Otherness is a complex and polysemic notion that is conceptualized in both philosophy and psychology. The paper examines otherness as a universal phenomenon of the human psyche that manifests in relation to oneself and interpersonal relationships with others. Philosophical ideas, including those of Hegel, Lévinas and Waldenfels, are introduced as providing essential theoretical background for psychological studies of otherness. The psychological section deals with otherness from various perspectives, with emphasis on internal processes of an individual, drawing on theories within psychoanalytical and intrapsychic traditions, as well as the intersection of otherness and identity. Otherness is introduced as a variable influencing complex individual and social processes, such as the perception of individuals and groups. Finally, a taxonomy of otherness is proposed that reflects the multifaceted nature of the concept and could help navigate the existing literature as well as guide new studies.

National Institute of Mental Health Topolová 748 Klecany 250 67 Czech Republic

University of New York Prague Prague Czech Republic

See more in PubMed

American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). American Psychiatric Publishing.

Anderson, M. C. (2006). Repression: A cognitive neuroscience approach. In M. Mancia (Ed.), Psychoanalysis and neuroscience (pp. 327–349). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/88-470-0550-7_14

Augé, M. (1995). Non-places: Introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity. Verso.

Augé, M. (1999). An anthropology for contemporaneous worlds. Stanford University Press.

Bender, D. S. (2019). The p-factor and what it means to be human: Commentary on Criterion a of the AMPD in HiTOP. Journal of Personality Assessment, 101(4), 356–359. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2018.1492928 PubMed DOI

Bohleber, W. (1995). The presence of the past—xenophobia and rightwing extremism in the Federal Republic of Germany: Psychoanalytic reflections. American Imago, 52(3), 329–344. https://doi.org/10.1353/aim.1995.0019 DOI

Briançon, M. (2019). The sense of otherness in education. ISTE Ltd/John Wiley and Sons Inc. DOI

Brons, L. L. (2015). Othering, an analysis. Transcience, 6(1), 69–90.

Buber, M. (2006). I and Thou (R.G. Smith, Trans.). Hesperides Press. (Original work published 1923)

Burke, P. J. (2020). Identity dispersion: Flexibility, uncertainty, or inconsistency? In R.T. Serpe, R. Stryker, & B. Powell (Eds.), Identity and Symbolic Interaction (pp. 89–117). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41231-9_4

Burkitt, I. (2010). Dialogues with self and others: Communication, miscommunication, and the dialogical unconscious. Theory & Psychology, 20(3), 305–321. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354310362826 DOI

Chiesa, L. (2007). Subjectivity and otherness: A philosophical reading of Lacan. MIT Press. DOI

Choi, E. U., & Hogg, M. A. (2020). Self-uncertainty and group identification: A meta-analysis. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 23(4), 483–501. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430219846990 DOI

Corbey, R. (Ed.). (1991). Alterity, identity, image: Selves and others in society and scholarship. Rodopi.

Dall’Aglio, J. (2021). What can psychoanalysis learn from neuroscience? A theoretical basis for the emergence of a neuropsychoanalytic model. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 57(1), 125–145. https://doi.org/10.1080/00107530.2021.1894542 DOI

de Beauvoir, S. (2011). The second sex(C. Capisto-Borde & S. Malovany-Chevallier, Trans.). Vintage Books. (Original work published 1949).

de Castro, L. R. (2004). Otherness in me, otherness in others: Children’s and youth’s constructions of self and other. Childhood, 11(4), 469–493. https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568204047107 DOI

de Moreira, J. (2008). Otherness in Interior identity: A reflection about the freudian concepts of unconscious, superego, and id. The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 11(2), 689–701. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1138741600004698 PubMed DOI

De Picione, L. (2021). Metapsychology of borders: Structures, operations and semiotic dynamics. European Journal of Psychotherapy & Counselling, 23(4), 436–467. https://doi.org/10.1080/13642537.2021.2000463 DOI

De Picione, L., & Lozzi, U. (2021). Uncertainty as a constitutive condition of human experience: Paradoxes and complexity of sensemaking in the face of the crisis and uncertainty. Subject Action & Society: Psychoanalytical Studies and Practices, 1(2), 14–53. https://doi.org/10.32111/SAS.2021.1.2.2 DOI

De Picione, L., R., & Freda, M. F. (2022). The Otherness in the Constitution of the Psyche: Arguments from Psychoanalysis and Cultural Psychology. In P. Fossa (Ed.), New Perspectives on Inner Speech (s. 23–40). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06847-8_3

De Picione, L., Marsico, R., Tateo, G., & Valsiner, J. (2022). Generalized semiotic functions of Borders’ model: Contributions from cultural psychology, semiotics and psychoanalysis to-wards the understanding of borders in human experience. International Journal of Psychoanalysis and Education: Subject Action & Society, 2(2), 81–111. https://doi.org/10.32111/SAS.2022.2.2.7 DOI

Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. Norton.

