ABSTRACT
Psychoanalysis is replete with examples of the dialectical processes exemplified by G. W. F. Hegel and I. McGilchrist. The dialectic between the positions, the individual oscillating between the paranoid–schizoid, depressive, and autistic–contiguous positions in everyday life, brings to the fore the panoply of maturity, primitivity, and subjectivity. There are several important elements in this dialectical cycle: disturbing difference triggers tension, rigidity, and disavowal, which give rise to a distancing from, and scrutiny of, this deanimated specimen. Ogden feels that the work of Donald Winnicott advances the psychoanalytic conception of the birth of the subject beyond the dialectics established by Freud and Klein. McGilchrist might be at the forefront of the emerging literature of interest to psychoanalysts on the significance of cerebral lateralisation. McGilchrist suggests that the co-ordinated effort between the hemispheres is an elegant example of the concept of Aufhebung, a concept introduced in the early 1800s by the German philosopher, Hegel.
