“Other” as Excluded Self-Object
Herman Gill, Ph.D.
8th Annual Psychology for the Other Conference
@
Seattle University Department of Psychology
Seattle, Washington.
Fall/2010
Clinical space in psychoanalysis reveals much towards an understanding of the nature of
human consciousness, an understanding of the term “relational” in the context of “Other”,
and an appreciation of the formidable task of “awakening” to a life of authenticity. In a
similar tradition, phenomenology provides an inexhaustible source of lenses and unfolding
epiphanies of the human condition in relation to “Other”. The scholarly writings of
Levinas, for example, crystallize an array of immortal discernments of experience and the
meaning of encounter with “Other” (Levinas, E. 1969; Levinas, E. 1998; Kunz, G., 1998).
Phenomenology, as the “rendering of space” for “Other” must predicate transformative
repair of self and self-restoration of “Other”. Psychoanalytically, understanding the nature
of “Object” from a self-object perspective in relation to “Other” is pertinent to a viable
hermeneutic of “relational” as both “Object” and “Other”, comprise the phenomenological
“events” of a subjective field.
This paper will discuss the “Psychology for the “Other”, from an abbreviated
psychoanalytic perspective of libido/contra-libido; a hybrid paradigm of “excluded selfobjects”; and postmodernism. A transpersonal synthesis of these perspectives will be
attempted in light of epiphanies revealed in the writings of Levinas.
Libidinal Polarity in the Psychoanalytic Paradigm of “Other”:
In Why War? (1933), one of Freud’s most important works shortly before his death, he
equated “relational” with “emotional tie” which underlies a libido of aggression which may
successfully or unsuccessfully be sublimated in relation to Object. He writes:
“Anything that encourages the growth of emotional ties between
men must operate against war. These ties may be of two kinds
In the first place they may be relations resembling those toward
a loved object, though without having a sexual aim. There is no
need for psychoanalysis to be ashamed to speak of love in this
connection, for religion itself uses the same words: “Thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself.” This, however, is more easily
said than done. The second kind of emotional tie is by means of
identification. Whatever leads men to share important interests
produces this community of feeling, these identifications. And the
structure of human society is to a large extent based on them.”
(Freud, 1933).
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Subsequent understanding of the nature of “emotional tie” and “relational” to “Object”
was hermeneutically broadened to include an historical-political and perhaps postmodern
quantum shift in our understanding of “Object” and its relationship to human love:
“Love is not primarily a relationship to a specific person; it is an
attitude, an orientation of character which determines the relatedness of a person to the world as a whole, not toward one
object of love” (Fromm, 1956).
This quantum “shift” in psychoanalytic understanding of “emotional tie” necessitated a
shift in hermeneutic understanding of “Object” from “linear” to “spatial”; from convergent
thinking to divergent thinking; and from “temporal” to “transcendent”. It has been argued
that psychoanalysis postulated a meta-psychology it failed to embrace fully. Our
understanding of “relational”, “Other”, and “Object” has witnessed a radical morphology
with the emergence of postmodernism. Postmodern dialectic “posits” transferrential and
counter-transferential “point-of-consciousness” as moment-to-moment, forward moving,
future creating (life giving) libido in “potentia”.
A Hybrid Paradigm of “Relational” to “Other”:
What then is “contra-libido” in the context of self-object theory today? Self-object theory
provides a hybrid glimpse into the psychoanalytic medium of transformation in relation to
“Other”. This hybrid paradigm suggests that disavowed aspects of self in the form of
fractured “part-objects”, form clusters of “excluded self-objects” which seek nothing less
than the annihilation of an otherwise harmonious and creative inner core (Lopez-Corvo, R.,
1999). These disavowed aspects of a destructive nature, attack, paralyze, and seek the selfdestruction of the organism. Ontologically, these “sub-personalities” are thought to involve
“self-envy” mechanisms which explain, at least partly, civilization’s enduring libido for
human destruction (Freud, S. 1911; Freud, S. 1964; 1992; Fromm, E. 1973; Chomsky, N.
2006). These “excluded self-objects” fracture the genesis of “culture” by “re-traumatization” before space is created!
Self-envy refers to the unconscious concealment of inner resources, a developmental arrest,
which obfuscates future (Berman, 1999). “Other” in this context seeks its own destruction!
