From Object-Relations Theory to the Theory of Alterity:

From Object-Relations Theory to the Theory of Alterity: Shame as an Intermediary between the Interpersonal World and the Inner World of Psychic Structure GÜNTER H. SEIDLER, M .D.*

Inadequacies in object-relations theory become apparent when one attempts to use them to enhance understanding of self-referential affects, notably shame. Proceeding from a discussion of this affect, the author proposes a new "theory of alterity, ”illustrating his approach with reference to three mythologi­ calfigures: Narcissus, Tiresias, and Oedipus. INADEQUACIES IN THE UNDERSTANDING OF SHAME AND IN OBJECT-RELATIONS THEORY Largely due to the work of H. B. L ew is,^ there has been lively discussion of the shame affect over the past few years. In America there have been notable book publications from authors such as M. Lewis,5 Nathanson,6’7 and Wurmser.8 Of these, M. Lewis and Wurmser have been translated into German, with Wurmser s book in particular sparking off an animated debate in Germany. My book-length monograph on the same subject9 is due for American publication in the near future. Nevertheless, Tangney and Fischer10 (among others) complain that shame has not been accorded the attention it merits. The tentative explanation that they advance for the comparative paucity of studies on the “self-conscious emotions,” i. e. shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride is that, for a methodological approach largely geared to measurability criteria, these affects are not so readily identifiable via facial expression as the so-called “basic emotions (sadness, joy, surprise, fear, anger, disgust, and perhaps contempt)” (p. ix). The many possible reasons for the relatively marginal significance attrib­ uted to shame at present have been subjected to critical discussion else*Psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, training and supervising group analyst, senior lecturer/assistant profes­ sor at various psychoanalytic institutes, senior consultant at the Psychosomatic Hospital of the University of Heidelberg. Mailing address: Psychosomatische Klinik, Thibautstrasse 2, D-69115 Heidelberg, Germany. A m e r ic a n J o u r n a l o f P s y c h o t h e r a p y ,

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where.9 O f these, we should like to single out one, albeit, of cardinal importance: there are legitimate reasons to contend that both the theories advanced by affect researchers and those originating in psychoanalysis and in the line of object-relations theory are not genuinely able to engage with the self-referential emotions because they are intrinsically monadistic in their approach. The ultimate impression gained is that, despite all the effort expended on them, these theories are not, in fact, adequate to the task of conceptualizing actual relation processes. Precisely the same skepticism appears justified concerning object-relations theory in general. Closer inspection reveals that object-relations theory, as elaborated by M. Klein,11 Fairbairn,12 Guntrip,13-15 Glover,16-18 and others, and taken as the basis of clinical and metapsychological studies by subsequent au­ thors,19-21 has, in fact, never been subjected to thoroughgoing conceptual review. The criticism that this theory invites can be summarized in four points: • Despite its name, the theory fails to develop any genuine concept of what “relations” are in fact supposed to be. • The theory is based on the hardly tenable premise (as Hegel and Dilthey have shown) that in principle “subject” and “object” may be conceived of as independent entities (reference here of course being not to the ontological but to the relational plane). This fails to take into account the fact that a subject is only a subject in relation to an object, and vice versa. • In its static confrontation of “object” versus “process,” object-relations theory forfeits the conceptual possibility of defining the relationship between the two in dialectic terms and hence of being able to describe how processes coagulate into objects and vice versa. An exception in this respect is the concepts expounded by Bollas.22-24 • The cardinal point is that the theory fails to conceptualize “relations” as reciprocal processes, invariably describing them in terms of inten­ tional vectors operating from one interaction partner to another, the one being termed “subject” and the other “object.” The reciprocal feature of relations is then dealt with sequentially, with the observer changing his/her perspective and regarding the former subject as object etc. These criticisms make it necessary to elaborate an alternative approach allowing us to capture and conceptualize reciprocal processes as such, thus providing a basis for achieving a more appropriate understanding of shame and other self-referential affects. This is the purpose of my theory of alterity. Its central concern is to posit the constitution of the subject from interac­ 344

