Beyond Knower and Known: The Evolution of a Personal Core Theory in "The Imaginer and the Imagined" and Related Works

Lucy LaFarge's "The Imaginer and the Imagined" (2004) is read both for its position within the development of her personal core theory of psychoanalysis (LaFarge 2017) and as part of an approach (if not a solution) to wider problems about such roles as knower and known, doer and done-to, and most broadly self and other. The way and extent to which such relations may be adversarial or collaborative is framed from specific existential and intersubjective perspectives, which have seen the Other or the second person as objectifying or subjectivizing. LaFarge's evolving view of the imagining and imagined Other is a distinctive third position. Within this reading, LaFarge's understanding of such questions as the authority, objectivity, and subjectivity of the analyst is also explored in several other clinical-theoretical papers, from some of her earliest to some of her most mature works. Notable characteristics of LaFarge such as her patience, responsibility, theoretical integration, and work in the countertransference, distinguish her as a singular two-person theorist and clinician. The author includes some brief personal recollections of LaFarge as a working analyst.