Shadow of the Other: Intersubjectivity and Gender in Psychoanalysis / Edition 1

by Jessica Benjamin

Overview

Shadow of the Other is a discussion of how the individual has two sorts of relationships with an "other"—other beings, other individuals. The first regards the other as an entirely different being from oneself, but one which is still recognizable. The second understands and recognizes this other by its function as a repository of characteristics cast from oneself.

In recognizing how this dual relationship is reconciled within the self, and its implications in male/female relations, Jessica Benjamin continues her exploration of intersubjectivity and gender, taking up questions of contemporary debates in feminist theory and psychoanalysis.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415912365
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/03/1997
Pages:	150
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Jessica Benjamin is a psychoanalyst in New York City, where she is on the faculty of the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. She is the author of Bonds of Love (1988) and Like Objects, Love Objects (1995).

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 The Primal Leap*Origins = Ur Sprung in German, literally “primal leap.” This paper was originally delivered in May, 1995 at a conference commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the Studies, “The Psychoanalytic Century,” at NYU. Thanks to M. Dimen and A. Harris. of Psychoanalysis, From Body to Speech; Chapter 2 “Constructions of Uncertain Content”; Chapter 3 The Shadow of the Other Subject;

What People are Saying About This

Lewis Aron

Shadow of the other extends Benjamin's groundbreaking and influential studies of gender, intersubjectivity, love, and aggression. Her original elaboration of intersubjectivity serves to intertwine feminism and relational psychoanalysis into a tightly woven and richly textured intellectual tapestry. Lewis Aron, author of A Meeting of Minds

Judith Butler

Jessica Benjamin's latest effort to bring critical theory and psychoanalysis into a dynamic conversation results in many splendid insights. She clarifies her own relational contribution to object-relations theory, and insists that harboring alterity within the self remains the ideal for psychic life.... Shadow of the Other makes the matter of intersubjective recognition at once complex and urgent.
— Judith Butler, author of Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity and Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative

Glenn O. Gabbard

In this compelling work, Jessica Benjamin has distinguised herself as one of the most articulate spokespersons for a feminist informed psychoanalysis. In Shadow of the Other , her most impressive book to date, she has produced a veritable tour-de-force. This volume will undoubtedly take its place at the cutting edge of psychoanalytic discourse and deserves a wide readership. Glen O. Gabbard, author of Love and Hate in the Analytic Setting and Boundaries and Boundary Violations in Psychoanalysis

Editorial Reviews

"Jessica Benjamin's latest effort to bring critical theory and psychoanalysis into a dynamic conversation results in many splendid insights. She defends her provocative claim that psychoanalysis is an extension of the Enlightenment, clarifies her own relational contribution to object-relations theory, and insists that harboring alterity within the self remains the ideal for psychic life. Along the way, she emphasizes the importance of undoing repudiations, of rewriting the oedipal and pre-oedipal in relation to gender polarity, and reminds us of the oscilliation of gender categories. In calling for a reintegration of the preoedipal into the postoedipal, she makes the matter of intersubjective recognition at once complex and urgent." — Judith Butler, University of California, Berkeley
"Shadow of the Other extends Benjamin's groundbreaking and influential studies of gender, intersubjectivity, love and aggression. Her original elaboration of intersubjectivity serves to intertwine feminism and relational psychoanalysis into a tightly woven and richly textured intellectual tapestry. What really sets Benjamin's work apart is her brilliant utilization of a systematic dialectical approach to her subject, always maintaining the delicate balance between opposing tensions: masculinity and femininity, subjectivity and objectivity, passivity and activity, love and aggression, fantasy and reality, modernism and postmodernism, the intrapsychic and the intersubjective. Benjamin's capacity to creatively play with intellectual ideas is unsurpassed as she continually spins concepts around, moving in new, unexpected, and surprisingly useful directions." — Lewis Aron, Ph.D., ABPP New York University Postdoctoral Program
"The Shadow of the Other... is an impressive effort at building and integrating theory in the domain of feminism, gender, object relations theory, and intersubjectivity." — Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association
"...tightly written and carefully argued." — Journal of Feminist Family Therapy
"A timely volume for gender studies programs, and for graduate programs with psychoanalytic components." — Choice
"[Benjamin] champions a sophisticated view of the way we internalize the other, while seeking to avoid the danger of allowing talk about mutual recognition and caring to become a way to trap women back into their traditional role as the sole caring ones. This is an important book." — Tikkun
"In this tightly written and carefilly argued essay, she addresses the problem of the Other's consciousness." — Journal of Feminist Family Therapy
"Shadow of the Other has much to offer the sophisticated reader who is willing to work a little to appreciate the complex ideas contained within it. Its intellectual and esoteric qualities make it well suited to academe." — Psychoanalytic Books
"While many of Benjamin's points in this book are not new within psychology, many of her specific formulations of them are, as well as her drawing together of these points with support from apparently divergent schools of thought." — Transformations

From the Publisher