ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the concept of “being-with” that originated in Daniel Stern’s infant observation work. Bruce Reis grounds and extends Stern’s ideas through links to phenomenological philosophy. He argues that, at its most elemental level, the idea of being-with refers to our embodiment, the basic constitutional element of our humanity, and with what philosophers refer to as the condition of our “being”. Several psychoanalytic uses of being-with are then reviewed, all of which reflect Stern’s uncanny sensitivity to the importance and variety of ways-of-being-with others.
