Unconcealing Jung’s transcendent function with Heidegger.

Abstract

In the first sentence of his book, The Transcendent Function, Jeffery Miller says “The transcendent function is the core of Carl Jung's theory of psychological growth and the heart of what he called individuation, the process by which one is guided in a teleological way toward the person he or she is meant to be” (Miller, 2004, p. 1). Consequently, for Jung, the transcendent function is the question of unveiling the unconscious for individuation to take place or, as Heidegger would say, the question of unveiling Being for authenticity to take place. As a result of the apparent equivalence, these questions can be synthesised to demonstrate that read together, each of these thinkers brings deeper understanding, meaning, and interpretation to the projects of the other in such a way that an extension for application is created for both philosophy and psychotherapy.