Faculty of Humanities (ETDs)

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://hdl.handle.net/10539/37922

For queries relating to content and technical issues, please contact IR specialists via this email address : openscholarship.library@wits.ac.za, Tel: 011 717 4652 or 011 717 1954

Browse

Filters

20242

Settings

Subject: search.filters.subject.intersubjectivity

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The experience of premature infancy within the mother- infant dyad in neo-natal high care unit: A psychoanalytic exploration
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Canin, Nicole; Bain, Katherine
    The experience of prematurity is disruptive and traumatic for both mother and infant, potentially placing the parent-infant relationship at risk. Given the risks involved as well as the prevalence of premature births, this is an area that requires engagement and research. In an attempt to address the paucity of psychoanalytically oriented research endeavours into the topic of prematurity, this study explored the experience of premature birth for mothers and infants in a neonatal high care ward through the lens of psychoanalytic theory. A psychoanalytically oriented ethnographic approach was utilised integrating object relations and intersubjective psychoanalytic theory with developmental psychology. This implied a focus on the influence of the mothers’ previous relational traumas on her experience of premature birth and use of dissociative defences. Maternal narratives from interviews as well as observational material from three premature mother-baby dyads allowed for in-depth exploration of maternal states of mind, intersubjectivity within mother-premature infant dyads, and infant responsivity. The study design required high levels of researcher reflexivity and the impact of the researcher’s subjectivity was explored. Insights were also offered into the process of conducting psychoanalytically oriented research within this sensitive context. Key findings included the fact that the trauma of engaging with a premature infant appears to reactivate dissociated self-states associated with childhood experiences of loss and absence for mothers. The study suggested that although the vulnerability of the infant is relevant, maternal states of mind play a bigger role in either supporting or derailing the development of the parent-infant relationship. The study also demonstrated the premature infant’s capacity, when appropriately supported, for communication and engagement.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Time, Temporality, Narrative and Identity in Three Works of Historiographic Metafiction
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Liebenberg, Xanya; Williams, M.A.
    This dissertation examines the ways in which concepts of identity and self-understanding cluster around notions of time and temporality in Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1981), Peter Ackroyd’s Hawksmoor (1985), and Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated (2002). It argues that many theories of time neglect the uniquely human experience thereof, which finds expression in the intersection of time and narrative. Narrative is an inherently temporal process which functions as an epistemological tool through which we grapple with our embeddedness in time, and within the stories of others. The process of narrative identity formation, that is, of becoming, is explored from different perspectives in each text. In Midnight’s Children, identity is formed through intergenerational narratives and intersubjectivity. In Hawksmoor, the syncretic layering of Nicholas Dyer’s churches embodies the same syncretism which constitutes identity. Identity, in this novel, is made up of fragments and traces manifesting in different timelines. In Everything Is Illuminated, identity is formed through absences, loss, and silences which function as traces, negative spaces and Derridean cinders. Everything Is Illuminated also underscores the role of intersubjectivity and the co- creation of identity. Through patterning and repetition, each novel embodies a sense of time which rejects linearity. Furthermore, each novel foregrounds the temporal processes that infuse narrative by engaging with time and temporality thematically, as well as embodying these temporal processes in various ways throughout each text. Although all three texts are examples of historiographic metafiction, this dissertation concludes by suggesting that our understanding of the human experience of time, temporality and identity in other texts and genres may benefit from an approach which foregrounds the intersection between time and narrative