Vol. 30 No. 1 (2023): Intra, Inter and Trans Subjectivity - Part 1

When we begin to consider the relation of multiple subjectivities both as fluid and interchangeable structures and as sedimented structures, in what manner is the status of the subject established and to what degree is it transformed at the expense of changing individualities? How does the process of subjectivation, its specificities and distortions – the special interest of psychoanalysis – occur in the subject inserted in culture? Are we indeed individuated

Freud bequeathed us conceptions that regard the movement between extremes, from the solipsistic subjectivation of primary narcissism to the assertion that individual psychology is in fact social psychology, constituted by and open to the experience with the other. Psychoanalysis, however, gravitated toward the assertion that the participation of the other in the formation of the subject and the quality of this influence are inseparable. Defended by Ferenczi, it sedimented itself in Klein’s concept of projective identification, further expanded by Winnicott and Bion and their followers, to the point of expanding the psychoanalytic field and the manifestations of the analytic third in Green and Ogden. This path came to constitute a core concept in contemporary psychoanalysis, a central element in the theory and technique of branches of relational psychoanalysis, intersubjective and couple and family psychoanalysis.

A sensible path would be to think of subjectivity as present in different perspectives, constituting the intrasubjective, the intersubjective and the trans subjective: the first comprised of representations of oneself, of the body, and would be composed of drive, desire, fantasy and object relations; the second would comprise representations of the other(s) in the psyche, with their unconscious pacts and agreements, and the third would comprise representations of the real external world, its physical and social dimension. In this sense the subject, in intersubjective terms, would be constituted with and through interactions with others, becoming at the same time the product and producer, intersubjective cause and effect. However, as interrelated spaces, how would this interrelationship take place? Would it be in Winnicott’s transitional form, by an intermediary process, but conserving the hegemony of the first space for the necessary constitution and stability of the self? Or would it be as an aggregate of interacting parts, maintaining relations of relative independence among themselves, in which the multiple interactions lead to a permanent heterogeneous and discontinuous totality and in which, whichever part is modified, it would have an effect on all parts, in other words, on the totality?

In relation to subjectivity constituted by and inserted in the group, it would undergo a tension in the meaning of inside and outside and in corporeal limits and autonomy, weakening the concept of the individual. Authors such as Pichon Rivière, P. Aulagnier and Laplanche theoretically blazed this trail. In more recent times, R. Kaës presented his concept of bonds as something that, autonomously, guides psychic and bodily investments and divestments between subjects (intersubjectivity) or through them (trans subjectivity). Following these developments around how a subject is formed and maintained, what repercussions would it have on psychoanalytic practice? We see that the current situation in clinical practice leads us to an increasing inclusion of inter- and trans subjective elements. Might this fact lead to the intrapsychic losing its metapsychological importance in relation to other spaces? Could this be an experience inherent to the contemporary subject or is it via the contemporary subject that psychoanalysis is stimulated to produce a representational and conceptual increase? It is important to ask ourselves whether psychoanalysis should follow theoretically and technically the existing psychic structure or execute its role of observing, interrogating, reflecting upon and adding theorizations for technical changes.

On the other hand, certain current events, such as mass migrations, the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change, different family configurations, new sexualities, the resurgence of fanatical ideologies and post-truth, are superimposed over individualities and, in adding an experience that cannot be conceived only in terms of intersubjectivity, underscore the trans subjective space. The speed and insistence with which they are reported convey a hint that something is going on that escapes our understanding. Will this news present truths of the current world, constituted by events that bear evidence to the trans subjective space in search of integration, or will it deal with the power and the use that this space can have on the inter- and intrasubjective, which might be used for other purposes?