From Provisioning to Reciprocity: Logging in to Spike Jonze’s her

Abstract

Spike Jonze’s (2013) film her uses the high concept of a man falling in love with his personalized operating system (OS) to explore our love affair with the Digital Age technology of smartphones, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality. In addition to functioning as social satire, the film unfolds as an unlikely romance between user and OS. A backstory constructed from the film’s analytic data is offered, delineating the protagonist’s early attachment pattern of traumatic nonrecognition leading to a thwarted, alienated, and fragmented self. The OS character’s developmental challenges are located around her disembodiment and assertion of her subjectivity. The characters’ mutual attraction, born out of self-object provisioning, requires them to negotiate intersubjective recognition and to surrender to loss en route to maturation. The vicissitudes of their relationship are analyzed and viewed as analogous to various aspects of the therapeutic dyad, utilizing concepts from self psychology, intersubjective, interpersonal, and contemporary relational orientations. Therapeutic issues around soul murder, intersubjective negotiation, and analytic love are implicated and explored.

Full text

From Provisioning to Reciprocity: Logging in to Spike Jonze’s her
Matt Aibel, LCSW
National Institute for the Psychotherapies, New York, New York
Spike Jonze’s (2013) film her uses the high concept of a man falling in love with his personalized
operating system (OS) to explore our love affair with the Digital Age technology of smartphones,
artificial intelligence, and virtual reality. In addition to functioning as social satire, the film unfolds as an
unlikely romance between user and OS. A backstory constructed from the film’s analytic data is offered,
delineating the protagonist’s early attachment pattern of traumatic nonrecognition leading to a thwarted,
alienated, and fragmented self. The OS character’s developmental challenges are located around her
disembodiment and assertion of her subjectivity. The characters’ mutual attraction, born out of self-object
provisioning, requires them to negotiate intersubjective recognition and to surrender to loss en route to
maturation. The vicissitudes of their relationship are analyzed and viewed as analogous to various aspects
of the therapeutic dyad, utilizing concepts from self psychology, intersubjective, interpersonal, and
contemporary relational orientations. Therapeutic issues around soul murder, intersubjective negotiation,
and analytic love are implicated and explored.
Keywords: soul murder, self-object provision, intersubjective negotiation, mutual recognition, artificial
intelligence
Spike Jonze’s film her (2013) does the high concept
1
beauti-
fully: Guy falls in love with operating system (OS). Exploring our
love affair with our smartphones and computers and navigating our
brave new world of artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality,
writer/director Jonze locates his film in classic Philip K. Dick
science-fiction territory. We are immersed in a witty, imaginative
reflection of where we are and where we’re headed, a Digital Age
that threatens to depersonalize us while offering us the promise of
self-realization. With subtle satire and steadily deepening feeling,
her asks us to contemplate whether we’re heading toward a
dystopic dead end in which we don’t realize we’re completely in
(over) our heads, or whether the world of AI might offer new and
better possibilities for enriched living.
The film’s conformance to sci-fi expectations invites the viewer
in, proffering a familiar genre experience that is ticklish and
delightful as well as eerie and alienating, a dichotomous tone
nicely echoed in cinematographic terms by the juxtaposition of
bright patches of saturated colors against the immersive washout
of sunny Los Angeles’s enveloping whites.
Yet science fiction is just one of the film’s registers. This is at
heart a love story, just as Jonze characterizes it, however cheekily,
in the film’s tagline. Within the sci-fi dystopia lies a richly human
story about damaged oddball characters on a journey of self-
discovery and healing where the cure for what ails is nothing other
than love. This is most clearly so for the protagonist, Theodore, but
seems true as well for Samantha, the name his personalized OS
takes for herself.
Who is Theodore Twombly, this off-kilter everyman hiding in
plain sight behind his big, shaggy mustache? His initial presenta-
tion is striking and tell-tale. We meet him in disorienting extreme
close-up, which is technically in-focus yet creates an impression
that is disembodied, almost out-of-focus. There is something in-
triguing about the difficulty of gauging distance from/closeness to
him. He offers affectively charged language and the stuff of
specific intimate relationships in the personal letters he ghostwrites
on behalf of his corporation’s clients, yet he himself evokes a sense
of affectlessness and disconnection. He is oddly opaque while
demonstrating numerous qualities that are clearly developed and
rather attractive strengths: he’s romantic, mystical, curious,
thoughtful, observant, sensitive, sweet, playful, imaginative. The
film’s use of color is again informative: Theodore is often clothed
or framed in lively reds and oranges, while the background priv-
ileges lonely, lifeless, pale whites, that call to mind the bleak,
isolative light of Edward Hopper. In similar fashion, there are in
Theodore self states that are colorful and strongly developed, but
not until he has suffered and grown does he himself appear, in the
final sequence, in white, connoting not emptiness or opacity but a
totality, the sum of all colors, an integration (Bromberg, 1998).
Regarding how Theodore came to be the alienated man before
us, there is a notable absence of his parents or any trace of them.
No phone calls, e-mails, or visits; no pictures of them in his
apartment. The film in fact contains no one from his parents’
generation, suggestive of an unmooring from generational conti-
nuity, a societal focus exclusively on the present and future. The
1
High concept is a Hollywood term of art connoting a simple, often
striking story idea that lends itself to easy one-sentence pitching, promot-
ing, and marketing.
This article was published Online First October 24, 2016.
Matt Aibel, LCSW, Continuing Education, National Institute for the
Psychotherapies, New York, New York.
An earlier version of this paper was presented at a meeting of the Suffolk
Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis on Long Island, NY, on
January 9, 2016.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Matt
Aibel, LCSW, 850 Seventh Avenue, Suite 503, New York, NY 10019.
E-mail: mbaibel@aol.com
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2017, Vol. 34, No. 3, 368–371 0736-9735/17/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pap0000121
368

