ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces different frameworks from philosophy and psychoanalysis by which to approach an understanding of the role of subjective experience in psychosocial research and links these frameworks so as to develop a sense of how the relation of researcher and research might be understood and developed according to these models. It provides an overview of how notions of transference and countertransference have transformed as they shift over time, from Freud’s original formulation to later understandings, which allows us to move to a notion of thirdness and intersubjectivity. While Heimann’s position already highlights the importance of relationship, Winnicott took this further. Winnicott’s ideas were already prefiguring the relational turn by positing both the importance of the mother–infant relationship and an intermediate space, a third space that is created by the relationship.
