Remembering the Other

ABSTRACT

In this article I inquire into why humans have such devastatingly difficult problems relating to difference by elaborating Hegel’s claim that the structure of self-consciousness leads toward domination/submission interactions and showing how Kohut’s articulation of narcissistic needs reveals a fundamental desire for locating oneself in communities of sameness. I then discuss why the Enlightenment’s strategy of finding a universal commonality among humans is both important in solving the problem but also fails to recognize the genuine difference that difference makes. I conclude by showing how self psychology’s emphasis on empathy as the primary predisposition for engagement with others is crucial in solving the problem of alterity and why it is that persons must engage with difference if they are to sustain the vibrancy of their selves.

KEYWORDS:

• Otherness
• othering
• other
• remembering
• black woman
• self
• name

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cynthia Chalker

Cynthia Chalker, MSS, LCSW, is a psychoanalyst and clinical social worker based in New York, NY. She is an Associate Editor of Psychoanalytic Dialogues, and on faculty at National Institute for the Psychotherapies (NY); and Psychoanalytic Institute Northern California/South Bay Community for Psychoanalytic Study (CA). She is on the Board of Directors of Manhattan Institute of Psychoanalysis, from which she is a graduate.