This would be difficult to accept or believe, were it not for the self-evident and pandemic
nature of human destructiveness today. Why is the history of civilization essentially the
history of war? While clinical space well documents commonly observed self-sabotaging
mechanisms as they are frequently seen in narcissistic and borderline disorders, selfdefeating patterns of victimization, and an array of pathological syndromes, the
phenomenology of this destructive “relational” to “Other” is new in that it is pervasive
globally. Contra-libido today is pandemic, and not limited to clinical classification. In this
paradigm, “clinic” extends beyond the analytic hour.
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Postmodernism in “Relational” to “Other”:
Postmodernism is antithetical to just about every principle known to art and science. Postmodern culture has replaced scientifically derived “reality” with a broader and more
compelling quantum perspective in which meaning is found in the future (Johnson, 2000;
Shawver, 1998; 2006). In this context, “relational” may constitute “rendering of future”,
from the matrix of “Other”, with the changing fluctuations of consciousness,
interpretation, and experience.
Postmodernism suggests that “emotional tie” is in the response that we receive; images we
create and put ourselves into; and in resilience to permutation. The postmodern
understanding of “relational” self-creates a construct of future possibilities or even
impossibilities. Postmodernism maintains that “Other” as “self-object” constitutes an
historical “expert”. History is “history” in this context, and neither history nor “theory”
holds a necessary categorical truth concerning the nature of relational. Consciousness itself
constructs “Object” as “future”. “Relational-to-Other” is “future”.
Accordingly, prior hermeneutics of “Object” introduced several false realities: (1) there is
a singular, stable, knowable self, (2) self-knowledge is based upon rationality and reason,
(3) the “Object” of self and “science” form the basis to reality and truth, and (4) the
language of science and scientific psychology determines “Object”. Postmodern
perspectives suggest that the substantive and non-substantive nature of “mind” is created
within the matrix of “Object” revealed to “Other”.
For this reason, creativity holds a prominent place in relational to “Other”, in the implicit
self-repair and self-restoration of excluded self-objects. Creativity is antithetical to selfsplitting and false mirroring: (1) creativity represents an “expansive” spatial medium, inner
movement, and the ability to render cognitive permutation, (2) creativity re-centers and reintegrates consciousness, (3) creativity links the organism with its memory of origin,
serving to re-establish an inner certainty with our future. Creativity re-connects “Other” to
ones transcendent memory of origin.
Levinas: Transpersonal Dimensions of “Relational” to “Other”:
“Krshna, what causes karma?”- Arjuna
“I appeared to you in my multifaceted form and you did not recognize me”- Krshna
Bhagavad Gita
What does it mean to recognize “Other” from a transpersonal perspective? Transpersonal
psychology contends that psychology itself denies the entire range of experience in a selflimiting view of knowledge barrowed from the natural sciences. Transpersonal psychology
maintains that perhaps the most “essential” and “important” aspects of human experience
are “excluded self-objects” in a field which is itself, self-perseverating. Transpersonal
psychology, necessitates the value of “ontologic”, which includes the value of subjective
experience, the significance of creativity, recognition of individual human dignity,
Page 4.
imagination, states of consciousness, intentionality, and free will (Lefebvre, A., 2010; Tart,
C., 2009).
Phenomenologically, the writings of Levinas renders an “ethic”, a “right thing to do”, or
“being” which reconciles reason (Kant), pleasure (Utilitarianism), and God (Aquinas)
(Beavers, A., 2010). This reconciliation of “ought” supports a new perspective of our
postmodern perspective of “clinic” as a space of transformation for “Other”. Our very
purpose on earth may be to join with “Other” for the transformation, awakening, and selfrepair of an evolving, transcendent spirit. In this transcendent medium, self-repair elevates
“Other”. We “join” not for the purpose of redundant human destructiveness, but for
transformative and psychological self-repair.
Levinas spoke literally to the “ontology” of culture. The dialectic of human destructiveness
versus the creation of human dignity, within the human encounter. We create and invent in
our self-repair and the self-repair of “Other”. We awaken, to our own “differentness” and
“otherness” in a shared transformative medium where “Other” is “recognized” and “heard”
from a transformative space.
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