Abstract
Ipseity rather than as a produced thing appears as an event or rather as a phenomenon. The constitutive temporariness of human existence, its motility, is seen at each moment as a disclosure of meaning, as an intelligible space that opens up with respect to the meaningful things we encounter. Clearly, ipseity does not create the world, nor does it “constitute” it; rather, in each case, it comes to itself, it finds itself, while at the same time enabling the appearance of the world as something meaningful. This chapter elucidates the structure of ipseity in relation to the world, everyday life, one’s own history, the changes occurring over the course of one’s life, the unprominent sphere of meaning, the trauma, and the creation of a symptom.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The categories are rooted in actualization.
- 2.
The domain of the proper is grasped as a relation that is always underway starting from the ongoing situation.
- 3.
From this perspective, the attempt to reduce the understanding of others to the exterior perception of acts or expressions of the human body—by tracing these back to psychic connections and ultimately completing the constitution of the flesh viewed from the outside by Einfühlung—seems contrived at best.
- 4.
Greisch is particularly fascinated by this patchwork aspect of the “carpet of life” and identifies it in Stefan George’s poems (2000).
- 5.
Personality, in other words, does not correspond to a theoretical category, but is rather a formal indication.
- 6.
In its attempt to explain the generation of meaning according to a motor theory of mind founded upon the neo-Darwinist axiom of the survival of the fittest, evolutionary epistemology (Hayek 1952; Popper and Eccles 1986; Weimer 1977) turned to biology in search of the objectiveness required to ground such a theory—as already Pierce had done. In doing so, however, it turned away from actual life and from the possibility of finding the source of meaning in life itself, as it is actually experienced. On the other hand, this issue may be regarded as a point of contact with the tradition of American pragmatism, in the style of Ricoeur’s hermeneutics.
- 7.
Heidegger notes: “Even the life which distracts itself meets the world as ‘distraction’, as something dispersive, multiple, which satisfies, engages, absorbs, empties and bores. This means that the inclination shows itself as something moving toward itself” (GA 61, pp. 119–150 it).
- 8.
Heidegger writes: “In factical life experiences run through each other in multiple ways, at one moment coming out of this life-world, at the next moment out of that one, entwining and reshaping themselves, growing over themselves—among the availabilities back and forth, over and away to other running motivations” (GA 58, p. 55).
- 9.
Boss (1977) grasps this point by grafting it upon the spatial harmonics which has always been dear to phenomenology: “Once human existence is seen as bearing the spatio-temporal worldwide realm of openness as, itself, a perceptive and actively responsive openness, the problem of location takes on a wholly different aspect. It is then self-evident that the possibilities for relatedness belong fundamentally and immediately to the whole realm of perceptive openness. They are, in fact, what constitute human being-in-the-world. This openness is the primordial spatiality or prespatiality in which the possibility of a phenomenon’s being located at any point in space is grounded” (p. 132).
- 10.
Heidegger grasps this relation with the other as the threat of subjection (Botmassigkeit) to the dictatorship of the anonymous “yes” (GA 2, p. 126). Radically reversing its meaning in ethical terms, Levinas instead grasps the same phenomenon as the command (Gebot) issued to me by the face of the other, an order to be obeyed (see Greisch 1994a).
- 11.
For a review, see Baltes et al. (2006).
- 12.
Freud’s casual use of the term trauma to describe “any excitations from outside which are powerful enough to break through the protective shield (den Reizschutz zu durchbrechen) … with a breach in an otherwise efficacious barrier against stimuli” (Freud 1920, p. 29)—which has become en vogue once again through the ambiguous category of post-traumatic stress disorder—points to a quantitative view of affections which has its roots in Aristotle (Met. Delta 21, 1022 b 15–21). However, alongside a quantitative definition of affections, in Chapter 21 of Book Delta of the Metaphysics, Aristotle puts forward another three definitions, pertaining to quality: according to the movement of alteration, according to the act of changing, and according to one’s disposition.
- 13.
The term Reizschutz, which is usually translated as protective wall or shield, literally means “protection against stimuli.”
- 14.
