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Development of intersubjectivity (Trevarthen and Aitken, 2001, p. 11) a Top (several main transition periods from primary intersubjectivity to secondary Intersubjectivity). b Below (the alphabets A to G illustrate the specific performance of infants in motor coordination, perception and communication during these transitions).
Source publication
Psychoanalysis and infant research have strengthened cooperation in the current interdisciplinary dialogue. The theoretical significance of infant research for psychoanalysis includes the consideration of individual “sociality” from birth, as opposed to the traditional psychoanalytic hypothesis of the “autistic” infant; such research creates openne...
Citations
... Other influential analysts who are no longer alive include Melanie Klein, the founder of object relations theory, and Donald Winnicott and Wilfred Bion, who promoted object relations thought (Mitchell & Black, 1995); Stephen Mitchell, the main architect of relational psychoanalysis; Daniel Stern, a key researcher who combined infant research with psychoanalysis (Zhang & Pan et al., 2022); Heinz Kohut, who founded self psychology; and Harry Stack Sullivan, who spearheaded the interpersonal movement. Their influence remains significant. ...
... This is consistent with the intersubjective turn in contemporary psychoanalysis (Bohleber, 2013;Kirshner, 2017). Among these, 6 papers (accounting for 37.5%) related to infant research., which has provided an important theoretical grounding to the intersubjective turn (Zhang & Pan et al., 2022). Key authors such as Fonagy, Schore, and Beebe appear in these papers. ...
The literature published in selected psychoanalytic journals from 2001 to 2020 was obtained from the Web of Science Core Collection and analyzed using the CiteSpace visualization tool. The results showed that the number of articles published annually by psychoanalytic journals tended to be stable over the past 20 years; North America was the largest center of work in psychoanalysis, with Europe ranked second; many psychoanalytic authors worked in settings outside universities; the most active authors in this 20-year period were Fonagy, Kernberg, and Ogden; the influence of Freud, Winnicott, and Bion continues to this day; the themes of transference, countertransference, therapeutic action, and development were the hotspots for the past 20 years; to some extent, the highly cited literature reflected the intersubjective turn in psychoanalysis and the increase of exchange with empirical research; and psychoanalysis had a certain influence on medicine, psychology, and other fields, but this was less than in the first half of the 20th century. In the future, psychoanalysis needs to continue to strengthen its dialog with other disciplines.
The body, unconsciousness, and consciousness can be considered three stages of evolutionary mind from a phylogenetic perspective, which can be further framed as three hierarchies of mind based on dynamic systems theory. These three hierarchies interact via intrapersonal information flow, working in tandem to manage an individual well. Within a dyadic system, two minds with multiple hierarchies can interact through several basic communication forms (i.e., body-to-body, body-to-unconsciousness, body-to-consciousness, unconsciousness-to-unconsciousness, unconsciousness-to-consciousness, and consciousness-to-consciousness) based on interpersonal information flow. In actual exchanges, these forms are blended and become richer due to intrapersonal information flow. In psychoanalytic therapy, analysts should focus on intrapersonal information flow to enhance patients' self-regulation while emphasizing therapist-patient interaction to execute mutual regulation. Overall, the therapist-patient and mother-infant interaction constitutes a complex communication process.
