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Like Subjects, Love Objects: Essays on Recognition and Sexual Difference
In this important book, the author of The Bonds of Love discusses gender issues from the perspective of developmental psychoanalysis. Jessica Benjamin, a well-known psychoanalyst and feminist, makes a case for what she calls "gender heterodoxy"―a highly original view of the similarities and differences between the sexes―and in the process she illuminates aspects of love, sexuality, aggression, and pornography.
Benjamin elaborates and develops the psychoanalytic theory of intersubjectivity, taking up the What difference does it make when I consider the Other to be not merely an object of my mind but a subject in his or her own right, with a center of being equivalent to my own? This question of recognition is closely related to how we frame, tolerate, and theorize difference and is therefore tied to the issue of gender. Benjamin argues that intersubjective theory does not replace but rather adds to the existing intrapsychic theory of psychoanalysis, which focuses on the individual. Her both/and (as opposed to either/or) approach is carried throughout the book, for Benjamin brilliantly integrates relational and Freudian positions, feminist and psychoanalytic theory, and clinical and theoretical information.
Benjamin elaborates and develops the psychoanalytic theory of intersubjectivity, taking up the What difference does it make when I consider the Other to be not merely an object of my mind but a subject in his or her own right, with a center of being equivalent to my own? This question of recognition is closely related to how we frame, tolerate, and theorize difference and is therefore tied to the issue of gender. Benjamin argues that intersubjective theory does not replace but rather adds to the existing intrapsychic theory of psychoanalysis, which focuses on the individual. Her both/and (as opposed to either/or) approach is carried throughout the book, for Benjamin brilliantly integrates relational and Freudian positions, feminist and psychoanalytic theory, and clinical and theoretical information.
245 pages, Paperback
First published November 29, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 20, 2017
An excellent collection of essays, both clinical and critical, by a professional psychoanalyst, responding to contemporary developments in feminist theory and continental philosophy. Drawing entirely upon resources internal to psychoanalytic discourse, Benjamin is able to to produce new and compelling accounts of intersubjective relations and our potential for further developing/enriching them, the relations between gender and sexual difference within oedipal and post-oedipal fields, as well as how these relations overflow at both the individual and societal-cultural levels.
An ideal complement to Anti-Oedipus for me, because the language used to treat the same themes is so different and concrete, I was able to secure concepts which had eluded me previously. I wish her reading of Irigaray were a little more nuanced, and the essay on masochism could have entered into some beautiful dialog with Coldness and Cruelty, but the text is incredibly rich as it is.
An ideal complement to Anti-Oedipus for me, because the language used to treat the same themes is so different and concrete, I was able to secure concepts which had eluded me previously. I wish her reading of Irigaray were a little more nuanced, and the essay on masochism could have entered into some beautiful dialog with Coldness and Cruelty, but the text is incredibly rich as it is.
January 17, 2018
"Woman as “the subject” . . Despite my affinity for the decentering stance of contemporary feminist theory in general and the effort to deconstruct the notion of an essential female identity in particular, the sometimes radical rejection of subjectivity and the denial of what we might call the generalizable features of the psyche appear to me deeply incompatible with psychoanalysis (Benjamin 1994). . . . Rejection by postmodern feminist theory of any unitary subject or self on the grounds of essentialist present many difficulties as it resolves. . . . .
Further, the concept of mutual recognition should include the notion of breakdown, of failure to sustain the tension, as well as account for the possibility of repair after failure (see Chapter 1). In this framework, the attunement within the mother-infant relationship is not to be conflated with a normative ideal of mutuality. Nor is attunement itself equitable with full recognition of the other; rather, it is only one of the earliest forms in which knowing the other is found, part of a long development of the capacity for recognition. Thus the relationship itself is not meant to be idealized, seen as some kind of should-be harmony, to which we hope to return; its forms of connection may be oppressive or facilitating, controlling or liberating. Examining the early struggle for recognition - which includes failures, destruction, aggression, even when it is working - ought to show us something about our relation to ideals: mutual recognition is meaningful as an ideal only when it is understood as the basis for struggle and negotiation of conflict (see Pizer 1992), when its impossibility and the striving to attain it are adequately included in the concept (see Butler 1994). . . .
