| Shadow of the
Other: Intersubjectivity and Gender in Psychoanalysis. By Jessica Benjamin.
New York: Routledge, 1998.
Reviewed by Harriet Kimble Wrye,
Ph.D.
The Shadow of the Other, Jessica
Benjamin's third book, is an impressive effort at building and integrating theory in the
domain of feminism, gender, object relations theory, and intersubjectivity. The book
is essentially a trio of essays that begins with the roots of psychoanalysis in Freud's
theory of sexuality an, as the title suggests, updates that theory in light of
contemporary views. In the first essay, originally written for an NYU conference
occasioned by the centennial of the publication of Studies on Hysteria, Benjamin
revisits the case of Anna O., taking issue with Freud's polarization of sex along the
fault line of active/masculine vs. passive/feminine. The second essay raises
questions about the classical oedipus complex, and how it could be reconfigured to replace
dichotomous masculine subject/feminine object polarities of gender with a theory of the
pluralities of gender for males and females, where both become desiring sexual subjects.
In her third essay, Benjamin undertakes to cover the major voices in postmodernism,
deconstuctionism, and Lacanian feminism, and, in a theoretical tour de force, attempts to
integrate aspects of postmodern feminist theory, object relations theory, and
intersubjectivity.
This is a tall order, particularly for a
little (109 pages of text) book. This work is vintage Benjamin--pithy, erudite, and
abstruse. For those who have been struggling to integrate the feminist
psychoanalytic project with classical, object relations, and intersubjective theory, it is
a welcome book: economical, a dense and challenging read, yet highly rewarding the
determined reader, with many theoretical illuminations. It may be difficult going
for those who appreciate clinical illustrations--you will not find those here--but it is
an important, cutting-edge theoretical contribution for psychoanalysts of every
persuasion.
I shall explicate some of Benjamin's
central points, to familiarize those reader who may be reluctant to take on this feminist
project with the substance of the author's point of view and thesis. In synthesizing
briefly what are actually three separate essays, I hope to whet readers' appetites for
this compelling integrative work, as it has profound clinical implications for analysts
and patients of both genders. Benjamin positions herself appreciatively but
critically equidistant from the classical Freudian position and the postmodern structural
position, finding her center in object relations theory and intersubjectivity. Her
explication of both ends o the psychoanalytic spectrum shows her appreciation of both ends
of the psychoanalytic century, and their influences upon her. Greenberg and Mitchell
(1983) argue that we can't have it both ways, that we ultimately must locate our flags in
either the drive psychology/one-person model or the relational/two-person model.
Benjamin, however, like Pine (1988) in his paper on the four psychologies of
psychoanalysis, is a firm believer in the importance of integration. She is
interested in a dialectic process that fosters elaboration, and she gathers diverse
strands of theory together like wheat stalks, interweaving them into a fabric while
casting off the polarizing and limiting chaff. While she identifies herself with the
two-person model of intersubjectivity, she also argues for the importance of retaining the
unconscious intrapsychic model of each individual's psyche in an interaction. At
times, for the sake of argument, Benjamin invokes the very theoretical polarities she is
seeking to diffuse. Occasionally the tone becomes almost Messianic, as in "we
(intersubjectivists) aim to formulate a space between suggestion and objective
distance.."p.24). As in her book Like Subjects, Love Objects (1995),
Benjamin's central concern here is with the intersubjective dictum "where objects
were, subjects must be." This dictum applies to the analytic couple, in the
sense that the analyst must forfeit classic "objectivity" as the one who knows
and reclaim her own subjectivity, at the same time honoring the patient's subjectivity as
the one who can speak what she knows. The book would benefit from the
addition of a glossary, as some key words are used in a theory-building way. Two
examples are her use of "recognition," a core concept of intersubjectivity, by
which Benjamin means the way both patient and analyst discover and communicate their own
subjectivity, interiority, and unique differences, and acknowledge the other's; Benjamin
introduces "inclusion" as a parallel term to counter feminist theory's (Butler
1992) notion of "exclusion" as the means by which subjects are created.
