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Transference, the transcendent function, and transcendence
Author(s) -
Ulanov Ann Belford
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
journal of analytical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.285
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1468-5922
pISSN - 0021-8774
DOI - 10.1111/j.1465-5922.1997.00119.x
Subject(s) - id, ego and super ego , psyche , transcendence (philosophy) , psychic , psychology , consciousness , psychoanalysis , meaning (existential) , interpretation (philosophy) , countertransference , function (biology) , epistemology , conversation , field (mathematics) , philosophy , psychotherapist , communication , mathematics , medicine , linguistics , alternative medicine , pathology , evolutionary biology , pure mathematics , biology
People in analysis come into direct contact with the transcendent – that which surpasses not only our ego consciousness but the whole psyche – through the transcendent function working in the transference–countertransference field. Reductive and synthetic methods of interpretation of transference, in both objective and subjective levels of meaning, inaugurate moving the ego out of center stage into the process of relating to the Self. The transcendent function is the means of enlarging psychic space in the transference field to make room for coinciding opposites and a ‘creative solution’ that arises from their conversation. That solution, or set of symbols, addresses us with such compelling authority that Jung likens it to ‘the voice of God’, A clinical case illustrates the connection of transference, the transcendent function, and the experience of the transcendent which, I believe, we must identify as such in order to go on relating to it.