Shadow of the Other: Intersubjectivity and Gender in Psychoanalysis. By Jessica Benjamin. New York: Routledge, 1998.

Reviewed by Harriet Kimble Wrye, Ph.D. The Shadow of the Other, Jessica Benjamin's third book, is an impressive effort at building and integrating theory in the domain of feminism, gender, object relations theory, and intersubjectivity. The book is essentially a trio of essays that begins with the roots of psychoanalysis in Freud's theory of sexuality an, as the title suggests, updates that theory in light of contemporary views. In the first essay, originally written for an NYU conference occasioned by the centennial of the publication of Studies on Hysteria, Benjamin revisits the case of Anna O., taking issue with Freud's polarization of sex along the fault line of active/masculine vs. passive/feminine. The second essay raises questions about the classical oedipus complex, and how it could be reconfigured to replace dichotomous masculine subject/feminine object polarities of gender with a theory of the pluralities of gender for males and females, where both become desiring sexual subjects. In her third essay, Benjamin undertakes to cover the major voices in postmodernism, deconstuctionism, and Lacanian feminism, and, in a theoretical tour de force, attempts to integrate aspects of postmodern feminist theory, object relations theory, and intersubjectivity. This is a tall order, particularly for a little (109 pages of text) book. This work is vintage Benjamin--pithy, erudite, and abstruse. For those who have been struggling to integrate the feminist psychoanalytic project with classical, object relations, and intersubjective theory, it is a welcome book: economical, a dense and challenging read, yet highly rewarding the determined reader, with many theoretical illuminations. It may be difficult going for those who appreciate clinical illustrations--you will not find those here--but it is an important, cutting-edge theoretical contribution for psychoanalysts of every persuasion.
I shall explicate some of Benjamin's central points, to familiarize those reader who may be reluctant to take on this feminist project with the substance of the author's point of view and thesis. In synthesizing briefly what are actually three separate essays, I hope to whet readers' appetites for this compelling integrative work, as it has profound clinical implications for analysts and patients of both genders. Benjamin positions herself appreciatively but critically equidistant from the classical Freudian position and the postmodern structural position, finding her center in object relations theory and intersubjectivity. Her explication of both ends o the psychoanalytic spectrum shows her appreciation of both ends of the psychoanalytic century, and their influences upon her. Greenberg and Mitchell (1983) argue that we can't have it both ways, that we ultimately must locate our flags in either the drive psychology/one-person model or the relational/two-person model. Benjamin, however, like Pine (1988) in his paper on the four psychologies of psychoanalysis, is a firm believer in the importance of integration. She is interested in a dialectic process that fosters elaboration, and she gathers diverse strands of theory together like wheat stalks, interweaving them into a fabric while casting off the polarizing and limiting chaff. While she identifies herself with the two-person model of intersubjectivity, she also argues for the importance of retaining the unconscious intrapsychic model of each individual's psyche in an interaction. At times, for the sake of argument, Benjamin invokes the very theoretical polarities she is seeking to diffuse. Occasionally the tone becomes almost Messianic, as in "we (intersubjectivists) aim to formulate a space between suggestion and objective distance.."p.24). As in her book Like Subjects, Love Objects (1995), Benjamin's central concern here is with the intersubjective dictum "where objects were, subjects must be."

This dictum applies to the analytic couple, in the sense that the analyst must forfeit classic "objectivity" as the one who knows and reclaim her own subjectivity, at the same time honoring the patient's subjectivity as the one who can speak what she knows. The book would benefit from the addition of a glossary, as some key words are used in a theory-building way. Two examples are her use of "recognition," a core concept of intersubjectivity, by which Benjamin means the way both patient and analyst discover and communicate their own subjectivity, interiority, and unique differences, and acknowledge the other's; Benjamin introduces "inclusion" as a parallel term to counter feminist theory's (Butler 1992) notion of "exclusion" as the means by which subjects are created. Benjamin posits that contrary to the idea that subjects are created through exclusion or abjection, psychoanalysts know that nothing can be truly repudiated or split off from the psyche. Whatever is excluded from consciousness is still there somewhere, and must be recognized, included, and owned as a crucial part of the discovery of one's subjectivity. "Complementarity" is another core term in the discourse on intersubjectivity and gender, and is in fact illustrated bye the "exclusion/inclusion" dialectic. Complementarities are dialectic relationships between opposites such as male/female; passive/active; subject/object; observer/participant. According to Benjamin, these create polarities that must be held in vital oscillating tension so as to create new third areas that she calls "tolerable paradoxes," and that can break up rigidities and foster transformation. Another term is "multiplicity," which she contrasts with "unity of identity" or "unified self." "Reciprocity" is a condition of the ethical relationship, whereby both self and other are obliged to transcend their narcissistic egoism. Mutual recognition of this obligation includes searching for commonalities and points of difference, as well as the recognition of the other's singularity. In the book's first essay or chapter, Benjamin takes up (actually takes on) Freud's case of Anna O. (Breuer's hysterical patient Bertha Pappenheim). She illustrates the contradictions and splits inherent in the way Freud construed the patient as the silenced female hysteric par excellence, and she contrasts Freud's view with extra-analytic historical data about Pappenheim's outspoken public political life. Deconstructing this case of libidinal paralysis and conversion symptoms in a helpless, fragmented female patient analyzed by a male analyst, she queries what happened in Freud's theory to the historically articulate woman outside the analysis, the stalwart feminist activist who defended the helpless. She argues that the privileged male subject must eschew the illusion of dominance, reclaiming the vulnerability and subjectivity of which he is accustomed to divest himself by projecting it into the female, his object. The formerly objectified female must at the same time eschew the illusion of passivity, and take possession of her own activity, desire, and subjectivity. In this rearrangement the classical oedipal hierarchical gender relationship is replaced by two desiring interpenetrating subjects, two bisexual subjects of desire, both of whom are free to consult their own emotional responses in a "knowing" way. The binary model of dominance and control, sadism and masochism, gives way to a greater degree of freedom and plurality for both sexes. Benjamin does not entirely shun the classical intrapsychic formulae; rather she argues that the individual's psyche oscillates with, shapes, and is shaped by the psyche of the other, and that this oscillation is the basis of intersubjectivity. She also traces Freud's own efforts to "relinquish charismatic authority" and to free the analysand, fostering autonomy by fostering the ironic process of loving the analyst as an object, identifying with his authority, and placing him as ego ideal (pp. 12-16). A key question she raises throughout the text, and particularly in the second essay, is epistemological: how is knowledge constructed? To answer this, Benjamin spins together two divergent psychoanalytic approaches to identification as a way of knowing. Noting that Fairbairn and Lacan tend to see identification as a defensive means of obfuscating difference, whereas ego and self psychologists and Kleinians stress the constructive structuralizing aspects of identification, Benjamin combines them into two identificatory processes--those that diminish distancing and objectification and those that deny difference. While this book clearly states Benjamin's debt to postmodern feminism, what is new here is a generally integrative tone uncharacteristic of academic feminist writers, whose project heretofore has been in deconstruct, and differentiate themselves from, classical analytic theory. In this undertaking, Benjamin makes an effort to explore psychoanalytic theories, particularly object relations and intersubjectivity, in relation both to psychoanalytic gender theory and to feminist theory in the academy. She addresses the much-needed task of clarifying in order to begin to integrate psychoanalytic theory, clinical experience, and feminist theory--a task that needs addressing in psychoanalytic