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tional acts of reciprocal perception. This approach allows description of the way in which symbolically represented self-relatedness evolves from recipro­ cal relations based on interaction to form the dialogic structure of the self. In affective terms, this self-relatedness is organized around shame. Thus emotions can be grasped as processes, i.e., not so much something that individual persons “have” but something more comparable to a network in that they originate in, are regulated by, and operate through reciprocal exchanges usually taking place between two or more people. While the concept of interactive projection25’26 does at least extend its purview to two interaction partners, here, too, the reciprocity aspect is totally neglected. This duality between “inside” and “outside” and the collapsing of subject and object, particularly observable in connection with shame, have led me to propose the term “interface affect” as a designation for this selfreferential emotion. The alterity approach proposed here may be seen partly in terms of the ongoing discussion on intersubjectivity27"33 and also has some points in common with attempts to chart interpersonal relations with the aid of circular models.34 Thus, from the point of view of alterity theory, it is possible to see the breaking down of maladaptive cycles35 as an increase in self-referentiality, a change in the degree of self-relatedness. In comparison with existing approaches, however, alterity theory has a number of specific features not represented there in the same way. One fundamental differ­ ence is the fact that, conceptually, it unites affectiveness, subjectivity, and the reality of the vis-a-vis (the Other who later becomes the Stranger) and overcomes the traditional dichotomy between early disturbance and “ma­ ture neurosis” on the one hand, and “inside” and “outside,” on the other. In so doing, it opens up perspectives that push back the frontiers of classical psychoanalysis and affect research, thus preparing the ground for the elaboration of a psychoanalytic anthropology. It would go beyond the scope of the present paper to enlarge upon the points of contact between the approaches mentioned and the theory advanced here. The main criticism to be leveled at them from the present vantage is that they are not equal to the task of relating interpersonal events to intrapsychic processes. The only author to be exempted from this criticism is Bollas 22-24 In Germany, discussion of the shame affect has centered largely around the work done by Wurmser.8’36“40 Although he adheres closely to clinical reality and argues very much from a relational perspective, it is significant that he makes no attempt to draw upon theorems of object-relations theory to achieve a better understanding of shame, as might have been anticipated in connection with a view of shame as an affect-regulating relation. 345

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Although Wurmser’s analysis is very thorough, his approach displays a number of inadequacies, most of them probably originating from the absence of an armamentarium for the conceptualization of reciprocal relations. Such reciprocal relations are characteristic of self-referential affects. They are both located in external interpersonal reality and structur­ ally inherent in the intrapsychic make-up of the individual. Here is a brief synopsis elucidating the angle taken by Wurmser. Wurmser distinguishes three forms of shame, characterized by the different ways they relate to time. In “shame anxiety” the relevant event is still in the future. Once it has taken place, Wurmser speaks of the “shame affect proper.” His third category is “a general attitude of bashfulness, of avoidance of situations and actions that would bring about humiliation”8 (p. 50). In all of these, the basic danger is the same: “The danger lies in coupling the exposure of weakness, defectiveness, and dirtiness with ensuing rejection by contempt”8 (p. 59). According to Wurmser, all experi­ ences of shame oscillate between two poles: “One is the factor in front of which one is ashamed, the object pole, while the other is the aspect of which one is ashamed, the subject pole ”8 (p. 43). For Wurmser the shame affect comes from the superego—the internalized object pole—and he sees contempt and being-looked-at as indispensable conditions for its manifes­ tation. A further requisite posited by him is a standard associated with the object pole, which, if I understand him correctly, he defines in terms of ideals. Wurmser emphasizes the connection between superego and shame: “The expectations, criticism, and punishment inherent in shame are . . . vested in the conscious and unconscious parts of the conscience—the superego—instead of the outside world”8 (p. 45). Underlying the shame constellation is a conflict defined in terms of power or the lack of it. Which of the interaction partners will succeed in gaining control over the other, which of the two will submit? Thus, like “shame anxiety,” the “shame affect proper” is for Wurmser a negative affect. Only the third of the forms described above, “general attitude of bashfulness,” is ascribed a protective function. Wurmser de­ scribes it as a guardian of privacy and intimacy, thus implying a positive value for the things that this affect is there to guard. Essentially, my criticism of existing shame theories (as exemplified here with reference to Wurmser) relates to three aspects. In Wurmser s eyes, the superego is a prerequisite for the manifestation of the shame affect. It is from this object pole that the contemptuous gaze is directed at the subject, thus causing it to experience shame. In alterity theory, by contrast, psychic 346