Fingelkurts, A. A., Fingelkurts, A. A., & Kallio-Tamminen, T. (2022). Self, me and I in the repertoire of spontaneously occurring altered states of Selfhood: Eight neurophenomenological case study reports. Cognitive Neurodynamics, 16(2), 255–282. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11571-021-09719-5 PubMed DOI

Fonagy, P., Gergely, G., Jurist, E. L., & Target, M. (2002). Affect regulation, mentalization, and the development of the self. Other Press.

Freud, S. (2003). The Uncanny (D. McLintock, Trans.). Penguin. (Original work published 1919).

Fulgencio, L. (2005). Freud’s metapsychological speculations. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 86(1), 99–123. https://doi.org/10.1516/TNY1-6YT7-V37T-16LD PubMed DOI

Galgut, E. (2021). Against neuropsychoanalysis: Why a dialogue with neuroscience is neither necessary nor sufficient for psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic Review, 108(3), 315–336. https://doi.org/10.1521/prev.2021.108.3.315 PubMed DOI

Harris, M. (2001). The rise of anthropological theory: A history of theories of culture. AltaMira Press.

Hegel, G.W.F. (2010). The science of logic (G. Di Giovanni, Trans.). Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1812)

Hermans, H. (2002). The Dialogical Self as a society of mind: Introduction. Theory & Psychology, 12(2), 147–160. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354302122001 DOI

Hogg, M.A. (2012). Uncertainty-identity theory. In Handbook of theories of social psychology, (Vol. 2, pp. 62–80). Sage Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446249222.n29

Hogg, M. A. (2016). Social identity theory. In S. McKeown, R. Haji, & N. Ferguson (Eds.), Understanding peace and conflict through social identity theory: Contemporary global perspectives (pp. 3–17). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29869-6_1

Hornsey, M. J. (2008). Social Identity Theory and Self-categorization theory: A historical review. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2(1), 204–222. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2007.00066.x DOI

Huett, S., & Goodman, D. (2014). Alterity. In T. Teo (Ed.), Encyclopedia of critical psychology (pp. 82–87). Springer. DOI

Husserl, E. (1999). Cartesian meditations: An introduction to phenomenology (D. Cairns, Trans.). Kluwer Academic Publ. (Original work published 1931).

Jackson, J. P., & Weidman, N. M. (2005). Race, racism, and Science: Social Impact and Interaction. Rutgers University Press.

Jung, C. G. (2009). The red book: Liber Novus (S. Shamdasani, Ed.; M. Kyburz, J. Peck, & S. Shamdasani, Trans.). W.W.Norton & Co.

Jung, C. G., & Jaffé, A. (2013). In C. Winston, & R. Winston (Eds.), Memories, dreams, reflections. Trans.). Random House. (Original work published 1962).

Kennedy, R. (2014). The psychic home: Psychoanalysis, consciousness and the human soul. Routledge. DOI

Kernberg, O. (2016). What is personality? Journal of Personality Disorders, 30(2), 145–156. https://doi.org/10.1521/pedi.2106.30.2.145 PubMed DOI

Klein, S. B. (2010). The self: As a construct in psychology and neuropsychological evidence for its multiplicity. WIREs Cognitive Science, 1(2), 172–183. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcs.25 PubMed DOI

Lévinas, E. (2011). Totality and infinity: An essay on exteriority. Trans.). Duquesne Univ.Press. (Original work published 1961)A. Lingis.

Lobban, G. (2013). The immigrant analyst: A journey from double consciousness toward hybridity. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 23(5), 554–567. https://doi.org/10.1080/10481885.2013.832601 DOI

Mandalios, J. (2000). Being and cultural difference: (Mis)understanding otherness in early modernity. Thesis Eleven, 62(1), 91–108. https://doi.org/10.1177/0725513600062000006 DOI

Mannarini, T., & Salvatore, S. (2020). The politicization of otherness and the privatization of the enemy: Cultural hindrances and assets for active citizenship. Human Affairs, 30(1), 86–95. https://doi.org/10.1515/humaff-2020-0008 DOI

Maslow, A. (1942). The dynamics of psychological security-insecurity. Journal of Personality, 10(4), 331–344. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1942.tb01911.x DOI

Müller-Funk, W. (2021). Teorie cizího: Koncepty alterity. Trans.). Host - Ústav pro českou literaturu AV ČR. J. Budňák.

