Dialectics of We-ness and I-ness: Discussion of Geist and Nocek, Goldin, and Stern on boundaries, empathy and selfobjects.

This commentary explores the various ways three papers take up notions of We-ness, I-ness, and With-ness in the process of elaborating the psychoanalytic concepts they address respectively: permeable boundaries, empathy and selfobjects. Geist and Nocek, Goldin, and Stern employ their personal and professional subjectivities to explore how the analytic process can simultaneously foster intimate connection and healthy separateness. Implicitly, if not explicitly, each of these three papers educe matters of bidirectionality and asymmetry. I propose that We-ness does not exist without I-ness and vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]