Book
Beyond Doer and Done To: Recognition Theory, Intersubjectivity and the Third
Beyond Doer and Done To is Jessica Benjamin's book-length statement of the theory of mutual recognition she first set out in The Bonds of Love. It gathers and reworks papers written after her 2004 essay of the same name, which opens the book. Its central argument is that recognition between two subjects tends to break down into a complementary relation of "doer and done to", and that thirdness is what restores it. Benjamin traces how the Third develops in early life as experience alternates between recognition and its breakdown: first a rhythmic third of attunement between infant and caregiver, then a moral third of shared values and acknowledgment. She shows the same movement inside the psychoanalytic relationship, where impasse and enactment are its forms. The book stresses the power of acknowledgment, including the analyst's acknowledgment of error, to repair a relationship and to heal both individual and social trauma. It carries the theory from the consulting room to social conflict and the witnessing of collective trauma. After an introduction on recognition, intersubjectivity and the Third, the chapters take up acknowledgment, the failed witness and the fear of harming; mutual recognition, vulnerability and asymmetry; excess, affect and gender complementarity in sexuality; the uses of enactment and play; negation and the lawful world; and the moral Third, with witnessing that goes beyond the logic of "only one can live". The publisher addresses it to psychoanalytic therapists and to theorists in the humanities and social sciences.
Main ideas
- Mutual recognition between two subjects tends to collapse into a complementary relation of "doer and done to", in the consulting room as in social conflict.
- Thirdness restores recognition. The Third develops in early life through the alternation of recognition and breakdown: first a rhythmic third of attunement between infant and caregiver, then a moral third of shared values and acknowledgment.
- The same movement between recognition and breakdown takes place in the psychoanalytic relationship, where it appears as impasse and enactment. Enactment and play can be put to use in the work.
- Acknowledgment, including the analyst's acknowledgment of error and vulnerability within an asymmetrical relationship, has the power to repair the relationship and to heal both individual and social trauma.
- The theory extends from the clinic to collective violence. The witness who fails, and the fear of harming, give way to a moral Third that allows witnessing beyond the logic of "only one can live".
What it shows
- 2004
Jessica Benjamin introduced Doer and done to
Benjamin named the complementary relation of doer and done to in her 2004 paper on thirdness, where it describes the twoness of analytic impasse and enactment. Her 2017 book took it into social conflict as well.
- 2004
Jessica Benjamin introduced Thirdness
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.
- 2004
Thirdness diverges from Analytic third
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.
- 2004
Doer and done to opposes Thirdness
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.
Thirdness derives from Mutual recognition
Benjamin's thirdness grew out of her earlier theory of mutual recognition: the third is the shared space or principle that makes recognition between two subjects possible, as the subtitle of her 2017 book on recognition theory and the third reflects.