way out is obvious - all participants in the relationship just need to try harder.

In postmodern literature, there has been a significant shift in the understanding of intersubjectivity as a link between the reader and the writer. By default, there is no link. The writer and the reader stand facing each other on different sides of the abyss and in confusion look down and then forward. This confusion becomes the first sprout of a relationship. I don’t know you, you don’t know me and we can understand something about each other only on the basis of a short period of time together. In the postmodern Euclidean space, two subjects do not intersect with each other, like parallel lines; it means that this space will have to be curved and a new geometry has to be invented for this case.

According to postmodern optics, this connection manifests itself through its absence and is established through the experience of this sudden and, in part, traumatic, discovery. Modernists, for example, say - in order to be aware of myself, I must be different from others. Postmodernists could add - and then discover connectivity as something that is always there, but needs to be reinstalled each time. It is connectivity that turns out to be the best way to find the center that was lost as a result of postmodern revision.

Difference is not a sufficient basis for establishing subjectivity. As a scientific theory, in order to claim to be true, it is not enough to be verifiable. Subjectivity requires a different level of self-identification, distinct from identification with narcissistic images. And the idea of the subject was greatly transformed in the course of discovering new mosaic elements from which this concept was formed. Thus, the subject of modernity was positivist, self-sufficient and integral. This subject possessed an independent essence that distinguished him from other, no less independent subjects. The discovery of the unconscious slightly shook this firmness, but did not change its foundation. The subject retained drives that emanated from the very core of his nature. These drives, like an entomologist's pin, securely anchored the subject to the velvet of reality.

The postmodern subject suddenly lost his life-affirming exclusivity. What he imagined about himself turned out to be a secondary set of references to other references that led to nowhere, or rather, went beyond the horizon of absent authorship. The subject turned out to be not even a deck of cards, but a bibliography on the last page of the novel, which he read with full confidence that he was its exclusive creator. The subject ceased to be closed and self-sufficient, and instead became open to being and dependent on the field that gave it its shape.

Moreover, this dependence has expanded beyond the limits of society so that even the status of consciousness, as the most important characteristic of subjectivity, has lost its exclusive position in the system of connections. Even matter turned out to be vital, and the subject became its transitional phenomenon. In new ontologies, objects acquired their own being so that they began to influence the subject, bypassing his psyche. In the end, the subject has a body, which partly turns out to be subjectized, and partly always remains an object of nature, not included in mental space.

The subject of postmodernism is lonely, but this loneliness is arranged in a very special way: he is locked in the cage of his narrative, his imaginary identification, which he is forced to constantly confirm, turning to other subjects for this at the level of the same imagination. This happens with such an obsessive intensity that affect is only an expressive means for producing an impression on another, and thus is produced not from the depths of the subjective, but on the surface of the exchange of representations. That is, the affect is born within the narrative, but has nothing to do with the subject. An interesting situation arises when there is an affect, but there is no one to experience it. At the level of the exchange of images and their mutual confirmation, there is nothing real - neither the subject, nor the other to which he addresses. The bridge from subject to subject is laid between non-existent banks.

But this consideration of the subject also did not become final. The irony of postmodernism desperately clung to the melting outlines of self-given forms of individuality and tried to keep the sand of the personal, which was inexorably waking up through our fingers. A careful glance made it possible to notice that the wrong side of the irony turned out to be unwillingness to follow the path indicated by the correct premonition. It was necessary not to resist the emptiness of the individual, but to take a leap of faith in the hope that there, in this haze of uncertainty, might be the most reliable of the supports.

Let everything that we observe as our own is not truly ours; let what we appropriate does not come from an intimate center, accessible only to us, but falls outside, like recyclable materials from other events. Even though there is no single center inside us and individual consciousness is like a line running at the bottom of the TV screen with a sign language translation of non-verbal experience, it is important that we can observe this and this position of the observer seems to be the support that supports itself. If you do not grieve over the loss of essence, but observe yourself as a process, being open to the influence that, like a wave, flows from the environment into the inner space and changes, returns back, you can combine sincerity with irony and get something different, for example … for this state you still need to find a good word. For example, vulnerability.

Thus, the rejection of the essential character of the imaginary narcissistic identifications-narratives, which represent the subject to another subject and, thereby, lead to the sliding of these images relative to each other without penetrating any depth hidden from them, brings us closer to the need to pay more intent attention to a process that seems to take place separately from the subject, the core of which he, in fact, is. This process is like clear groundwater that must be accessed instead of continuing to filter puddles in ditches drawn by a personal fantasy. This process is unconscious intersubjective communication, which can either be presented in our experience, which gives a sense of connectedness and belonging, or be alienated from it, leading to the experience of abandonment and loneliness. Intersubjectivity can become a door through which it is easy to escape from the trap of an isolating individual. The postmodern idea of the absence of the personal turns out to be less critical if subjectivity is framed differently - there is no individuality at the level of the imaginary, but it appears at the level of the intersubjective.

So, intersubjectivity is an unconscious communication that makes a cut in the self-enclosed order of representations. Of course, at the imaginary level there is also a place for interaction, but it is of a utilitarian-functional nature. Confirm me that I know about myself - one subject asks for another, but in this confirmation, which is being carried out, he, unfortunately, is not able to reveal himself, no matter how detailed his surface is reflected in the eyes of the interlocutor. In order to learn something real about oneself, it is not enough just to exchange ready-made constructions and affects, one must admit one's vulnerability to intersubjectivity, one's vulnerability to it, which stretches from the earliest experiences of being with others.

Now, if, after such a long retreat towards subjectivity, we try to return to the therapeutic relationship, it turns out that during this time there have been serious changes. Suddenly it turns out that the therapist can no longer rely only on himself. Its power in the production of meanings addressed to the conscious area, the one that contains the totality of representations and schemes for self-assertion, remains significant, but it ceases to impress, since the center of the target has shifted to the side.

Now, it may be the therapist's job to try to understand how the client's presence changes his experience of himself; how he himself turns out to be to some extent created by the client. It is important for the therapist to find a balance between separateness and coherence, between individually stable and changeable procedural. Or, in other words, to establish an exchange between the intersubjective as what makes the subject open to another (movement to-) and personal, which leaves room for autism and distance (movement from-). Somewhere in this space, therapeutic changes are taking place.