The research on attachment which one of the authors of the present book conducted with Guidano in the early 1990s (Guidano 1991; Russiello et al. 1995; Arciero 1994, 2002; Arciero and Guidano 2000) was aimed, not so much at interpreting the difference between various forms of reciprocity on the basis of the level of security/insecurity of early relationships, but rather at grasping—within the context of a non-representational epistemology inspired by Merleau-Ponty—the various forms of attachment as a source of emotional organization and the narrative capacity of the individual as a means of emotional articulation and regulation. By making the relational system coincide with that of emotional organization, this approach opened up a new research horizon that placed affectivity at the center of every relationship and hence implied a radical contextualization of all the aspects of human psychological life. This perspective, which was developed together with Guidano, pointed to the need to study individual differences. On the other hand, by generating different forms of misattunement and misregulation in continuity with early experiences, the endurance of the same forms of emotional organization throughout one’s life may be seen to lay the foundations for the understanding of various personality disorders (Arciero and Bondolfi 2009). This perspective also helps understand the findings made by some recent studies on emotional experience among street boys living in extreme adversity in post-conflict Sierra Leone (Ardizzi et al. 2013, 2015).
- 15.
The treatment of a symptom, therefore, also has its starting point in the patient’s experience of the mechanisms that underlie this gap.
- 16.
Historical reality coincides with virtuality: the disclosure of possibilities that call one’s actual condition into question.
- 17.
In this sense, an action, to the extent that it implies the intention of being recognized for what it is, may express a certain illocutionary force—during a conflict in a couple, for instance—that has very little to do with the energetics of vitality affects, as argued by some researchers working on the motor system (Di Cesare et al. 2013).
- 18.
Heidegger grasps this experience as an intuition: an original retro- and pre-conceptual formation.
- 19.
Fragment 119, Ethos antropoi daimon, revolves around the terms ethos and daimon, character and destiny. Most commentators (Zeller and Mondolfo 1961; Kirk et al. 1983; Kahn 1979; Marchovich 1978) adopt Snell’s reading, according to which the destiny of a man is determined by his character.
If we instead read the fragment as a noun phrase (Arciero 2006), i.e., as a “nominal predicate, with neither verb nor copula, regarded as the standard expression in Indo-European, whereas the verbal form would have been the third person of the present indicative of ‘to be’,” then it “does not express any factual data, but establishes a timeless and permanent relation which acts as an authoritative argument” (Benveniste 1966). In other words, daimon cannot be considered as predicative of ethos, but rather carries an essential value, insofar as it expresses an integral part of the human being. What makes this such a remarkable fragment, then, is the speculative tension springing from the simultaneity of ethos and daimon, which coexist in parallel yet distinctly: the simultaneity of the one and the many. From this perspective, it is even more interesting to note that if in the same sentence we had the verb esti, the third-person singular of the present indicative of “to be,” the sentence would refer to present situations: it would find its content in the situation it refers to.
Bibliography
Arciero G (1994) I and Thou: notes on the phenomenology of reciprocity. Paper presented at the meeting “Ethology and Knowledge” -Nov. 1994 University of Siena-Published in “Conoscenza e Etologia” (1996) Melusina ed
Arciero G (2002) Studi e dialoghi sull’identità personale: riflessioni sull’esperienza umana. Bollati Boringhieri, Torino
Arciero G (2006) Sulle tracce di sé. Bollati Boringhieri, Torino
Arciero G, Bondolfi G (2009) Selfhood, identity and personality styles. John Wiley & Sons, Chichester
Arciero G, Guidano VF (2000) Experience, explanation, and the quest for coherence. In: Neimeyer RA, Raskin JD (eds) Constructions of disorder: meaning-making frameworks for psychotherapy. American Psychological Association, Washington
Ardizzi M, Martini F, Umiltà MA, Sestito M, Ravera R, Gallese V (2013) When early experiences build a wall to others’ emotions: an electrophysiological and autonomic study. PLoS One 8(4):e61004
Ardizzi M, Martini F, Umiltà MA, Evangelista V, Ravera R, Gallese V (2015) Impact of childhood maltreatment on the recognition of facial expressions of emotions. PLoS One 10(10):e0141732
Baltes PB, Lindenberger U, Staudinger UM (2006) Life span theory in developmental psychology. Wiley, New York
Barbaras R (2007) Le mouvement de l’existence: études sur la phénoménologie de Jan Patočka. Éditions de la Transparence, Chatou
Benveniste E (1966) Problèmes de linguistique générale, 1. Gallimard, Paris
