Suvremeno sebstvo iz kontekstualne perspektive
Modern Self as Seen from the Contextual Perspective

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this paper is to show the embeddedness of the self in the context of its formation and existence. The paper is based on the findings of intersubjective psychoanalysis, which finds the self to be formed, and later to exist, within certain human intersubjective systems. Thus the perspectives which tend to observe the self as an isolated or transhistorical entity are problematic. Intersubjective systems are also embedded within a wider cultural system, meaning that the self is also formed and exists in a specific cultural context which influences its organization. This is shown on the case of the modern self, whose specific problems became evident in the clinical praxis of the sixties in the twentieth century. Those problems are best described by the phenomenon called "tendency towards fragmentation", observed by psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut. The phenomenon is, in this paper, linked to the context of formation and existence of the self in modern society. The general aim of this paper is thus to place modern clinical findings into a wider sociological context in a new way. Building on this perspective, the author also offers her own sociopsychoanalytic explanation of the problems of the modern self.

• Details
• Contents