ABSTRACT
M. Merleau-Ponty is very seldom cited in the psychoanalytic literature. By analogy with the electromagnetic and gravitational fields of physics, analytic field theory postulates that there arises, between patient and analyst, a field of invisible forces that powerfully influence their interactions. The fear is sometimes expressed that the analytic field model entails the disappearance of the concept of the subject. For Merleau-Ponty, the ego is a field of intercorporeal relations. To emphasise the essential dimension of personal identity, Merleau-Ponty substantially relates the distal senses to proprioception and touch. In Merleau-Ponty, the organisation of subjectivity commences in the prelinguistic phase of child development, in which “there is not one individual over against another but rather an anonymous collectivity, an undifferentiated group life”. The paradigm in its most radical guise is represented by the concept of the analytic field which is underlain by the conceptions of intermediacy of Merleau-Ponty and Wilfred Bion.
