ABSTRACT
This chapter explores contemporary analytic ideas from Robert Stolorow’s intersubjectivity theory and from group analysis to convey an impression of what it might mean to move decisively away from the “myth of the isolated mind” and one-body psychology. “Intersubjectivity” is, therefore, a concept within an emerging paradigm in psychoanalysis and group analysis, sharing a common emphasis on conceiving complex relational fields and organizing principles, within which psychological processes come together and through which experience is continually shaped and reshaped. The chapter suggests that the broad approach not only helps analysts to understand psychoanalysis in a new way, but also helps them to comprehend more about the historical context within which S. Freud’s “discoveries” were made. It discusses that intersubjectivity theory illuminates group as well as individual processes, whether that of historical groups, like Freud’s circle or the International Psychoanalytic Associations, or groups of individuals who come together with the aim of seeking therapy and personal change.
