The term ‘subject’ traverses the depth-psychology corpus along several distinct but intersecting axes. In its most fundamental register, the subject designates the locus of experience — the entity to whom events happen and who initiates action, always in potential tension with the object world. Jung’s work on projection maps this tension precisely: subjectivity is constituted through the expulsion and retrieval of contents, and the ‘subjective level’ of dream interpretation reads all figures as faces of the dreamer’s own psyche. Winnicott sharpens the stakes by demonstrating that ‘relating’ can be theorized as a purely subjective phenomenon, whereas genuine ‘usage’ of an object requires acknowledging what stands irreducibly outside the subject. Lacan displaces the question entirely by subordinating the subject to the signifier, making subjectivity an effect of symbolic castration rather than a given ground. Phenomenological voices — Husserl via Thompson — press toward genetic accounts of how a subject-object structure emerges from undifferentiated lived experience, while Simondon reframes the subject as a provisional outcome of individuation rather than its origin. Allan’s philological studies of Greek middle voice illuminate how grammatical marking encodes the degree to which a subject-referent is affected by its own action. Across these traditions, the subject is never self-evident: it is produced, divided, affected, and contested.
Projection means the expulsion of a subjective content into an object; it is the opposite of introjection. Accordingly it is a process of dissimilation, by which a subjective content becomes alienated from the subject and is, so to speak, embodied in the object.
Jung defines the subject as the origin point from which contents are expelled into objects, making subjectivity constitutively relational and perpetually at risk of self-alienation through projection.
, Psychological Types, 1921thesis
relating can be described in terms of the individual subject, and that usage cannot be described except in terms of acceptance of the object’s independent existence, its property of having been there all the time.
Winnicott argues that the subject-as-locus-of-relating is insufficient for genuine object-usage, which demands recognition of an existence outside and prior to the subject’s world.
, Playing and Reality, 1971thesis
we need to account for the correlational structure of intentionality developmentally by understanding how it emerges from inarticulate experience that does not have a clear subject-object structure.
Drawing on Husserl’s genetic phenomenology, Thompson argues that the subject-object structure is not given but must be genetically derived from prior, undifferentiated lived experience.
, Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind, 2007thesis
putting the being into movement, it informs the subject that it is not a closed individual, that it does not have aseity; there is sexuality, but it remains a metaxy and cannot be detached from the individuated being.
Simondon positions the subject as the provisional product of individuation, constitutively open and non-self-sufficient, challenged by sexuality as a reminder of its pre-individual remainder.
, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020thesis
the stronger mental involvement of the subject in the case of volitional perception can also be of an emotional kind. By contrast, the interaction between the perceiving subject and the perceived object of non-volitional perception verbs is of a more mechanical character.
Allan’s grammatical analysis shows that the ancient Greek middle voice grammaticalizes degrees of subject-affectedness, linking subjective involvement directly to linguistic structure.
, The Middle Voice in Ancient Greek A Study of Polysemy, 2003supporting
the middle inflection of ὁρμάομαι highlights the relatively salient change undergone by the subject. As a consequence, scenario (ii) above is applicable: both v
The middle voice is shown to grammaticalize the salience of change undergone by the subject, making subject-affectedness a formal, not merely semantic, category.
, The Middle Voice in Ancient Greek A Study of Polysemy, 2003supporting
verbs denoting manner of motion inherently involve a lower degree of subject-affectedness than the other verbs of body motion. Since these verbs focus on the manner in which the change of location takes place, the element of change undergone by the subject is backgrounded.
Allan demonstrates that aspectual and lexical choices systematically calibrate the degree to which a subject is represented as undergoing transformation, establishing a continuum of subject-affectedness.
, The Middle Voice in Ancient Greek A Study of Polysemy, 2003supporting
consciousness is aware of itself, it is the ego being aware of itself. When Jung walked out of his mist and realized ‘I am,’ at that moment the ego was perceiving itself.
Edinger locates the emergence of the subject in the reflexive moment when consciousness turns upon itself, constituting the ego as both knower and known.
, Science of the Soul: A Jungian Perspective, 2002supporting
It is paralogic compliance that a subject walks around a chair he has been told is not there, rather than crashing into it (logical compliance), and finds nothing illogical in his actions.
Jaynes uses hypnotic subjects to illustrate that the subject’s compliance with authoritative suggestion can override ordinary logical consistency, revealing the constructed and heteronomous character of subjective experience.
, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, 1976supporting
Body percept: the subject’s perceptual experience of his/her own body; Body concept: the subject’s conceptual understanding of the body in general; Body affect: the subject’s emotional attitude toward his/her own body.
Gallagher articulates three dimensions — percept, concept, and affect — through which the subject relates to its own embodiment, distributing subjectivity across experiential, cognitive, and affective registers.
, How the Body Shapes the Mind, 2005supporting
Subjective level. Participation mystique: A psychological condition in which various inanimate objects and people participate with each other in a mystical manner, are connected with each other beneath the surface of consciousness.
Von Franz’s glossary entry pairs the subjective level of interpretation with the concept of participation mystique, indicating that pre-differentiated subject-object identity remains a live interpretive category in Jungian clinical work.
, Dreams: A Study of the Dreams of Jung, Descartes, Socrates, and Other Historical Figures, 1998aside
the subject-referent of βούλει is not in control as the realization of the state of affairs that is wished for. ἔθέλω, however, does imply that the subject is in control and also has the intention of carrying out the event designated by the infinitive.
Allan’s comparison of Greek volition verbs reveals that grammatical voice encodes whether the subject-referent is conceived as agentive master or passive recipient of a desired state of affairs.
, The Middle Voice in Ancient Greek A Study of Polysemy, 2003aside