This concept, closely related to intersubjectivity, is a term coined by psychiatrist Jean-Michel Oughourlian (along with Guy Lefort and René Girard) in Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World to express their conviction that a monadic, isolated subject does not exist and that the self can only be understood in relation to others. Therefore, there is no such thing as the modern notion of an “individual.” We are only interdividuals, our thinking and desires shaped by our relationships with others. The human person is, by nature, a relational being. Interdividuality refers to the dyadic structure of the human person in relationship to others and expresses this relational structure in a more accurate way. Through our interdividuality, mimetic desire is active in our lives in a dynamic way. The field of interdividual psychology arose from this understanding of interdividuality.
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