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“Finding the Value” in Intersubjective and Clinical Process: Towards a Valuational Model of Relational Motivation: Reply to Commentaries

In response to the commentaries by Judith Teicholz and Roger Kennedy, this paper further explores the relevance of the concept of intersubjective motivation to psychoanalytic theory and practice. Responding to Teicholz's discussion, the author argues against Teicholz's assumption that theories of intersubjective process are sufficient to explain intersubjective motivation. Such theories are able to explain intersubjectively-influenced motivation, but they do not address how it is possible for one subject to be motivated by another person's subjectivity. Responding to Kennedy's discussion, the author sketches the outlines of a valuational theory of relational motivation, in which motivation is conceptualized as the ascription of value to certain ways of being with others. The author employs these ideas to discuss the various forms that intersubjective motivation can take in analytic work, also highlighting the clinical utility of his concept of the intersubjective relational configuration. A case example is offered to illustrate the necessary association between valuing oneself and valuing others.