ABSTRACT
When a group of psychotherapists in the 1970s began discussing subjectivity, neurocognitive research had yet to be an established field of study. Their explorations of what later became a theory of intersubjectivity were instead a reaction to the impersonal and procedural way that the relationship between therapist and patient had been approached by most psychotherapists, especially in psychodynamic circles. Philosophically, subjectivity and what appears to be exclusively personal about certain experiences have been a conceptual challenge for thinkers and researchers for a long time. In psychoanalytic thinking, subjectivism has generally been viewed as something to avoid. The credibility of all psychotherapy formulations depends on research in disciplines such as neuroscience. There may be resistance to recognising this fact; however, such dependence has been evident since the inception of psychoanalysis. Semantic memory allows the therapist to hypothesise about causes and to conceptualise from internal and external data about the patient.
