Delving into psychoanalytic texts: the notion of the reading third

ABSTRACT

In this article I introduce the notion of the reading third, which evolves during the reading process. The idea came to my mind while studying Wolfgang Iser’s theory of the reading process, and already knowing about Thomas Ogden’s concept of the analytic third: What is experienced, shaped and understood while reading a text? The notion of the reading third is based on psychoanalytic theory and method like just Ogden’s concept, and on the aesthetic response theory of Iser. Elaborating the reading third, I combine two modes of reading: one understanding and interpreting, and one floating and experiencing mode. To these modes I add two different understandings of truth. The first mode is connected to a traditional, objective and visible truth. The latter mode relies on Wilfred Bion’s concept of O, a special kind of evasive, ephemeral truth. The reading third takes and loses form as one reads, accentuating reading as a highly creative activity, where each reading elicits different understandings, experiences and truths. I give examples of such a way of reading psychoanalytic texts like those of Bion and a work of fiction, Henry James’ short novel The Turn of the Screw.

KEYWORDS:

• Bion
• analytic third
• aesthetic response theory
• literature
• reading third

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The notion is based on another work by the author (Torvanger, 2012).

2. Modern Criticism and Theory (1998/2008), p. 294, entry ‘Wolfgang Iser’.

3. I refer to the reader as ‘she’ in the article, while I refer to the psychoanalyst as ‘he’. The reader/she and the psychoanalyst/he is mostly the same person in this article, so the differentiation is merely to distinguish between two different roles that this person alternately takes up.

4. Despite the analogy between analysand/analyst and reader/text in this article, it is important to note that this parallel is in no way complete. I will not elaborate further on this complex theme here.

5. The Language of Bion (2005), p. 593, entry ‘Psycho-Analytical object’.

6. Green acknowledges that he relies on Donald R. Winnicott’s important concepts transitional objects and potential space.

7. Green refers to the philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce’s ‘thirdness’ and ‘the triadic relation’.

8. Grotstein refers to Melanie Klein’s paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions. The creative position is a third position, which according to Grotstein transcends Klein’s depressive.

9. The Language of Bion (2005), p. 529, entry ‘O’.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Merete Sæbø Torvanger

Merete Sæbø Torvanger, MD, psychiatrist, master of cultural sciences, PhD in literary science. Works in private practice as a psychodynamic psychotherapist and as supervisor in psychodynamic psychotherapy.