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structures are not a precondition for the experience of shame, they are

consequences of it manifesting themselves in ever new configurations. Even

in terms of a classical psychoanalytic approach, it is a moot point whether the superego should not, in fact, be associated with the guilt system rather than the shame system. Both theoretically and clinically, Wurmser regards the shame affect proper as being characterized by the negativeness of a judgment. “Bashful­ ness” is ascribed the function of protecting something accorded a positive value, whereas shame is connected to contempt from the object pole. There are two good reasons for regarding this perspective as too narrow. First, it fails to account for embarrassment, a form of shame, experienced when receiving praise and, secondly, it makes it difficult to provide a sufficient explanation for the pain and almost physical humiliation (in the sense of the Latin poena) caused by shame. Wurmser s studies on the shame affect are closely geared to clinical and experiential reality. But the graphic naturalism of his descriptions is achieved at the expense of a failure to provide an account of the intrinsi­ cally relational structure of this affect. Wurmser seems almost to be assuming that everybody knows what shame is, proceeding from there to regard shame as an entity in its own right, and then to study it in its relations to other entities. SHAM E IN ALTERITY THEORY

In the above, my criticism of object-relations theory has not been conducted at a theoretical level but in terms of its failure to account for self-referential affects. In the following, I shall also be looking at alterity theory in terms of its explanatory potential. In discussing three relational stages revolving around the description of the experience of shame, my objective is to substantiate the claims of alterity theory to qualify as a theory enhancing the understanding of reciprocal processes. In the following, these typologies are given designations taken from classical mythological figures. This has two advantages: (1) it facilitates operationalization. To make sure this operationalization works, the con­ struct underlying the typologies is operationalized in terms of items in rating scales, and validated by predicted changes in psychic structure and symptoms observed in group psychotherapy in a project conducted at the Psychosomatic Hospital of the University of Heidelberg. (2) the intentional fuzziness of these designations keeps us mindful of the fact that we are aiming at a conceptualization of fantasy processes. As such, they provide 347

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their users with an “uncertainty zone” transcending mathematical strin­ gency and “leaving room” for individual interpretation.

The Manifestation of Shame at the “Unreflected” Stage: Narcissus In this stage, the subject’s concern is to obtain from its vis-a-vis a basal confirmation of its own existence. Bollas calls a vis-a-vis invested with this function the “transformational object”22 (p. 4) and emphasizes that its essential task is to translate or transform primary experience into a symbol­ ized form. My proposal in connection with this approach is first of all to remain on the descriptive level and stress the element of reflection or response in the vis-â-vis, the advantage of this being that it does not place so much emphasis on its potential function for the subject. At a basal level, this function is to make it possible for the subject to know itself to be identified as something perceived. This perception is vested in the “gaze” of the vis-â-vis, which cannot be fathomed in its totality, i.e., the perceived object cannot see “behind” the gaze. It is this, allied to the fact that the process in question manifests itself first of all in interactional space and prior to any form of symbolization, that prompts me to speak of the “ interactional unconscious' in connection with this vis-a-vis. This epistemological uncon­ scious organizes itself here in the interactional space. It is in this space that the vis-a-vis with its responding, but not totally fathomable, gaze estab­ lishes the identity of the subject. The myth confronts us with the pathologi­ cal variant of this phenomenon, a variant characterized by the absence of a

reciprocal relation.

The mythological prefiguration of this position is the abortive attempt at a relationship between Narcissus and Echo. Lirope gave birth to Narcissus after being raped by the river god Cephisus. Ovid’s text suggests that he grew up without a father. In curt rejection of any kind of encroachment upon his person, he spurned the advances of the nymph Echo, falling in love instead with another seeming vis-a-vis—his own reflection in the water—and drowning. Echo was originally a physical being and not merely a voice. Hera, Zeus’ wife, punished her by depriving her of the ability of self-intentioned speech. Unable to produce whole utterances of her own, she was condemned to repeat the last few words of those who spoke to her. Hera had taken revenge on Echo, who had foiled Hera’s attempts to catch Zeus in the act when he had indulged in an amorous escapade with friends of Echo’s. Ovid gives a very graphic description of the way in which Echo, robbed of the faculty of primary speech, puts Narcissus in a very awkward position by repeating the last few words of the sentences she hears. 348

