The struggle for recognition disruption and reintegration in the experience of agency

Abstract

In classical psychoanalytic models, treatment can be understood as enabling patients to repossess their own agency—to take responsibility for themselves as agents in relation to their own motives and impulses ("Where id was, there shall ego be"). How the question of agency is understood developmentally and as part of the treatment process in relational psychoanalytic perspectives has been less clearly articulated.

In this article, we suggest that the attainment of the ability to experience oneself as an agent emerges from complex interpersonal and intrapsychic processes in infancy and early childhood and represents a kind of “glue”; that provides the foundation for a feeling of personal coherence. We also suggest that the development of a sense of agency is predicated on the negotiation of recognition and mutual impact with parents early in life. When those negotiations go awry, the child's capacity for agency can be disrupted. We suggest that many of the difficulties patients experience in their lives can be understood in this developmental context.