Shared life narratives in the work of Lou Andreas-Salomé

The author presents a re-reading of the works of Lou Andreas-Salomé (1861-1937), one of the key figures in the early history of psychoanalysis. He focusses in particular on her biographical and autobiographical works, as well as her correspondences with Freud, Rilke and other influential people of her time, arguing that Andreas-Salomé disappears from her own works as an autonomous speaking subject, while reappearing in the works of others as a silent, tacit influence. On closer examination, a specific genre emerges from her works that has so far gone unnoticed: the shared life narrative. The author claims that Andreas-Salomé developed this genre of shared life narratives in an attempt to match her theoretical notions of narcissism to a practical communicative position that is neither subjectivistic nor objectivistic. Relating the notion of shared life narratives to the psychoanalytic discourse, new possibilities may be opened up for expanding and enlarging our knowledge of human interaction.