ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that, despite appearances, relational conceptions of intersubjectivity often imply a fundamentally isolated model of mind, resulting in lingering implications of biological and/or linguistic reductionism. As is often acknowledged, the term "intersubjectivity" has been adopted by analysts to encompass a range of theoretical perspectives so diverse as to render casual use of the term problematic. Nevertheless, that the term itself has been adopted so broadly suggests that it exhibits a connotative appeal which appears to express something of the recent psychoanalytic zeitgeist. In distinction to Benjamin's emphasis on mutual recognition, Ogden's approach to intersubjectivity focuses on the communication of unconscious affect. His notion of thirdness is fundamentally informed by the clinical experience of projective identification. For Jung, the central therapeutic factor in the archetypal transference is expressed by the analyst's capacity to immerse himself in the analytic encounter while abstaining from acting out.
