This paper aims to expand the reflection on the care of elder people inspired by the text “Patterns of intersubjectivity in the constitution of subjectivity: dimensions of otherness,” published in 2004 by Nelson Coelho Jr. and Luis Claudio Figueiredo. Through the use of the aforementioned concept in dialogue with the ideas of empathy in Ferenczi, projective identification in Klein and radical alterity in Lévinas, we intend to show how the contributions of psychoanalysis and philosophy allow questioning the notion of care as linked to charity and love that can lead to the subjection of the elderly. In contrast, we propose an understanding of care in which elderly and caregivers are in a multifaceted inter-subjective relationship that implies tensions and possibilities of transformation without losing sight of the ethical background in which both are respected in their idiosyncrasies and differences.
Elderly; Care; Aging; Psychoanalysis; Ethics