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French psychoanalysis on the one hand, and English speaking psychoanalysis -British as well as American- on the other hand, the reception of intersubjectivity in North American French psychoanalysis is mediated by the more general psychoanalytic affiliations of North American French speaking analysts. Those who are significantly influenced by American or Anglo- American psychoanalytic orientations may be more likely to be receptive to the relational/intersubjectivist paradigm. On the contrary, those positioned closer to French psychoanalytic culture will be stimulated by the French psychoanalytic literature on the issue. In addition, being exposed to these three psychoanalytic traditions may also lead to original synthesis on the issue intersubjectivity. Among examples of such syntheses include interubjectively relevant expansion of Brusset’s (2006) “La Troisième Topique” (Third Topography/Third Model below), and synthetic comparative writings of Lewis Kirshner (2005) and HélèneTessier (2005, 2014a,b). Proponents of the ‘third’ metapsychological model point out how deeply interrelated drive and object relations are. Among authors whose contributions to this area of reflection have been particularly influential in North America are Lacan, Aulagnier, Winnicott, Green, Laplanche, Reid, and (recently added) Loewald (see the separate entry OBJECT RELATIONS THEORY). In their theorizing, drives are viewed as essentially interactionally (intersubjectively) constituted. Specifics of French intersubjective thinking will follow under the Intersubjectivity in French Psychoanalysis. II. C. Coming of Intersubjectivity and Relational Turn in Europe The word intersubjectivity begun to be used in European psychoanalytical literature in recent years not so much to designate a new specific concept or a new specific dimension of human relatedness, but as to refer in general to the reciprocal interaction between two human beings, in particular between the child and the caregiver and between the patient and the analyst. The use of this term became gradually more frequent while focusing on the exchanges occurring in the analytic dyad along with progressive disregarding of aspects of drive and intrapsychic dynamics. What has been called the “relational turn” in psychoanalytic culture, that is a shift from a “one-person psychology” to a “two-person psychology”, has taken place in the European psychoanalysis as well as in the North American one: yet, while in North America the relational model grew in opposition to the mainstream Ego Psychology model, in Europe it developed to some extent from native relational features, from a kind of relational awareness that was already present from the beginning in its traditions, though not fully developed. A presence of a relational perspective in European psychoanalysis could be traced from a number of lines of thinking, such as Ferenczi’s approach to trauma, Bowlby’s studies on attachment, Winnicott’s approach to the mother-child relationship. Post-Freudian France has been the scene of major theoretical and clinical output. Ripples of this intellectual explosion have had a profound impact on other French-speaking
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