In recent years, Stolorow, Atwood, Brandschaft, and Orange have presented further clarifications of the hermeneutic tradition,  and the implications of abandoning a one-person psychology, whereby they organized, clarified, and redefined 'classical' terms, mapping out the fuller implications towards theory and treatment, of an intersubjective field, fully abandoning the Cartesian myth of the isolated mind:

 

 

"...phenomenology has pointed psychoanalysis towards its only legitimate starting point, the subject's experience [and]...requires that we put aside preconceptions...to work as completely as possible within the subjective experience of the patient..." (D. Orange, Emotional Understanding, 1995, p. 55).

 

 

AN OUTLINE OF INTERSUBJECTIVITY BASICS:

(from Contexts of Being, Stolorow & Atwood, 1992)

                                                              1) the intersubjective field (p. 3-4):

 

any psychological field formed by interacting worlds of experience...a  system formed by the reciprocal interplay between two (or more) subjective worlds

 

                                                                       2) transference (p.23-24): 

 

a) repetitive dimension - a source of conflict and resistance, the patient fears a repetition with the analyst of early experiences of parental empathic failure.

 

b) selfobject dimension - the patient yearns for the analyst to provide selfobject experiences that were missing or insufficient during the formative years.

 

                                                             3) three realms of the unconscious (p. 33):

 

a) prereflective - contains the organizing principles that unconsciously shape and thematize a person's experience

 

b) dynamic - contains experiences/affects that were denied articulation (dissociated) because they were perceived to threaten needed ties 

 

c) unvalidated - contains unintegrated affect states related to experiences that are denied articulation, due to their failure to evoke the requisite attuned responsiveness from the caregiver.

 

                                                                                  4) resistance: 

 

the fear of retraumatization, i.e., of being dismissed, negated, violated, humiliated, shamed, and misunderstood, manifested within the repetitive dimension of the transference

 

 

                                                                              5) therapeutic action: 

 

release, emergence, and integration of dissociated affect within the empathically attuned milieu of the dyad