The International Journal of the Arts in Society: Annual Review

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The Handed Self: Reaching Toward Individuation


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1 University of South Australia, South Australia, Australia
     

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Immersed in a proximal tactile world, the young infant must achieve the difficult task of intrapsychically separating out self from other during the separation-individuation process. With a focus on the significance of the human hand for the separating out of subjective self from objective world, this paper draws upon the field of object relations to investigate how it is that we become individuals with a limiting ego boundary, capable of separating inside from outside and attending to the outside world. My research proposes that the intimate relationship between the hand, eye and inanimate object of focus can function to enhance body-self boundary discrimination and object relationships in a studio practice that disciplines the practitioner's attention. I will argue that the "binding together" of hand and eye made possible in a focused painting or drawing practice opens up a psychic space approximating the 'holding environment' of the mother, as defined by psychological theorist Donald Winnicott, a safe potential space for exploring symbiotic union and distance at the contact boundary between self and other.

Keywords

Inside and Outside, Self and Other, Hand-Eye Attention, Body-Self Boundary, Subjective Self and Objective World, Transitional Objects or Phenomena, Vision and Touch, Rapprochement.
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  • The Handed Self: Reaching Toward Individuation

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Authors

Cherie Redwood
University of South Australia, South Australia, Australia

Abstract


Immersed in a proximal tactile world, the young infant must achieve the difficult task of intrapsychically separating out self from other during the separation-individuation process. With a focus on the significance of the human hand for the separating out of subjective self from objective world, this paper draws upon the field of object relations to investigate how it is that we become individuals with a limiting ego boundary, capable of separating inside from outside and attending to the outside world. My research proposes that the intimate relationship between the hand, eye and inanimate object of focus can function to enhance body-self boundary discrimination and object relationships in a studio practice that disciplines the practitioner's attention. I will argue that the "binding together" of hand and eye made possible in a focused painting or drawing practice opens up a psychic space approximating the 'holding environment' of the mother, as defined by psychological theorist Donald Winnicott, a safe potential space for exploring symbiotic union and distance at the contact boundary between self and other.

Keywords


Inside and Outside, Self and Other, Hand-Eye Attention, Body-Self Boundary, Subjective Self and Objective World, Transitional Objects or Phenomena, Vision and Touch, Rapprochement.

References