Concept
Thirdness
Jessica Benjamin's concept, set out in 2004, of a position or function two people share that lets each hold their own perspective and the other's at once, beyond the either-or of complementarity. It is not a thing or a third person but a principle the partners surrender to together. She traces two forms: an early, rhythmic third, the one in the third, built in the attuned exchanges of infant and caregiver and later in the shared rhythms of a session; and a later, differentiating third, the third in the one, including the moral third of shared values and acknowledgment, which makes room for difference within union. She set it apart from Thomas Ogden's analytic third, and especially from his subjugating third, as a position held by keeping the tension between sameness and difference.
- Broader concept
- Intersubjectivity
- Introduced by
- Jessica Benjamin
- Key works
- 2
introduced by
- Jessica Benjamin 2004 Benjamin set out her theory of thirdness in the 2004 paper, distinguishing the early one in the third from the later third in the one. The 2017 book develops the rhythmic and moral thirds.
diverges from
- Analytic third 2004 Benjamin's thirdness builds on Ogden's analytic third but sets itself apart from it. She treats the third not as a thing co-created between analyst and patient, still less a subjugating one, but as a principle or function of surrender to a shared reality that both can recognise.
opposed by
- Doer and done to 2004 In Benjamin's account the complementary twoness of doer and done to is what thirdness is lost to: when the shared third collapses, each partner feels done to by the other, and surrender to the third restores recognition.