Events and Seminars

Event	:	Intersubjectivity in Psychoanalytic Cultures of North America, Latin America and Europe
Venue	:	Virtual Live Course
Date	:	06/06/2026
Duration	:	12-3:30pm EDT
Extra Info	:	This course will outline the evolution of intersubjectivity as a dominant psychoanalytic orientation as well as an increasingly prominent aspect of psychoanalytic thought and work, present in various ways across the spectrum of many psychoanalytic orientations worldwide. Intersubjectivity as a psychoanalytic orientation comes from the US and involves a theoretical paradigmatic shift as well as re-contextualization of clinical process. It draws on numerous sources, which include, but are not limited to, philosophy of phenomenology, infant research within developmental psychology and child psychoanalysis, and the British (and originally Hungarian) psychoanalytic authors, as well as interpersonal and socio-cultural theories within psychoanalysis and dynamic psychiatry and psychology, and various field theories. A distinct view of Intersubjectivity in French psychoanalysis, influential in France, Belgium but also in parts of Canada and the US, as well as more recently in parts of Latin America, has developed along parallel lines out of a different psychoanalytic tradition, although there are connecting points. It draws on specific re-reading of German original of Freud’s opus, and a direct translation of Freud into French, in conjunction with a historically meaningful socio-cultural context of the importance of language, and a somewhat different (from the US) interpretation of the Field theories, as well as of British authors. Contemporary accounts of French Intersubjective thinking stress the ‘unconscious subject’ and its formation in relation to ‘the real other’, subject and object. In the estimation of some contemporary authors, the theories of Intersubjectivity coming out of the US and that of the French psychoanalytic thinking, present a corrective movement of an under-theorized aspect of pre-existing psychoanalytic theory, rather than a revision. Broad-based definition of intersubjectivity in North America and Europe emphasize the multifaceted and multilayered reciprocal dynamic interaction between people, based on their own (conscious, preconscious and/or unconscious) subjective experiences, and varieties of interpenetrating mutually transformative aspects of such engagements, in early development as well as in psychoanalytic dialogue. In addition, Latin American conceptualizations of Psychoanalytic Field and Unconscious Communication also reflect similar aspects of inter-subjective interactivity. The course will also explore contemporary findings of affective developmental neuroscience and neuroanalytic studies, seem to substantiate the value of intersubjective connectivity in the context of early development and potentially in variety of nonverbal dialogical situations. Stated inclusively, the intersubjective paradigm shift and contextualization can be viewed as involving a reconceptualization of the status of the subject, in which all subjective phenomena, including the intrapsychic and relational organizations, are structured in and through their intersubjective contexts. The instructor will bring examples from her work and will invite and discuss the participants to share their clinical vignettes throughout.
Organised By	:	Object Relations Institute
Web Link	:	https://orinyc.org/6-6-26-6-13-26-intersubjectivity-on-the-world-stage/