Genealogy of intersubjectivity and affect figurability: Winnicott and Merleau-Ponty

Abstract

This article aims to tackle the question of intersubjectivity, beyond the traditional philosophical question of otherness. This issue is fundamental in philosophy, but also in psychoanalysis and psychopathology, since it involves the constitution of a relationship with the other, an experience based on infantile memory and never definitively acquired. This involves various theoretical and clinical experiences, as far as the treatment of contemporary psychopathological forms is concerned. The author shows how Merleau-Ponty's interest for the body and the other echoes winnicottian psychoanalysis and how both reveal a mental act specific to intersubjectivity and affect figurability, lying between perception and hallucination, inside and outside, subject and other.