“The Present Moment of the Past.” Notes on Ogden’s Concept of the Analytic Third

Valerie Fouquet: Fusion

And he is not likely to know what is to be done unless he lives in what is not merely the present, but the present moment of the past, unless he is conscious, not of what is dead, but of what is already living.

 (T. S. Eliot, 1919, p. 11).

I shall endeavour to address an aspect of what I understand to be 'the present moment of the past' of psychoanalysis. It is my belief that an important facet of this 'present moment' for psychoanalysis is the development of an analytic conceptualisation of the nature of the interplay of subjectivity and intersubjectivity in the analytic setting and the exploration of the implications for technique that these conceptual developments hold (p.3)

I believe that it is fair to say that contemporary psychoanalytic thinking is approaching a point where one can no longer simply speak of the analyst and the analysand as separate subjects who take one another as objects. The idea of the analyst as a neutral blank screen for the patient's projections is occupying a position of steadily diminishing importance in current conceptions of the analytic process.

My own conception of analytic intersubjectivity places central emphasis on its dialectical nature. This understanding represents an elaboration and extension of Winnicott's notion that '"There is no such thing as an infant" [apart from the maternal provision]'. I believe that, in an analytic context, there is no such thing as an analysand apart from the relationship with the analyst, and no such thing as an analyst apart from the relationship with the analysand. 

[…] the intersubjectivity of the analyst–analysand coexists in dynamic tension with the analyst and the analysand as separate individuals with their own thoughts, feelings, sensations, corporal reality, psychological identity and so on. Neither the intersubjectivity of the mother–infant nor that of the analyst–analysand (as separate psychological entities) exists in pure form. The intersubjective and the individually subjective each create, negate and preserve the other. In both the relationship of mother and infant and of analyst and analysand, the task is not to tease apart the elements constituting the relationship in an effort to determine which qualities belong to each individual participating in it; rather, from the point of view of the interdependence of subject and object, the analytic task involves an attempt to describe as fully as possible the specific nature of the experience of the interplay of individual subjectivity and intersubjectivity. (p. 4) 

I believe that a major dimension of the analyst's psychological life in the consulting room with the patient takes the form of reverie concerning the ordinary, everyday details of his own life (that are often of great narcissistic importance to him). […] these reveries […] represent symbolic and proto-symbolic (sensation-based) forms given to the unarticulated (and often not yet felt) experience of the analysand as they are taking form in the intersubjectivity of the analytic pair (i.e. in the analytic third). (p.12)

The analytic process reflects the interplay of three subjectivities: that of the analyst, of the analysand, and of the analytic third. The analytic third is a creation of the analyst and analysand, and at the same time the analyst and analysand (qua analyst and analysand) are created by the analytic third (there is no analyst, no analysand, and no analysis in the absence of the third).

As the analytic third is experienced by analyst and analysand in the context of his or her own personality system, personal history, psychosomatic make-up, etc. the experience of the third (although jointly created) is not identical for each participant.

Moreover, the analytic third is an asymmetrical construction because it is generated in the context of the analytic setting, which is powerfully defined by the relationship of roles of analyst and analysand. As a result, the unconscious experience of the analysand is privileged in a specific way, i.e. it is the past and present experience of the analysand that is taken by the analytic pair as the principal (although not exclusive) subject of the analytic discourse. The analyst's experience in and of the analytic third is, primarily, utilised as a vehicle for the understanding of the conscious and unconscious experience of the analysand (the analyst and analysand are not engaged in a democratic process of mutual analysis).

The concept of the analytic third provides a framework of ideas about the interdependence of subject and object, of transference–countertransference, that assists the analyst in his efforts to attend closely to, and think clearly about, the myriad of intersubjective clinical facts he encounters, whether they be the apparently self-absorbed ramblings of his mind, bodily sensations that seemingly have nothing to do with the analysand, or any other 'analytic object' intersubjectively generated by the analytic pair. (p.16-17)

Reference

Ogden, T. H (1994) The Analytic Third: Working with Intersubjective Clinical Facts. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 75:3-19