ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the conceptual approaches of phenomenology, Jacques Lacan, and neuroscience from the perspective of their own geneologies and problematics without attempting an integrated or unified theory. Although it is correct to say that intersubjectivity deals with the complex processes that go on in the relationship between two persons or subjects, each discipline has its own vocabulary and set of assumptions, so that one cannot equate them without distortion or oversimplification. The problem of pseudo-consistency across disparate theories occurs within psychoanalysis more broadly. Phenomenology carries important implications for how analysts approach and address patients in clinical practice. In taking the phenomenology of consciousness as his reference point, G.F. Hegel remained within the Cartesian tradition with its idealist orientation. By grounding both “self” and other in the third term of the symbolic order, implicit in their shared language, Lacan attempts to bypass the problematic Hegelian encounter.
