Merton Shill, Ph.D.
Graduate in Adult Psychoanalysis, New York Freudian Society; Candidate, Child/Adolescent Psychoanalysis, Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute
 
Discussant: Melvin Bornstein, M.D.,
Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst,
Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute

Intersubjective phenomena have not been integrated into the personality theory of psychoanalysis.  Intersubjective processes are ego functions that can be subsumed within ego psychology without doing violence to their import.  The analyst variously experiences the self and the patient as both subject and object, simultaneously, due to the intersubjective nature of clinical interaction. Clinical examples will illustrate this approach in relation to the drives and objects, conflict and defense; the interpersonal, the intrapsychic and internal representation; and the nature of the experience within the clinical dyad.