Northoff, G. (2012). Psychoanalysis and the brain – why did Freud abandon neuroscience? Frontiers in Psychology, 3, 71. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00071 PubMed DOI PMC

Petsko, C. D., Rosette, A. S., & Bodenhausen, G. V. (2022). Through the looking glass: A lens-based account of intersectional stereotyping. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 123(4), 763–787. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000382 PubMed DOI

Ricœur, P. (1994). Oneself as another (K. Blamey, Trans.). University of Chicago Press.

Rubiés, J. P. (2009). Late medieval ambassadors and the practice of cross-cultural encounters, 1250–1450. In P. J. Brummett (Ed.), The ‘Book’ of travels: Genre, Ethnology, and pilgrimage, 1250–1700 (pp. 37–112). Brill. DOI

Sartre, J. P. (2006). Being and nothingness: An essay on phenomenological ontology (H.E. Barnes, Trans.). Routledge. (Original work published 1943).

Scalzone, F. (2005). Notes for a dialogue between psychoanalysis and neuroscience. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 86(5), 1405–1423. https://doi.org/10.1516/9KGQ-67A1-RA5H-96L6 PubMed DOI

Smillie, D. (1971). A psychological contribution to the phenomenology of the other. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 32(1), 64. https://doi.org/10.2307/2105887 DOI

Smythe, W. (2013). The dialogical Jung: Otherness within the self. Behavioral Sciences, 3(4), 634–646. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs3040634 PubMed DOI PMC

Solms, M. (2017). What is the unconscious, and where is it located in the brain? A neuropsychoanalytic perspective. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1406(1), 90–97. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.13437 PubMed DOI

Stets, J. E., & Burke, P. J. (2000). Identity theory and Social Identity Theory. Social Psychology Quarterly, 63(3), 224. https://doi.org/10.2307/2695870 DOI

Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. (2001). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In M. A. Hogg & D. Abrams (Eds.), Intergroup relations: Essential readings (pp. 94–109). Psychology Press. (Original work published 1979).

Turner, J. C., Hogg, M. A., Oakes, P. J., Reicher, S. D., & Wetherell, M. S. (1988). Rediscovering the Social Group: A self-categorization theory. Basil Blackwell.

van Halen, C., Bosma, H. A., & van der Meulen, M. (2020). Experiencing self-definition problems over the life span. Identity, 20(3), 170–187. https://doi.org/10.1080/15283488.2020.1782913 DOI

Van Pelt, T. (2000). Otherness. Postmodern Culture, 10(2). https://doi.org/10.1353/pmc.2000.0009

Waldenfels, B. (1998). Znepokojivá zkušenost cizího. Oikoymenh.

Waldenfels, B. (2011). Phenomenology of the alien: Basic concepts (A. Kozin & T. Stähler, Trans.). Northwestern University Press.

Whitbourne, S. K., Sneed, J. R., & Sayer, A. (2009). Psychosocial development from college through midlife: A 34-year sequential study. Developmental Psychology, 45(5), 1328–1340. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016550 PubMed DOI

Widiger, T. A., Bach, B., Chmielewski, M., Clark, L. A., DeYoung, C., Hopwood, C. J., Kotov, R., Krueger, R. F., Miller, J. D., Morey, L. C., Mullins-Sweatt, S. N., Patrick, C. J., Pincus, A. L., Samuel, D. B., Sellbom, M., South, S. C., Tackett, J. L., Watson, D., Waugh, M. H., & Thomas, K. M. (2019). Criterion a of the AMPD in HiTOP. Journal of Personality Assessment, 101(4), 345–355. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2018.1465431 PubMed DOI

World Health Organization. (2022). ICD-11: International statistical classification of diseases and related health problems. World Health Organization.

Yovell, Y., Solms, M., & Fotopoulou, A. (2015). The case for neuropsychoanalysis: Why a dialogue with neuroscience is necessary but not sufficient for psychoanalysis. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 96(6), 1515–1553. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-8315.12332 PubMed DOI

Yudell, M., Roberts, D., DeSalle, R., & Tishkoff, S. (2016). Taking race out of human genetics. Science, 351(6273), 564–565. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aac4951 PubMed DOI