Abstract (may include machine translation)
In this chapter I contrasted two different developmental approaches to the ontogenetic origins of the subjective self and to the nature and developmental roots of the "intersubjectivity" of interpersonal experience from the points of view of developmental psychopathology of disorders of the self on the one hand, and social cognitive theories of normal self development on the other. First the Cartesian view of the subjective self and the group of related current-day developmental theories of primary "intersubjectivity" have been described and critically examined on both empirical and clinical grounds. These developmental theories advocate a rich mentalistic interpretation of the subjective experience that young infants may have during early turn-taking protoconversational affective interactions about the emotional and intentional psychological states of both their own self and the caregiver's mind. A number of non-trivial conceptual and empirical problems that these currently popular theories of primary "intersubjectivity" have to face have been identified, and several alternative developmental approaches that avoid these problems have been outlined. Then I summarized our alternative social constructivist approach (Fonagy, Gergely, et al., 2002; Gergely & Watson, 1996) to the early development of the subjective self that emphasizes the important causal role that habitual patterns of contingent responsivity of the infant's attachment environment may play in the emergence of a subjective sense of affective self-experience. I described the specific mechanisms and psychological processes postulated by our contingency-based "social biofeedback model of affect-mirroring" that mediate the internalization of second-order representations for the primary--and initially non-conscious--procedural emotional states of the "constitutional self" that are at first introspectively "invisible" and cognitively inaccessible. Our model emphasizes the central developmental role of contingent affect-mirroring interactions involving "marked" forms of emotion displays in the formation of the representational and attentional preconditions for the emergence of a subjective sense of emotional self-experience and the intersubjective mental understanding of interpersonal interactions with others. The representation-building role of "marked" forms of affect-mirroring interactions and the functional nature of the "ostensive communicative cues" that accompany them were then reconceptualized within the new theoretical framework of human "pedagogy", a primary species-unique adaptation dedicated for the efficient transmission of new and relevant cultural knowledge in humans. Affect-mirroring interactions of infant-attuned caregivers can be conceived of as a specific form of ostensive pedagogical communications through which the caregiver "teaches" the infant about the existence and dispositional content of her primary, non-conscious, and automatic emotion states. This process induces a self-referential interpretation of the caregiver's ostensive "marked" affect-mirroring displays by the infant that also leads to the modification of initially externally biased attentional processes towards introspective self-monitoring, further contributing to the establishment of subjective self-awareness and control. In the final section new evidence from recent empirical studies is briefly summarized. The chapter concludes with a commentary by James F. Leckman. Leckman's brief discussion digresses to the wonders of intersubjectivity (and some tantalizing findings from a MRI study of a Clint Eastwood movie). It then moves on to what Donald Winnicott would have said (or actually did say), before returning to modern neuroscience and wondering whether we can ever witness the intersubjectivity and synchrony of parent-infant dyads and wondering at how that information might inform the care of individuals with severe "self" pathology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Developmental science and psychoanalysis |
Editors | Linda C Mayes, Péter Fónagy, M Target |
Place of Publication | London |
Publisher | Karnac Books |
Pages | 45-82 |
Number of pages | 38 |
ISBN (Print) | 9781849405836 |
State | Published - 2007 |