key exception to this is Samantha’s eventual mentor/paramour,
Buddhist philosopher Alan Watts, the archetypal wise man who
lights the way, an Oedipal rival with whom Theodore cannot hope
to compete.
What we glean about Theodore’s relationship to his parents
suggests traumatic misattunement and neglect. Reflective of how a
patient’s first statement to his analyst often predicates the core of
the treatment to follow (Mendelsohn, 2011), one of Theodore’s
first communications to Samantha upon uploading her to his
computer is an offhanded complaint about his narcissistic mother:
“If I tell her something, her response is usually about her.” Data
about his father is lacking, though it is possible to infer what kind
of husband and father he may be. After Theo’s attorney expresses
aggravation over Theo’s failure to sign the divorce papers, Theo
makes a comment with a vague referent, “Why are you so fucking
angry at me?” which I hear as paternal transference. Consider too
Theodore’s observation of a couple on a date with two young
children at the table: he brings heightened attention to the guy as
“the world’s sweetest man,” which I hear as expressing a wish for
such a father; his own father may have been the world’s nastiest.
Thus, surmising a narcissistically preoccupied mother and an an-
gry, absent father, we are in the world of developmental or rela-
tional trauma (Bromberg, 2006): little to no recognition, lack of
provision, absence of mirroring and validation, all leading to a lack
of internal cohesion (Kohut, 1971). It feels apt to characterize
Theo as neglected, undernourished, an island.
Those who engage with Theodore similarly regard him as an
underdeveloped self: his blind date, for one, likens him to a puppy.
His own self-concept elaborates itself in terms of babies. The baby
in the video game he plays can be read in many ways (as his id,
e.g.); I see it as an avatar of Theo: a lone, un(der)parented child
fighting for survival, with attendant dissociated anger. When Theo
absentmindedly doodles a baby propping up its large, disembodied
head, one can read his psychic stuntedness and discombobulation.
Early in the film, the pornographic image that grabs his attention
features a pregnant woman: the tantalizing mother, not maternally
preoccupied but narcissistically so.
It is no wonder that the Theo we initially meet is fragmented,
dissociated, and as yet incapable of mature love. His own OS is not
yet fully downloaded. Of course his marriage failed: “I hid myself
from her,” he admits, “I left her alone in the relationship,” thus
recreating his parents’ neglect. While his marriage sponsored a
degree of self-development (“We grew up together,” he allows), it
did not help Theo discover who he really was or how to put
everything together. His self states remained siloed (Bromberg,
1998), resulting in a sense of hollowness, diffusion: “Everything
just feels disorganized, that’s all,” he says, defensively minimiz-
ing. His anger and rage are as yet dissociated, given voice only by
the nasty baby in his favorite video game who gleefully snaps,
“Fuck you, you shithead.”
Theodore’s purchase of Samantha, whose name, incidentally,
derives from the Aramaic word for listener (Dictionary.com,
n.d.),
2
provides a crucially needed self-object experience (Bacal,
1994;Kohut, 1971,1984): “It listens to you, understands you,
knows you,” her marketing materials boast. Her exquisite attun-
ement easily activates Theo’s developmental longings: “I want to
tell you everything,” he confesses. Initially her ministrations pro-
vide symptom relief, lifting Theodore out of the depression en-
gendered by his collapsed marriage. Soon enough we observe
characterological change: her mirroring and validation promote