Benjamin posits that contrary to the idea that subjects are created through
exclusion or abjection, psychoanalysts know that nothing can be truly repudiated or split
off from the psyche. Whatever is excluded from consciousness is still there
somewhere, and must be recognized, included, and owned as a crucial part of the discovery
of one's subjectivity. "Complementarity" is another core term in the
discourse on intersubjectivity and gender, and is in fact illustrated bye the
"exclusion/inclusion" dialectic. Complementarities are dialectic
relationships between opposites such as male/female; passive/active; subject/object;
observer/participant. According to Benjamin, these create polarities that must be
held in vital oscillating tension so as to create new third areas that she calls
"tolerable paradoxes," and that can break up rigidities and foster
transformation. Another term is "multiplicity," which she contrasts with
"unity of identity" or "unified self." "Reciprocity"
is a condition of the ethical relationship, whereby both self and other are obliged to
transcend their narcissistic egoism. Mutual recognition of this obligation includes
searching for commonalities and points of difference, as well as the recognition of the
other's singularity. In the book's first essay or chapter, Benjamin takes up
(actually takes on) Freud's case of Anna O. (Breuer's hysterical patient Bertha
Pappenheim). She illustrates the contradictions and splits inherent in the way Freud
construed the patient as the silenced female hysteric par excellence, and she contrasts
Freud's view with extra-analytic historical data about Pappenheim's outspoken public
political life. Deconstructing this case of libidinal paralysis and conversion symptoms in
a helpless, fragmented female patient analyzed by a male analyst, she queries what
happened in Freud's theory to the historically articulate woman outside the analysis, the
stalwart feminist activist who defended the helpless.
She argues that the privileged male subject
must eschew the illusion of dominance, reclaiming the vulnerability and subjectivity of
which he is accustomed to divest himself by projecting it into the female, his object.
The formerly objectified female must at the same time eschew the illusion of
passivity, and take possession of her own activity, desire, and subjectivity. In
this rearrangement the classical oedipal hierarchical gender relationship is replaced by
two desiring interpenetrating subjects, two bisexual subjects of desire, both of whom are
free to consult their own emotional responses in a "knowing" way. The
binary model of dominance and control, sadism and masochism, gives way to a greater degree
of freedom and plurality for both sexes. Benjamin does not entirely shun the
classical intrapsychic formulae; rather she argues that the individual's psyche oscillates
with, shapes, and is shaped by the psyche of the other, and that this oscillation is the
basis of intersubjectivity. She also traces Freud's own efforts to "relinquish
charismatic authority" and to free the analysand, fostering autonomy by fostering the
ironic process of loving the analyst as an object, identifying with his authority, and
placing him as ego ideal (pp. 12-16).
A key question she raises throughout the
text, and particularly in the second essay, is epistemological: how is knowledge
constructed? To answer this, Benjamin spins together two divergent psychoanalytic
approaches to identification as a way of knowing. Noting that Fairbairn and Lacan
tend to see identification as a defensive means of obfuscating difference, whereas ego and
self psychologists and Kleinians stress the constructive structuralizing aspects of
identification, Benjamin combines them into two identificatory processes--those that
diminish distancing and objectification and those that deny difference. While this
book clearly states Benjamin's debt to postmodern feminism, what is new here is a
generally integrative tone uncharacteristic of academic feminist writers, whose project
heretofore has been in deconstruct, and differentiate themselves from, classical analytic
theory. In this undertaking, Benjamin makes an effort to explore psychoanalytic
theories, particularly object relations and intersubjectivity, in relation both to
psychoanalytic gender theory and to feminist theory in the academy. She addresses
the much-needed task of clarifying in order to begin to integrate psychoanalytic theory,
clinical experience, and feminist theory--a task that needs addressing in psychoanalytic
film criticism and feminist film theory as well (Wrye and Diamond 1998). In so
doing, she takes up the work of Racker on complementary transference, and views it through
the lens of Marxist or Hegelian dialectics. In this model, polarities and dangerous
antinomies can be transformed into potentially tolerable paradox, thus offering the
possibility of deconstructing hierarchies based on gender and power.
