ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the topic of intersubjective motivation, understood as the process of being motivated by the subjectivity of other human beings. The author outlines a general conception of intersubjective motivation, arguing for the importance of that conception in advancing the relational project within psychoanalysis. A handful of relational and intersubjective approaches are reviewed and evaluated, with an emphasis on strategies that might be employed to explain the phenomenon of intersubjective motivation. Using Jessica Benjamin’s theory of intersubjectivity as a starting point, the author proposes an original model of the intrapsychic conditions for intersubjective motivation identified as the intersubjective relational configuration. A clinical example is offered to illustrate three facets of this configuration—the unconditional value of the Self, the unconditional value of others, and the structural association between valuing ourselves and valuing others. The therapeutic implications of these ideas are traced out, and an argument is made for the development of a comprehensive psychoanalytic theory of motivation, one that includes intrapsychic as well as intersubjective elements.