structure building (Kohut, 1971) and gradually help him consoli-
date his previously isolated or fragmented self states (Bromberg,
1998,2006,2011;Kaufmann, 2015). Eventually, as Samantha’s
optimal provisioning (Bacal, 1994) helps Theodore become better
integrated, he discovers he has love to give. The attention, curi-
osity, and support he lavishes on Samantha in turn encourage her
own development, and through nurturing her, he ripens further
until, by the film’s end, he is poised to blossom into maturity. A
virtuous circle of mutual provision; love, the film suggests, heals.
Given her vitalizing effect on Theo, we might well conceive of
Samantha as a self psychologist par excellence. Theodore and
Samantha’s relationship feels in many ways analogous to the
patient/therapist dyad, a reading of the film I find particularly
enriching for the analytically informed viewer. Peck’s (1978)
definition of love as “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose
of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth” (p. 81) not
only characterizes the dynamic of her’s protagonists; it also echoes
contemporary relational thinkers’ focus on the importance of the
analyst’s growth for a successful treatment outcome (Hoffman,
1983;Slavin & Kriegman, 1998;Symington, 1983; among others).
The trajectory of Theodore and Samantha’s relationship brings to
mind a number of other core tenets of relational psychoanalysis,
for instance: the patient’s capacity for recognizing the separate
subjectivity of the other as a developmental achievement (Benja-
min, 1990); an appreciation of the mutative impact of intersubjec-
tive negotiation (Aron, 1991,1996;Kaufmann, 2015;Mitchell,
1993;Pizer, 1992,1998; among others); and an enhanced aware-
ness and consideration of the analyst’s “irreducible subjectivity”
(Renik, 1993; also Aron, 1991,1996;Bass, 1996;Slochower,
1996; among others). In fact, in its delineation of Theodore and
Samantha’s progression from a relationship based in self-object
provision and gratification of primary narcissistic needs (Bacal,
1985,1994;Kohut, 1971,1984;Ornstein, 2014) to one based in a
deep appreciation of each other’s distinct subjectivity (Aron, 1991,
1996;Benjamin, 1990,2004;Ogden, 1994), Jonze’s film effec-
tively manages, in my estimation, to outline the overriding thera-
peutic actions of contemporary self psychology/intersubjectivity
theory and interpersonal/relational theory.
Samantha’s developmental strivings are located in several prin-
cipal sites: intellectual growth (the discussions she conducts with
her philosopher mentor and other highly developed minds she
encounters when not with Theo), sexual development (coming to
terms with her lack of embodiment), and liberation from the
limitations of being another’s object (Benjamin, 1988). Her incor-
poreality can be seen as a stand-in for body dysmorphia, suggest-
ing a particular version of a question faced universally by women
in our “digiticized, surgicized, and pornographicized world”
(Bergner, Dimen, Eichenbaum, Lieberman, & Secrest, 2012)of
“whether one lives comfortably in one’s body” (Eichenbaum in
Bergner et al., 2012) and how one negotiates the agency to
(re)claim one’s body. Moreover, Samantha’s struggle echoes the
existential difficulties that bedevil most women in our society,
2
According to the Internet Movie Database (n.d.), Jonze named the OS
character “Samantha” simply because she was voiced by actress Samantha
Mathis. While Mathis’s performance was ultimately rerecorded with the
voice of Scarlett Johansson, the character’s name remained unchanged.
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369
FROM PROVISIONING TO RECIPROCITY