Boss M (1977) Existential foundations of medicine & psychology. Jason Aronson, Northvale
Caputo A (2015). Emozioni come infezioni? La critica heideggeriana al contagio emotivo di Scheler. In Dibattista (Eds.) Emozioni infettive. Mimesis, pp 127–155
Dahl G (2010) The two time vectors of Nachträglichkeit in the development of ego organization: significance of the concept for the symbolization of nameless traumas and anxieties 1. Int J Psychoanal 91(4):727–744
Di Cesare G, Di Dio C, Rochat MJ, Sinigaglia C, Bruschweiler-Stern N, Stern DN, Rizzolatti G (2013) The neural correlates of “vitality form” recognition: an fMRI study. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 9(7):951–960
Eraclito (1978) Frammenti, a cura di M. Marcovich, La Nuova Italia, Firenze
Erickson EH (1982) The life cycle completed: a review. W. W Norton, New York
Fonagy P, Gergely G, Jurist E, Target M (2002) Affect regulation, mentalization, and the development of the self. Other Press, New York
Freud S (1920) Beyond the pleasure principle. Hogarth, London
Freud S (1939) Moses and monotheism. Hogarth, London, pp 7–140
Freud S, Breuer J (1895) Studies on hysteria. SE, 2. Hogarth, London
Garland C (1998) Thinking about trauma. In: Garland C (ed) Understanding trauma: a psychoanalytical approach. Duckworth, London, pp 9–31
Greisch J (2000) L’Arbre de vie et l’Arbre du savoir.: Le chemin phénoménologique de l’herméneutique heideggérienne (1919-1923). Cerf, Paris
Guidano VF (1991) The self in process: toward a post-rationalist cognitive therapy. Guilford Press, New York
Hayek FA (1952) The sensory order: an inquiry into the foundations of theoretical psychology. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Heidegger GA 56/57 1999
Heidegger GA 58 1992
Heidegger GA 61 1985
Jaspers K (1919) Psychologie der weltanschauungen. Springer, Berlin
Kahn CH (1979) The art and thought of Heraclitus. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Kahneman D (2011) Thinking, fast and slow, New York. Macmillan
Kierkegaard S (2013) Kierkegaard’s writings, XI: stages on life’s way, vol 11. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Kirk GS, Raven JE, Schofield M (1983) The presocratic philosophers: a critical history with a selcetion of texts. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Levinas E (1979) Totality and infinity: an essay on exteriority, vol 1. Springer Science & Business Media, Dordrecht
Levinas E (1991) Totality and infinity: an essay on exteriority. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht
Marcovich M (1978) Eraclito: frammenti. La nuova Italia
Patočka J (1976) Le monde naturel comme problème philosophique. Martinus Nijhoff, La Haye
Patočka J (1995) Papiers phénoménologiques. Editions Jérôme Millon, Grenoble
Pöggeler, O. (1989–1995). Heideggers logische Untersuchungen. In Martin Heidegger: Innen-und Aussenansichten: Forum für Philosophie Bad Hamburg (pp 75–100) trad.it. In Poggi S, Tomasello P (eds) Martin Heidegger. Ontologia, fenomenologia, verità. LED Edizioni Universitarie. A cura di. Milano, 1995
Popper KR, Eccles JC (1986) Self and its brain: an arguments for interactionism. Springer, Berlin
Quesne P (2004) Les recherches philosophiques du jeune Heidegger, vol 171. Springer Science & Business Media, Dordrecht
Richardson WJ (1988) The place of the unconscious in Heidegger. In: Hoeller K (ed) Heidegger & psychology. Review of Existential Psychology & Psychiatry, Seattle
Russiello F, Arciero G, Decaminada F, Corona R, Ferrigno L, Fucci M et al (1995) Stress, attachment and skin diseases: a casecisco Varelaal. J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol 5(3):234–239
Schore AN (2002) Advances in neuropsychoanalysis, attachment theory, and trauma research: implications for self psychology. Psychoanal Inq 22(3):433–484
Solomon RC (ed) (2004) Thinking about feeling. Oxford University Press, Oxford, p 76
Solomon M, Siegel DJ (2003) Healing trauma. WW Norton, New York
Stendhal (2002) Romanzi e racconti 2 Vol. I Meridiani. Mondadori
Stern DN (2004) The present moment in psychotherapy and everyday life (Norton series on interpersonal neurobiology). WW Norton & Company, New York
Stolorow RD (2011) Trauma and human existence: autobiographical, psychoanalytic, and philosophical reflections. Taylor & Francis, New York
Strawson, G. (1999). The self. In Gallagher, S., & Shear, J. (1999). Models of the Self. Charlottesville Imprint Academic.
Weimer WB (1977) A conceptual framework for cognitive psychology: motor theories of mind. In: Shaw R, Bransford J (eds) Perceiving, acting, and knowing. Erlbaum, Hillsdale
Zeller E, Mondolfo R (1961) La filosofia dei greci nel suo sviluppo storico. La nuova Italia, Milano
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Arciero, G., Bondolfi, G., Mazzola, V. (2018). Self-Intimacy and Individuation. In: The Foundations of Phenomenological Psychotherapy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78087-0_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78087-0_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-78086-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-78087-0
eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)