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Discussion of this passage in the literature customarily focusses on only one of the participants in the relationship (Narcissus), thus forfeiting true appreciation of what Ovid is actually getting at in his description of the constellation, i.e., the interaction between two people, the reciprocal relation­ ship in which the defects of one participant stunt the development of the other. It is precisely this aspect of the reciprocity involved in the evolution of a relationship—a reciprocity that generates sharable symbols—which Bollas22 emphasizes very strongly in the book. Echo s loss of her faculty of primary, self-intentioned speech by Hera can be seen in terms of a concept introduced by Bollas22 as a counterfoil to projective identification. It is that of “extractive introjection,” a phenom­ enon that most people have encountered at some stage of their lives. In projective identification, person A projects subjectively insupportable ele­ ments of his/her own self onto person B, thus liberating him/herself of them. In extractive introjection, by contrast, person B actively “takes away” from person A thoughts, feelings, responsibilities, psychic experiences, and appropriates them for him/herself. The form taken by the interaction between Echo and Narcissus charts very accurately the way in which this process thwarts symbolization and internalization. The concepts intro­ duced by Bollas are also very convincing in capturing the subsequent development of the interaction between Narcissus and Echo. Due to the losses inflicted on her by Narcissus, who has penetrated into her inner world and gained control over her, Echo is deprived of the ability of perceiving functions as “transformational objects.” Narcissus, for his part, is left with his unremitting yearning, his desire for a responsive Other, unthought-of and unthinkable, in Bollas' meaning of the term “unthought known.” Correspondingly, Echo becomes a “conservative object” (a new concept minted by Bollas), retaining something within herself in a static, affectively rigid form. Perusal of Ovids handling of the end of the relationship between Echo and Narcissus fully bears out this interpreta­ tion; despite the humiliation, she retains her interest in him. Without a response from a vis-a-vis to halt, “refract,” and transform the unreflected course of things, there can be no faculties of self-referentiality—no self-knowledge—hence no biographical memory, no conscience, no guilt, and in particular no shame. Unlike Echo, Narcissus was incapable of love and equally incapable of shame. In terms of the alterity approach advanced in this paper, we are faced here with a stage of development in which a total or partial incapacity for self-delimitation over and against ones vis-a-vis leads to an inability to feel shame. Such patients will come into the office and ask the therapist all kinds of personal questions, 349

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volunteer opinions on the pictures and the furniture in the room, and blurt out information on their own lives, feelings and experiences without stopping to consider who this person is that they are confronting. Clinically, they are frequently classified as having “personality disorders” (DSM-IV: 301. XX), or more specifically as being “narcissistic” (DSM-IV: 301.81) or “borderline” (DSM-IV: 301.83). We now come to a relational configuration for which I propose the term “externally reflected” and the mythological figure representing it is Tiresias.

The Manifestation of Shame at the “Externally Reflected” Stage: Tiresias The characteristic feature of this position is the ability to assume the point of view of one’s vis-â-vis temporarily and to direct a critical gaze at one’s own self from that perspective. Tiresias is the mythological figure best suited to represent this stage because he unites all its essential features. The central point here is that whereas he can tell others who they are, he defines himself through others. When still a young shepherd, he observed two snakes coupling at a spot where two paths meet on Mt. Cithaeron. He killed the female and turned into a woman. Seven years later he again witnessed two snakes coupling. This time he killed the male and was transformed back into a man. In a later dispute between Zeus and Hera about whether men or women experience greater pleasure in sexual intercourse, Tiresias was called in to settle the argument because he was able to report from both angles. His verdict was that women have more pleasure. Hera’s reaction was to strike him blind, whereas Zeus conferred upon him the gift of soothsaying. In Metamorpho­ ses, Ovid points a connection between Narcissus, Tiresias, and Oedipus. The reciprocal relation between Tiresias and Oedipus is, of course, better known in the form given to it by Sophocles. Here, Tiresias is a “forerunner” of Oedipus; he is the one who opens Oedipus’ eyes, whereupon Oedipus blinds himself. Patients with a subject complexion corresponding to this stage of development are implicitly asking their vis-a-vis for a response to the question of their identity: “Tell me who I am!” At the narcissistic stage, by contrast, the central question is: “Do I exist at all?”, “Am I a living being?” Patients at the Tiresias level are very quick to adopt the opinions and standpoints of others and are equally quick to relinquish them. Their vis-a-vis will either experience shame in their presence (perhaps the reason why Hera reacts so aggressively) or they themselves are overwhelmed by almost insupportable feelings of shame. While they do experience others in their alterity, these others are frequently so alien to them that they would like to sink into the ground in their presence. Subject constitution does take 350

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place, but the subject requires for this constitution the real presence of a vis-â-vis. Patients with anxiety disorders, phobias or depressive conditions appear to be largely allocatable to this plane.