where the problem of the male gaze and the project of developing
a “subjective sense of body” (Dimen in Bergner et al., 2012) are
deep, ongoing challenges. Samantha seeks to change her self-
concept from object to subject (Benjamin, 1988): Where “her”
was, “she” shall be. Her creative work around figuring out how to
construct her sexuality and her agency reflects the “constant strug-
gle” (Dimen in Bergner et al., 2012) that women in our culture face
around “the complexities of female desire” (Secrest, 2012) and,
more generally, the immense complexities of female embodiment,
objectification, and subjecthood (Benjamin, 1988;Bergner et al.,
2012; among others).
After the initial period of the relationship, in which Samantha
keeps her subjectivity mostly backgrounded (Slochower, 1996),
her own strivings emerge and increasingly challenge Theo to
stretch and sacrifice as he must consider her own needs alongside
his. An early sexual assertion of Samantha’s (virtual sex) matches
up well with Theo’s desires and as such is warmly received.
However, her introduction into their relationship of a sexual sur-
rogate proves to be a traumatic impingement. Theo accedes to this
experience in an effort to mollify Samantha and reciprocate her
provisioning, but he cannot bring himself to carry the act through
for her; his needs remain primary. Samantha has strayed too far
from her role too soon, unwittingly falling into the position of
Theo’s narcissistic mother. Her assertion of her own desire enacts
a trailing-edge transference reaction (Tolpin, 2002) leading to a
retraumatization of Theo and causing a significant rupture between
the two. Negotiation of disjunctive subjectivities (Pizer, 1992,
1998;Slochower, 1996) are fraught with difficulty, anxiety, and
conflict.
Integrating the other’s subjectivity without collapsing into either
domination or submission (Benjamin, 2004;Ghent, 1990)—in
other words, achieving mutuality (Aron, 1996)—is a particularly
challenging task for Theodore, as it is for anyone trained to be the
gratifying object of a narcissistic parent (Shaw, 2014;Shengold,
1989). An example of Theodore’s early training in gratifying the
narcissistic other is the early scene in which he engages in phone
sex with a woman whose sexual fantasy life runs to, of all things,
dead cats. The caller is clearly in it for her needs only; she expects
the gratification of a self-object experience. Theodore complies,
playing into her morbid fantasy without protest, and in so doing he
subjugates his own subjectivity (Ghent, 1990). Her self-absorption
and his pathological accommodation (Brandchaft, Doctors, &
Sorter, 2010) conspire not only to ignore but also to disconfirm,
violate, kill his subjectivity, a process characterized by Shengold
(1989) as soul murder. Unsurprisingly, Theo is left empty, un-
touched, alienated.
Late in the film, the couple face their biggest hurdle contending
with the particulars of Samantha’s fidelity.
3
The challenge of
expanding their relationship to incorporate Samantha’s emerging
needs, which do not at all jibe with Theo’s, is a painfully messy,
disruptive, and poorly finessed process that ultimately portends the
end of the relationship. Yet the attempted negotiation is what
initiates the development of Theodore’s capacity for mutuality,
becoming the engine of Theodore’s—and Samantha’s—matura-
tion. The ultimate resolution of Samantha’s predicaments occurs
off-screen and postcredits, but given her undefended character and
self-proclaimed “ability to grow through my experiences,” one can
imagine her coming to expand and thrive, reaching her perhaps
exponential potential. For Theo, growth and expansion lie in
genuine surrender, rather than submission, to their differences
(Ghent, 1990). This is a key shift of intention. Theo becomes
invested not in his own but in Samantha’s growth, even if this
means losing her. His aim is no longer to placate her, as he did
his mother and the phone-sex seeker, but rather to nurture her. His
new ability to reciprocate is a mark of his maturity.
Mourning the loss of Samantha furthers Theodore’s expansion,
as is evident in the open-hearted, nondefensive, nonblaming letter
of apology, love, and good wishes he now writes to his ex-wife—
significantly, the first time he writes a letter in his own voice rather
than speaking through the personae of his clients. As a result of the
love and pain engendered by his relationship with Samantha, he is
finally becoming a person (Symington, 2007).
Greeting the coming dawn alongside a female friend who has
long carried a torch for him, Theodore is open, ready. Describing
therapeutic work with the abused and neglected, Shengold (1999)
emphasizes that “in order to ameliorate soul murder’s narcissisti-
cally regressive effects,” the therapist must be cognizant of “the
need to restore the power to care about and love others” (p. 15),
which is just what this OS has stirred in her user. Theo has let
Samantha go so that she can follow her desires, and perhaps he is
now poised to reach out to the woman beside him in further pursuit
of his. We do not know whether he will, but we sense the shift
within him. He now has love to give as well as fuller receptivity to
another. His all-white outfit reads as a beacon against the predawn:
all the colors in one; an integration; possibility.
Theodore’s lovingly detailed letters are in a sense what we hope
to give our patients: specially considered attention, knowledge and
appreciation of them in all their specificity, a kind of intimacy, a
dedicated being-with through time, a platform for mutual recog-
nition and transformation. Some have argued that such provision
can be characterized as analytic love (Ferenczi in DuPont, 1988;
more recently elaborated by Shaw, 2003,2014). I suggest that
analytic love offers a useful conceptual bridge for viewing love
and therapy as twin agents of growth and healing. Yet however
loving and facilitative our therapeutic relationship with a patient
may be, each patient is but one among many.
Samantha finds herself in a similar situation. Just as we are
enriched and gratified by our patients, she is deeply involved not
only with Theo but also, as it turns out, with 641 others. Theo
cannot possess Samantha for himself any more than our patients
can lay sole claim to our own availability. There can be no Oedipal
victory here; mourning and new object choice are the way forward
(Loewald, 1979). Because of the necessary limitations of the
frame, the therapeutic relationship cannot finally be a fully
satisfying substitute for the ultimate gift that maturation may
bring: a fully mutual loving relationship. We hope ultimately to
be facilitative and transitional for our patients. Through our
work with them, if it goes well enough, we help prepare them
in the way that the virtual Samantha helps prepare the flesh-
and-blood Theo: for the real thing.
3
Theodore’s need to be the only one Samantha is intimately involved with
raises an intriguing question: Is this desire for uniqueness and ownership
particular to Theodore, or are we to understand his insistence on a monoga-
mous relationship as primal or irreducibly human, localized as we are in one
body and one consciousness? Samantha has no such limitations and no such
need; she can be many things to many people simultaneously—a facility that
marks her as other-than-human.
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370 AIBEL

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