film criticism and feminist film theory as well (Wrye and Diamond 1998). In so doing, she takes up the work of Racker on complementary transference, and views it through the lens of Marxist or Hegelian dialectics. In this model, polarities and dangerous antinomies can be transformed into potentially tolerable paradox, thus offering the possibility of deconstructing hierarchies based on gender and power. From this point through the concluding essay, the author takes up the postmodern/poststructural feminist discourse represented by the Lacanian French feminists Irigaray, Kristeva, and Mitchell, as the Lacanian French feminists Butler, Chodorow and Gilligan. She challenges some of their ideas while integrating others with aspects of her own thinking and that of intersubjectivists Dimen, Harris, and Goldner, her colleagues at the NYU Postdoctoral Program. The theoretical issues are examples and can only be touched on here. As an example, the issue in the seventies that divided object relations theory and Lacanian Feminism was whether to analyze the gender divide in terms of the relation to the Lacanian phallus or in terms of the object relation to the mother. Benjamin proposes here that the object relations "tilt" towards the early mother was necessary to reverse the overvaluation of the oedipal father, and that that tilt can be corrected by her own contributions (1988), which encompass the early father in the separationindividuation phase. She, like Fast (1984) emphasizes that both boys and girls retain their gender identity ambivalent attachments to and identifications with aspects of both early parents. This, as I have also described (Wrye 1992; Wrye and Welles 1994), contributes to plurality and to thicker and more complex identificatory texture in this weaving of each individual's narrative of desire. This proposal is characteristic of Benjamin's recent general effort to sidestep polarizing fights and, while still emphasizing inherent contradictions (such as the Lacanian tendency to reinforce binary logic), to bring aspects of both arguments under one multiplex rubric. She addresses the problems raised by certain feminists about recognition: namely that recognition of another implies a belief in a normative identity, which may generate erroneous assumptions about the identity / subjectivity of the other--in other words, difference is sacrificed to recognition. Young (1990) has posed concerns that reciprocal recognition predisposes us to a homogenization in which the alterities and differences amongst us will be overshadowed; or what Kristeva calls the "Stronger" within us denied. But Benjamin argues that mutual intersubjectivity is based on the perception of difference. By nature this sets up a dynamic paradox: we look for the knowable in the other, that which is familiar to our own self, yet at the same time we are confronted with the other's alterity. In summary, The Shadow of The Other: Intersubjectivity And Gender In Psychoanalysis argues that as intersubjective subjects of both genders we must be able to tolerate and contain different voices, asymmetries, and contradictions: love and hate, masculinity and femininity--in other words, ambivalence. Benjamin's reconceptualizing the oedipus complex rebraids the strands in such a way that both genders (and both analyst and patient) potentially participate in relations with greater polysexuality, parity, mutuality, and freedom. REFERENCES Benjamin, J. (1998) The Bonds of Love. New York: Pantheon. ----- (1995). Like Subjects, Love Objects. New Haven: Yale University Press. Fast, I. (1984) Gender Identity. Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press. Greenberg, J. & Mitchell, S. (1983). Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Thoery. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Pine, F. (1988). The four psychologies of psychoanalysis and their place in clinical work. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 36: 571-596. Wrye, H.K. (1993) Erotic terror: Male patients' horror of the maternal erotic transference. Psychoanalytic Inquiry 13:240-257. ----- & Welles, J.K. (1994). The Narration of Desire: Erotic Transference and Countertransference. Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press. ----- & Diamond, D. (1998). Prologue to special issue Projections of Psychic Reality: A Centennial of Film and Psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic Inquiry 18:139-146. Young, I.M. (1990). The ideal of community and the politics of difference. In Feminism/Postmodernism, ed. L.J. Nicholson. New YOrk: ROutledge, pp. 300-323.