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The curious term “extime” owes much of its existence to the psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan (1901-1981). Introduced in his 1969 seminar XVI (published in 2006 by Editions du Seuil), the term seeks to denote the aspect of intimacy which is voluntarily made public. While it is a concept somewhat familiar, this “care of the self” of the philosophers of antiquity involves a personal process of decentering aiming at a “care for others” understood from a collective perspective, a theme echoed by Michel Foucault in his “Dits et écrits” (volume IV). Indeed, the word “extime” had already appeared under the pen of Albert Thibaudet in an article from “La Nouvelle Revue Française” dated June 1st, 1923, “Lettres et journaux”. Thibaudet gives it the same meaning: it designates that which is oriented outward.
Deriving from the Latin ‘intimus’, the superlative form of ‘intus’ meaning “inside”, “intimate” therefore signifies not merely what is “within”, but what is “most within”. This is the definition that the term takes in the everyday practice of what we call a “diary” or “journal”. The expression itself represents a paradox since writing is already an externalized form of the self. Consequently, the only genuine “journal intime” would be the one that is written within oneself. The act of recording this interiority on paper only makes sense if this account remained concealed from all. Simultaneously, what would literature be without the considerable number of diaries, autobiographies, autofictions, and other self-writings published to date? From this standpoint, it appears that the intimate cannot be conceived merely from the binary opposition of exterior/interior or public/private. In the realm of psychoanalysis, the concepts of intimacy and the intimate thus invoke the category of the extime which, contrary to how it may appear, is not the opposite of the “intimate”. It even enables us to contemplate the latter. The term, which remains closely linked to Lacan’s psychoanalysis, is also adopted by the writer Michel Tournier, who published a book entitled “Journal extime” (Gallimard, 2002).
In approaching this concept, Lacan referred to Freud’s notion of the cry, posited as a call from the Other. This scream of terror in the face of the unspeakable is not heard. It gestures towards that place within us, which we cannot approach without fear because, in the face of the other’s cry, “the subject remembers his own cries and relives his own painful experiences” (“Project for a Scientific Psychology” in The Origins of Psychoanalysis, 1895). Lacan illustrates Freud’s remarks by invoking the famous cry of Norwegian artist Edvard Munch, five versions of which have been created between 1893 and 1917. This iconic work depicts a man crying out against the backdrop of a fiery landscape (the Oslo fjord as seen from Ekeberg) and serves as an allegory of the existential angst of the modern man. A few words from Munch’s diary dated January 22nd, 1892, help the understanding of this painting from his subjective experience: “I was walking along a path with two friends—the sun was setting — suddenly the sky turned blood red — I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence — there were blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city — my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety — I felt an infinite scream passing through nature.”
Because it is externalized, the cry thus helps to define the subject’s deepest intimacy. Indeed, for Lacan, the intimate is only recognizable as such by projecting itself outside oneself: “It is in this ejaculatory exteriority that this something identifies itself, by which what is most intimate to me is precisely what I am forced to be able to recognize only on the outside. That is why this cry does not need to be emitted to be a cry. I have shown in this magnificent engraving called The Scream, by Munch, that nothing is more suited to its expressive value than the fact that it is situated in this calm landscape, with not far off on the road two people who are moving away and who do not even turn around, from the twisted mouth of the feminine being who, in the foreground, this cry, represents it, it is essential that nothing but absolute silence comes out. It is from the silence at the center of this cry that the presence of the being closest to me, the being awaited… arises, especially since it is always already there…the next one (…)” (Jacques Lacan, From One Other to the other).
What becomes of the cry in the era of contemporary communication practices? Indeed, over the past twenty years or so, the term has found a new resonance among psychoanalysts, but also among sociologists and anthropologists who study the societal implications inherent to the development of blogs, forums, and various social networks. The mediatization and explosion of personal life expressions thus question the boundaries and the very definition of the “intimate,” positing the existence of new, “extimate” forms of self-publicity. Pushing the confusion with the personal diary, a writing practice which allows the “self” to exist on the pages of a notebook, the Facebook platform (now considered a forebear) launched the “Timeline” service (translated as “Journal” in French version) in September 2011. This service allowed Facebook users to trace the events of their life through a chronological timeline. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, explained that this feature was a “new way to express who you are,” (Le Monde, September 24, 2011).
Blogs, social networks, and other platforms, as diverse as they are numerous today, in the virtual world of the internet and the metaverse, they are in fact places where our intimacy is overexposed. Private life is now visible in the same way as social, professional, or political life, according to the now well-known common opinion, “to be visible is to exist.” To borrow the title of the work by psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Serge Tisseron, dedicated to the reality TV program Loft Story, the extimate would be The Overexposed Intimacy (Ed. Ramsay, 2001).
In this work, Tisseron refutes the concept of exhibitionism commonly used to describe the approach of individuals participating in reality television shows. Instead, he prefers the term “extimacy” to explain the desire to share elements of one’s intimate life in order to appropriate them, enhance their value, and sublime them through the gaze of the other. Thus, he proposes, “I suggest calling ‘extimacy’ the movement that prompts each of us to put forward a part of our intimate life, both physical and psychological. This movement has long gone unnoticed although it is essential to the human being. It consists in the desire to communicate about one’s inner world. But this movement would be incomprehensible if it were just about ‘expressing.’ If people want to externalize certain elements of their life, it’s to better appropriate them by internalizing them in another way thanks to the exchanges they prompt with their loved ones. The expression of intimate self – which we have referred to as ‘extimacy’ –thus serves the creation of a richer intimacy.” (The Overexposed Intimacy).
Today, as the internet somewhat becomes obsolete, if not in practice, at least in the field of research, absorbed by this more comprehensive phenomenon that also induces more complete, and sometimes more radical experiences, such as the metaverse and the phenomenon of artificial intelligence, how then should we think about extimacy? It would require returning to Freudian psychoanalysis and to psychoanalysis in general, which is today somewhat tinged with romanticism. We should revisit the virtues of “telling all,” which today are somewhat overtaken by the multiplicity of selves involved in the multidimensionality of the world, these selves that could become observers of their own life. We should continue to believe that the process towards desired happiness unfolds in this reality and not in another, which sometimes poses a real challenge. We would need to reconsider the very notions of person and reality and, of course, bring up the question of intimacy and its place of residence.
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