The Interspace: Evolving Psychoanalytic Metatheory

ABSTRACT

The construct of an Interspace, synthesized from Eastern and Western philosophies, may be useful in contemplating a next step in the metatheoretical evolution of psychoanalysis. This article will describe Eastern philosophical viewpoints about the interconnectedness of consciousness, show recent developments in the relational-constructivist movement and other theories that push the one-person, two-person, and blended two-person (intersubjective) psychoanalytic envelope. The Interspace is proposed as an overarching and interpenetrating dimension within which individual and relational levels of consciousness are embedded, and in regard to which different rules of time and space may apply. Potentially sweeping implications for reconceptualizing in-session phenomena, psychoanalytic theory and treatment, emotional disorders and symptoms, as well as metaphysical phenomena in human experiences are explored in relation to considering the Interspace.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ From D.W. Winnicott’s “The Location of Cultural Experience,” a talk given at the British Psycho-Analytical Society, December 7, 1966.

² From Inter-Action to Inter-Being: Psychoanalytic Realization of Buddhist Vision a Seminar at the Lama Tzong Khapa Institute,Pomaia, Italy, 2006.

³ Personal conversation after his lecture for the Global Dialogue Institute that convened at Haverford College, on April 20, 2009, in Haverford, PA.

⁴ This title was provided to Freud’s treatise by the publisher when “the Project,” written in 1898, finally appeared in print in 1950.

⁵ Though it is too complex into which to delve in this introductory discussion, it is conceivable, even expected, that in repeated interactions, the different dimensions of experience interact with each other, and the associated phenomenological artifacts compound each other.

⁶ In a letter from Raanan Kulka to me on November 22, 2014 during out initial discussions of my notion of the Interspace.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Farrell Silverberg

Farrell Silverberg, Ph.D., NCPsyA, is a training and supervising psychoanalyst at the Philadelphia School of Psychoanalysis, the first Westerner to be trained in Taopsychotherapy in Korea, and author of The Tao of Self Psychology.