The Manifestation of Shame at the “Self-Reflected” Stage: Oedipus This stage represents a coherently symbolized self-image in the form of “objective self-awareness.”41 It involves the capacity for self-empathic experience, i.e. what Bollas describes as the capacity to put the “unthought known” into words, and it also involves the capacity to enter into reciprocal relations with a vis-a-vis. The limits to the verbalization of this “unthought known,” according to alterity theory, are grounded in the inescapable epistemological unconscious of the source of self-knowledge9—an eye cannot look behind its own gaze. The relevant mythological figure here is Oedipus. In the stages prior to Oedipus, we are concerned with relational configurations in the external, interactional dimension: at the Narcissus stage with the relation between Narcissus and Echo, at the Tiresias stage with the relation between Tiresias as subject and Hera, and later the relation between Tiresias and Oedipus and the function he performs for him. Another preliminary stage of the self-relation symbolized as “Oedipus” is that of his relation to the Sphinx, which I do not intend to go into here. The traditional view of Oedipus centers around the biographical factors “patricide” and “marriage with the mother.” My perspective differs in that I proceed on the assumption that this level represents an outward biographical correlation to the topics “acquisition of the symbol function” and “emergence of self-referentiality.” From the point of view of alterity theory, the central feature is the self-blinding. Whereas Tiresias was blinded by Hera, Oedipus blinds himself. Incidentally, the self-blinding is the essential element that distinguishes Sophocles’ handling of the Oedipus legend from all the many other versions of it to be found in classical antiquity.9 The blinding of Oedipus is woven into the deeper context in the following way: After exerting his powers of detection on finding the murderer(s) of his father in the outside world, Oedipus attains ever greater cognitive/affective clarity about his role as the perpretator of the deed. When he realizes that after murdering his father he took his place, both as king and as husband to his own mother, he “blinds” himself. In this process of recognition, subject and object of the recognition collapse into one, both as a process and a relational dynamic; and, furthermore, this is the defining characteristic of this position, in connection with the ucontenf of this recognition process. At the unre­ flected stage represented by Narcissus, who had no symbol to draw upon, it 351

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was unconsciousness that ensued when subject and object, gaze and gazed-upon, collapsed into one. At the self-reflected stage, we are con­ fronted with a process taking place “in” Oedipus. His subjective capacity for self-perception, self-observation, and self-judgement remains intact. Seen thus, the “Oedipality” of the classical text is primarily character­ ized by a specific form of self-relatedness, in which the subject is able to make itself, in the entirety of its own person, the object of its own perception and can hence “be ashamed of itself.” This is paralleled in the clinical setting. At this stage, shame-subject and shame-object are localized in the same person, however, shame has a relation-regulating function over and above its annihilating quality. Clinically, this stage is represented most often by the classical neuroses, notably hysteria.

A Synoptic View of Shame from the Perspective of Alterity Theory Following Tomkins,42 it is possible to view the situation of stranger anxiety as prototypic relation situation for the occurrence of shame. Tomkins sees this situation in developmental psychology terms and from an empiri­ cal vantage. The approach advanced here, conversely, makes it unnecessary to decide whether this situation is to be seen in biographical-genetic terms or rather as a metaphorical distillation that can stand for any kind of shame situation. Either way, the process is the following: the intentionality of the

subject is directed in eager anticipation at a vis-a-vis that fails to meet up to its expectations, thus throwing (re-jecting) it back on itself.

In the fear-of-strangers context, the shame affect is an indicator of the distinction of Own and Not-Own. By causing the subject’s initiative to rebound back onto itself, it becomes the germinal cell of the awakening subjectivity of “self-consciousness.” It is here that the structures of the system of self originate. After the collision of the subject s initiative in a fear-of-strangers situation with a vis-â-vis responding differently from the way anticipated, the “primal self,”43 the “existential self,”44 the “prerepresentational self”45 splits into a reflective structure, in which it is possible to distinguish three functional aspects as substructures or structural elements: the real self-relation, the ideal self-relation and the judgmental self-relation. Real self-relation refers to the capacity of the subject to distinguish between Own and Not-Own and to make itself the object of its own attention. This presupposes the separation into an experiencing and a perceiving aspect of the subject, which comes about via the subject’s identifying with the boundary limiting its own intentionality and appropri­ ating that segregating, separating function. In terms of developmental psychology, we may conceive of this process as follows: the child appropri­ 352

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ates; the perceiving, and hence segregating and separating, function of the nonself by temporarily assuming the position of that nonself and seeing “itself-in-connection-with-the-mother” from the outside. It thus develops an objectifying perception for its formerly prereflective mode of experi­ ence, which thus becomes the object of its consciousness and then consti­ tutes its self-awareness. It is however untenable to see this process exclu­ sively in terms of developmental psychology, as it is surely erroneous to conceive of the capacity for self-objectification as something that is ac­ quired at a certain stage and is then “available” once and for all. It is necessary, rather, to regard the capacity for self-objectification as constantly renewing itself on the basis of an ongoing process of interactional exchange involving (in principle) every interpersonal act of perception. Similarly, on the content plane, every encounter with an Other will invariably activate, actualize and re-internalize in the respective vis-a-vis the set or ensemble of information on the subject. Ideal self-relation springs from a “repair requirement” comparable to the “reparation”46 factor inherent in the guilt system, an attempt to alleviate the subjectively all-but-intolerable restriction to the factual plane. It is characterized by fantasy formations centering around images of symbiosis, complete union, “total one-ness” and involving visions of an ideal contact or relationship with other persons. Unlike other authors, I consider it more plausible to conceive of this ideality as developing out of shame experiences and consider it insufficiently process-oriented to hold that shame manifests itself when the subject measures itself against ideals and finds itself wanting. judgmental self relation is the one that most obviously implicates the gaze of the vis-a-vis. It is with that gaze that the subject here regards itself. In principle, it is a “critical” gaze merely in the sense of the original Greek word, which emphasizes the dissociative function and makes no distinction into good and bad. However, given the proximity to the painfulness of the separation into subject and object, this gaze has a tendency to be felt as a negatively critical one. It is here, in psychodynamic, or rather relationdynamic, terms that the proximity of shame to negative self-assessment has its roots. Alterity theory represents an expansion of the approach encountered in traditional theories of psychic structure. These latter focus on intrapsychic configurations, whereas a perspective geared to reciprocities enables us to describe structural equivalents localized in interactional space and to capture the increasingly “psychic” quality they assume in the course of maturation processes. Thus, the form taken by the relation-to-self i.e. the 353

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ability to see oneself as an object, can be divided into three stages. In that they represent degrees of maturity, they have a certain similarity to the three organization planes elaborated by Kernberg,21 but they differ in the way they are derived and substantiated. In Kernberg’s approach, the nature of drive-organization and the form of intrapsychic structures in an individual are used for diagnostic purposes. By contrast, alterity theory concentrates on the reciprocities between perceiving and being perceived, i.e., on relational processes. Thus, the degree of maturity is no longer determined by the assessment of an individual but by the relational form in which an individual presents itself. The step from the interactional form of self­ relation to the form bound up with intrapsychic structures takes place via increasing appropriation of the gaze of the vis-a-vis. It is in this way that the intrapsychic functions of self-perception, self-observation, and self-judgment develop. Taken to its logical conclusion, such an approach to relation configurations will obviously move away from an orientation to the indi­ vidual and concern itself increasingly with relational typologies. Its concern with individuals will at best be a recursive one, i.e., in cases where it is appropriate to regard an individual person as being simultaneously subject and object. SUMMARY

Proceeding from a critical discussion of positions adopted in objectrelations theory and of recent approaches to the understanding of shame (exemplified with reference to Wurmsers concept of shame), the paper demonstrates that intrapsychic structures should not be regarded as precon­ ditions for shame but as themselves evolving in the first place from contact with experiential forms of the shame affect. The paper takes its theoretical bearings from object-relations theory and the theory of psychic structure, expanding the purview of these approaches by incorporating the reciproc­ ity aspect and thus outlining a comprehensive “alterity theory.” “Shame” is presented as an “interface affect,” manifesting itself initially in the external interactional dimension and constituting the relational structure of “selfconsciousness” via the internalization of the reciprocal relation between subject and object. From the angle of developmental psychology, three characteristic forms of such stages of internalization (identified by mytho­ logical figures) are described. (1) Narcissus, characterized by the absence of any reciprocal relation and accordingly termed “unreflected.” (2) Tiresias, with a capacity for taking up the position of the vis-a-vis temporarily and looking critically at one’s own self from that perspective, yet lacking the faculty of self-objectification without the help of the vis-a-vis. Self354

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objectification is therefore taking place in the interactional dimension. This stage is thus designated as “externally reflected.” (3) Oedipus, who has reached the stage to be termed “self-reflected” or “self-referential.” The gaze is directed initially toward the outside in search of external sources of guilt but then falls back upon the subject itself. The gaze “turns inward” (to use an experientially suggestive image) and in the mythology this is represented by Oedipus’ self-blinding. The subject is capable of “critical,” dissociating functions, in the sense of self-objectification, thus attaining to a capacity for self-recognition, self-criticism and self-judgement. These three stages are seen to be progressive, not mutually exclusive. Self-referentiality in the broadest sense is regarded as being hierarchically stratified. REFER EN C ES 1. Lewis, H. B. (1958). Over-differentiation and under-individuation of the self. Psychoanalysis and the Psychoanalytic Review, 45, 3-24. 2. Lewis, H. B. (1971). Shame and guilt in neurosis. New York: International Universities Press. 3. Lewis, H. B. (1981). Shame and guilt in human nature. In S. Tuttmann, C. Kaye & M. Zimmermann (Eds.), Object and self: A developmental approach (2nd ed.) (pp. 235-265). New York: International Universities Press, 2nd ed. 1984. 4. Lewis, H. B. (1987). Shame and the narcissistic personality. In D. L. Nathanson (Ed.), The many faces of shame (pp. 93-132). New York: Guilford. 5. Lewis, M. (1992). Shame. The exposed self. New York: Free Press. 6. Nathanson, D. L. (Ed.) (1987). The many faces of shame. New York: Guilford. 7. Nathanson, D. L. (1992). Shame and pride. New York: Norton. 8. Wurmser, L. (1981). The mask of shame. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. 9. Seidler, G. H. (1995). Der Blick des Anderen. Eine Analyse der Scham. (In others’ eyes. An analysis of shame.) Stuttgart: Verlag Internationale Psychoanalyse. 10. Tangney, J. P., Fischer, K. W. (Eds.) (1995): Self-conscious emotions. The Psychology of shame, guilt, embarrassment and pride. New York: The Guilford Press. 11. Klein, M. (1932). The psycho-analysis of children. London: Hogarth. 12. Fairbairn, W. R. (1952). Psychoanalytic studies of the personality (8th. ed.). London: Tavistock/ Routledge, 1986. 13. Guntrip, H. (1961). Personality structure and human interaction. (3rd ed.). New York 1969: International Universities Press. 14. Guntrip, H. (1968). Schizoid phenomena object relations and the self. London: Hogarth Press. 15. Guntrip, H. (1971). Psychoanalytic theory, therapy and the self. London: Hogarth Press. 16. Glover, E. (1956). Selected papers on psychoanalysis, vol. 1: On the early development of mind. London: Imago. 17. Glover, E. (1960). Selected papers on psychoanalysis, vol. 2: The roots of crime. London: Imago. 18. Glover E. (1968). The birth of the ego. London: George Allen & Unwin. 19. Jacobson, E. (1964). The self and the object world. New York: International Universities Press. 20. Mahler, M. S., Pine, F., & Bergman, A. (1975). The psychological birth of the infant. New York: Basic Books. 21. Kernberg, O. (1975). Borderline conditions and pathological narcissism (2nd ed.). New York: Aronson, 1976. 22. Bollas, C. (1987). The shadow of the object. Psychoanalysis and the unthought known. London: Free Association Books 1994. 23. Bollas, C. (1989). Forces of destiny: Psychoanalysis and human idiom. London: Free Association Books. 24. Bollas, C. (1992). Being a character: Psychoanalysis and self experience. London: Routledge 1993. 25. Ogden, T. (1982). Projective identification and psychotherapeutic technique. New York: Aronson.

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