Preliminary communication
https://doi.org/10.5559/di.20.2.14
Modern Self as Seen from the Contextual Perspective
Iva PASKA
orcid.org/0000-0002-1107-7906
; Zagreb
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to show the embeddedness of the
self in the context of its formation and existence. The paper is
based on the findings of intersubjective psychoanalysis,
which finds the self to be formed, and later to exist, within
certain human intersubjective systems. Thus the perspectives
which tend to observe the self as an isolated or
transhistorical entity are problematic. Intersubjective systems
are also embedded within a wider cultural system, meaning
that the self is also formed and exists in a specific cultural
context which influences its organization. This is shown on
the case of the modern self, whose specific problems
became evident in the clinical praxis of the sixties in the
twentieth century. Those problems are best described by the
phenomenon called "tendency towards fragmentation",
observed by psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut. The phenomenon is,
in this paper, linked to the context of formation and existence
of the self in modern society. The general aim of this paper
is thus to place modern clinical findings into a wider
sociological context in a new way. Building on this
perspective, the author also offers her own sociopsychoanalytic
explanation of the problems of the modern
self.
Keywords
self; psychoanalysis; intersubjectivity; modernity; culture
Hrčak ID:
69571
URI
Publication date:
15.6.2011.
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