Intersubjectivity today

The emerging intersubjective perspective is defined and elaborated. It stresses the intertwining of individuals and their interpersonal environments at the most basic levels. This basic understanding is applied to development, psychopathology, and psychotherapy, and is buttressed by a wide array of findings from recent advances in developmental psychology, affective and cognitive neuroscience, and parenting studies, along with psychoanalysis. From different points of view, they all show that interpersonal recognition and collaboration play as central a role in motivating and organizing personality as other motivations like sex and attachment. Recent findings about mirror neurons have been understood as exemplary in this regard. Taken together, these findings offer a panoramic perspective that links phenomenological philosophy, early development research and psychobiological research with psychoanalysis.