From this point through the concluding
essay, the author takes up the postmodern/poststructural feminist discourse represented by
the Lacanian French feminists Irigaray, Kristeva, and Mitchell, as the Lacanian French
feminists Butler, Chodorow and Gilligan. She challenges some of their ideas while
integrating others with aspects of her own thinking and that of intersubjectivists Dimen,
Harris, and Goldner, her colleagues at the NYU Postdoctoral Program. The theoretical
issues are examples and can only be touched on here. As an example, the issue in the
seventies that divided object relations theory and Lacanian Feminism was whether to
analyze the gender divide in terms of the relation to the Lacanian phallus or in terms of
the object relation to the mother. Benjamin proposes here that the object relations
"tilt" towards the early mother was necessary to reverse the overvaluation of
the oedipal father, and that that tilt can be corrected by her own contributions (1988),
which encompass the early father in the separation-individuation phase. She, like
Fast (1984) emphasizes that both boys and girls retain their gender identity ambivalent
attachments to and identifications with aspects of both early parents. This, as I
have also described (Wrye 1992; Wrye and Welles 1994), contributes to plurality and to
thicker and more complex identificatory texture in this weaving of each individual's
narrative of desire. This proposal is characteristic of Benjamin's recent general
effort to sidestep polarizing fights and, while still emphasizing inherent contradictions
(such as the Lacanian tendency to reinforce binary logic), to bring aspects of both
arguments under one multiplex rubric. She addresses the problems raised by certain
feminists about recognition: namely that recognition of another implies a belief in a
normative identity, which may generate erroneous assumptions about the identity /
subjectivity of the other--in other words, difference is sacrificed to recognition.
Young (1990) has posed concerns that reciprocal recognition predisposes us to a
homogenization in which the alterities and differences amongst us will be overshadowed; or
what Kristeva calls the "Stronger" within us denied. But Benjamin argues
that mutual intersubjectivity is based on the perception of difference. By nature
this sets up a dynamic paradox: we look for the knowable in the other, that which is
familiar to our own self, yet at the same time we are confronted with the other's
alterity.
In summary, The Shadow of The Other:
Intersubjectivity And Gender In Psychoanalysis argues that as intersubjective
subjects of both genders we must be able to tolerate and contain different voices,
asymmetries, and contradictions: love and hate, masculinity and femininity--in other
words, ambivalence. Benjamin's reconceptualizing the oedipus complex rebraids the
strands in such a way that both genders (and both analyst and patient) potentially
participate in relations with greater polysexuality, parity, mutuality, and freedom.
REFERENCES
Benjamin, J. (1998) The
Bonds of Love. New York: Pantheon.
----- (1995). Like
Subjects, Love Objects. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Fast, I. (1984) Gender
Identity. Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press.
Greenberg, J. & Mitchell,
S. (1983). Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Thoery. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.
Pine, F. (1988). The
four psychologies of psychoanalysis and their place in clinical work. Journal of
the American Psychoanalytic Association 36: 571-596.
Wrye, H.K. (1993) Erotic
terror: Male patients' horror of the maternal erotic transference. Psychoanalytic
Inquiry 13:240-257.
----- & Welles, J.K.
(1994). The Narration of Desire: Erotic Transference and Countertransference.
Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press.
----- & Diamond, D.
(1998). Prologue to special issue Projections of Psychic Reality: A Centennial
of Film and Psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic Inquiry 18:139-146.
Young, I.M. (1990). The
ideal of community and the politics of difference. In Feminism/Postmodernism,
ed. L.J. Nicholson. New YOrk: ROutledge, pp. 300-323.
Purchase the Book The Shadow of the Other: Intersubjectivity and
Gender in Psychoanalysis
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