“Mental life is seen from an intersubjective perspective.” A theory in which the individual subject no longer reigns absolute must confront the difficulty each subject has in recognizing the other as an equivalent center of experience (Benjamin 1988).. . .
The term object . . .In the original usage, still common in self psychology and object relation refers to the psychic internalization and representation of interactions between self and objects. While such theories ascribe a considerable role to the early environment and parental objects - in short, “real” others - they have taken us only to the point of recognizing that “where ego is, object must be.” . . . Perhaps the elision between “real” others and their internal representation is so widely tolerated because the epistemological question of what is reality and what is representation appears to us - in our justifiable humility - too ecumenical and lofty for our parochial craft. Or perhaps, as psychoanalysts, we are not really troubled by the question of reality."~Jessica Benjamin, Like Subjects; Love Objects
Further, the concept of mutual recognition should include the notion of breakdown, of failure to sustain the tension, as well as account for the possibility of repair after failure (see Chapter 1). In this framework, the attunement within the mother-infant relationship is not to be conflated with a normative ideal of mutuality. Nor is attunement itself equitable with full recognition of the other; rather, it is only one of the earliest forms in which knowing the other is found, part of a long development of the capacity for recognition. Thus the relationship itself is not meant to be idealized, seen as some kind of should-be harmony, to which we hope to return; its forms of connection may be oppressive or facilitating, controlling or liberating. Examining the early struggle for recognition - which includes failures, destruction, aggression, even when it is working - ought to show us something about our relation to ideals: mutual recognition is meaningful as an ideal only when it is understood as the basis for struggle and negotiation of conflict (see Pizer 1992), when its impossibility and the striving to attain it are adequately included in the concept (see Butler 1994). . . .
“Mental life is seen from an intersubjective perspective.” A theory in which the individual subject no longer reigns absolute must confront the difficulty each subject has in recognizing the other as an equivalent center of experience (Benjamin 1988).. . .
The term object . . .In the original usage, still common in self psychology and object relation refers to the psychic internalization and representation of interactions between self and objects. While such theories ascribe a considerable role to the early environment and parental objects - in short, “real” others - they have taken us only to the point of recognizing that “where ego is, object must be.” . . . Perhaps the elision between “real” others and their internal representation is so widely tolerated because the epistemological question of what is reality and what is representation appears to us - in our justifiable humility - too ecumenical and lofty for our parochial craft. Or perhaps, as psychoanalysts, we are not really troubled by the question of reality."~Jessica Benjamin, Like Subjects; Love Objects
November 3, 2021
Jessica Benjamin works through philosophical theories on how subjects are formed, in particular with regard to sexual identity and gender. Her theory contends that there is a much deeper multiplicity and ambiguity to gender identifications than previously thought or written about. She touches upon the subject's identity formation that is derived from an emotional exchange between two people. It is filled with psychoanalytic insights on recognition and sexual difference in regard to homosexuality as her book references many writers in the field of psychoanalysis such as Donald Winnicott, Jacques Lacan, Christopher Bollas, as well as many, many other writers. It is a good book to read if you are interested in the subject matter. It's even a greater book to read if you are familiar with some of the content that leans on other psychoanalytic writings.
April 12, 2009
Interesting discussion but I think the central thesis will turn out to be wrong as brain science catches up to the theorizing of social science. Benjamin proposes that we absorb other people into our brain as objects. I think, because we are consilient beings, that we absorb other people as subjects more than as objects, especially people in love relationships. This is certainly my life experience, taking on other people's opinions and attitudes like trying on a new coat, seeing what works and incorporating these new strategies and perspectives into my own behavior. I think that kind of model will prove to me much more rugged in the end.
July 22, 2008
i like her stuff on mutual recognition. and i'm glad that she addresses some of the heterosexism that she didn't talk about in her first book.
i was also excited to see that teresa brennan, who wrote transmission of affect, was in conversation with benjamin's work. i'm interested in the edges where feminist theory, relational psychoanalysis, and affect studies meet.
i was also excited to see that teresa brennan, who wrote transmission of affect, was in conversation with benjamin's work. i'm interested in the edges where feminist theory, relational psychoanalysis, and affect studies meet.
December 17, 2013
Another work that connects to the continuum of gender and visual ideas that inspire works of art; a primary reason that I read.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews