Transcendent Function Research Articles

Psyche moving: “Active imagination” and “focusing” in movement-based performance and psychotherapy

This paper looks at how “focusing” (Gendlin, 1978) and “active imagination” (Jung, 1935) can operate to enhance one another in therapeutic and creative environments. These approaches to working with psychic material allow an embodied engagement with psychic material which encompasses all of the senses as well as a something more which can be understood in Jung's use and development of the term “transcendent function” and Gendlin's belief that the felt sense is more than sensation. The relationship between these two approaches is charted and examined using case illustrations from the author's creative processes and facilitation work. This paper concludes that bringing these two methods together in creative movement environments is a powerful and often necessary tool for the expression of psychic contents.

Lie symmetry analysis and reduction of a new integrable coupled KdV system

In this paper, Lie symmetry is investigated for a new integrable coupled Korteweg–de Vries (KdV) equation system. Using some symmetry subalgebra of the equation system, we obtain five types of the significant similarity reductions. Abundant solutions of the coupled KdV equation system, such as the solitary wave solution, exponential solution, rational solution and polynomial solution, etc. are obtained from the reduced equations. Especially, one type of group-invariant solution of reduced equations can be acquired by means of the Painleve I transcendent function.

ANALYTIC INTUITION: A MEETING PLACE FOR JUNG AND BION

ABSTRACT The paper identifies some important areas of theoretical congruence between Jung and Bion in order to illuminate a central feature of analytic practice: analytic intuition. Jung and Bion suggest, in different yet surprisingly similar ways, that the therapist extends her reach towards unknown psychic reality through the exercise of analytic intuition. Both writers invite us to respect the symbolic and relational processes by which painful and disturbing emotional reality is intuited. Their particular formulations of unconscious process are used to arrive at a definition of analytic intuition and how it is experienced and used by analytic practitioners. The paper discusses Jung's and Bion's understanding of the dreaming process and also makes reference to Bion's ‘reversible perspective’ and Jung's ‘synchronicity’ as particular ways in which analytic intuition can be employed in analytic interpretation. The paper concludes by drawing a parallel between Jung's ‘transcendent function’ and Bion's ‘binocular vision’.

Towards the feeling of emergence

Emergence is a multi-dimensional notion; the meanings it has acquired span the mythopoetic to the scientific, especially as found in complex systems. Examples of emergence in Navaho and Egyptian imagery underscore its diverse cultural origins and applications as well as suggesting an underlying archetypal quality to the core concept. A brief overview of the use of this term in science starting in the 17th century helps to locate the roots of modern emergent views in the philosophy of Leibniz. Jung's own use of early systems approaches was a part of his formulations of a 'third' position associated with the transcendent function. As this paper was delivered at the 50th anniversary conference of the Journal of Analytical Psychology, aspects of the emergence of the Journal within the contents of the first issue are explored. Attention is drawn to several articles, especially a case of brief child therapy done by Robert Moody. His approach to working his case is strikingly modern and vividly demonstrates principles of emergence within the clinical setting. Following this there is a discussion of some neuroscientific research on neural body maps, pointing to the experience of feelings as an emergent process. It is suggested that feelings derive from phase transitions in the brain's body mapping states. A reconsideration of a seeming impasse in the case described by Moody leads instead to a view of the initial phase of treatment as a pre-critical period. Research findings on mirror neurons are presented in terms of the feeling of empathy. Subjective feelings are then shown to be associated with moments of emergence, especially surprise and curiosity, exemplified by a case from the author's practice.

Imagination and the imaginary

This paper argues that real imagination depends on the capacity to acknowledge the absence of what is imagined from the world of material actuality. This leads on to a view of symbol formation as the operation of the transcendent function between the opposites of presence and absence. 'The imaginary' is contrasted with this as a defensive misuse of imagination that attempts to deny 'negation' where negation is defined as all those aspects of the world that constitute a check to the omnipotence of fantasy--e.g., absence, loss, difference, otherness etc. Parallels are drawn with theoretical antecedents in analytical psychology and psychoanalysis, with particular attention to papers published in the Journal of Analytical Psychology (JAP) in the 1960s on the relation between active imagination, transference and ego development. A clinical example is given to show the use of the imaginary as a means of warding off the unbearable pain of Oedipal disappointment.

Sex, shame and the transcendent function: the function of fantasy in self development

This paper explores a developmental approach to the sense of self-agency and to its influence on conscious and unconscious fantasy. I suggest that the emerging sense of self-agency offers an over-arching framework for our understanding of the nature and function of fantasy. In this context, intrusive and compulsive sexual fantasies which a person experiences as perverted and shameful, can be seen to serve differing psychic purposes, depending on the level of self-agency which is predominant. The fantasies can serve both as warning signals of the dangers of relationship and as opportunities for the mind to reflect on its own processes. Differing psychodynamic theories of fantasy are examined in terms of the developmental sense of self-agency that they represent.

Individuation: finding oneself in analysis – taking risks and making sacrifices

This paper looks at some of the processes that are at work in finding oneself in analysis. It explores Jung's unique contribution to our thinking about the self and its dynamic of individuation. The author attempts to show how the Self, in its quest for consciousness, requires the surrendering of ego inflation--the narcissistic delusion that the ego is the self. A case is made for seeing analysis as an individuation process which offers the opportunity for experiences of a more authentic sense of oneself. Jung stated that individuation requires the ego to enter into service of the Self. For this to happen, the author argues that both patient and analyst must be prepared to make sacrifices and take risks. Using clinical examples, he illustrates that, although purposive, the Self can be experienced as violent and destructive if the ego is unable to facilitate its expression. This may result in an individuation crisis for both analyst and patient. The paper demonstrates how impasse in analysis can evoke the transcendent function, which also requires sacrifices to be made and risks to be taken for analysis to proceed.

The transcendent function: Jung's model of psychological growth through dialogue with the unconscious

The transcendent function: Jung's model of psychological growth through dialogue with the unconscious

From archetypes to reflective function

This paper challenges the view that mental contents can be innate and offers instead a developmental model in which mental contents emerge from the interaction of genes, brain and environment. Some key steps on this developmental pathway are traced, such as the formation of image schemas. The processes by which mental contents are evaluated and organized are described, notably those of perceptual analysis, representational re-description and appraisal. Jung's concept of the transcendent function is seen to have certain crucial features in common with each of these processes. The emergence of the capacity to symbolize is explored in relation to these concepts and it is suggested that the pinnacle of this capacity is achieved in the emergence of reflective function, in which mind is represented to itself.

Cross‐cultural structures of concentric and diametric dualism in Lévi‐Strauss’ structural anthropology: structures of relation underlying the self and ego relation?

The parallels between Jung's and Lévi-Strauss' concentric cross-cultural structures of the unconscious are highlighted. Lévi-Strauss' basic contrasts between concentric and diametric dualisms are developed into psychologically relevant differences regarding symmetry, connection and separation, and interaction between foreground and background structures respectively. These contrasts between concentric and diametric structures are applied as a common structural framework for understanding Jungian conceptions of the self, the ego and their relations, Freudian views of compensation and repetition in obsessional neurosis, and Winnicott's conception of a child's transitional object. Developing the contrasts between concentric and diametric structures reveals a compensatory relation between both structures. This supports an argument that concentric structures express the self and diametric structures express the ego in their mutual compensatory interrelation. Contrasting concentric with diametric structures challenges traditional Western logic, including Fordham's view that it is contradictory to treat the self as both centre and totality. It also develops an understanding of Jung's transcendent function which seeks to go beyond the ego-shadow opposition.

Symbolic attitude and reverie: problems of symbolization in children and adolescents.

In comparison to the 1970s and 1980s, we now treat more children and adolescents who, because they have had traumatic experiences of violence, child abuse, deprivation or chronic physical illness, are not able to adequately use their symbolizing function. The question is which qualities and which analytical attitude we should and can offer in analysis to help a child regain his or her capacity to symbolize, irrespective of how poorly developed or blocked this capacity may be. In contrast to Jung and some Jungians, the author argues that although the transcendent function is a 'natural process' and hence archetypally grounded as Jung maintained, the transcendent function does not work spontaneously. Rather it requires a matrix based on the child's earliest relationship, which can later be re-enacted in treatment. Jung's general concept of a 'symbolic attitude' can be complemented and focused in a specific way through the use of Bion's concept of 'reverie', which contributes in a fundamental way to symbol formation within the transference/countertransference. This idea is illustrated by clinical material from a nine-year-old boy who suffered from a severe congenital intestinal disease and was blocked in his capacity to symbolize. From the perspective of treatment technique, the author shows how the drawing of 'comic book' narratives in a reciprocal exchange was brought into the treatment. The drawings evolved in a way that he understood as a modified form of active imagination with children. The drawing process helped the boy gradually to develop a symbolic space in the therapy and to contain a psychic space in his mind.

The Transcendent Function: The Numinosum in Gene Expression, Neurogenesis, and Healing

The process of coming to terms with the unconscious is a true labor, a work which involves both action and suffering. It has been named the “transcendent function” because it represents a function based on real and “imaginary,” or rational and irrational, data, thus bridging the yawning gulf between conscious and unconscious. It is a natural process, a manifestation of the energy that springs from the tension of opposites, and it consists in a series of fantasy-occurrences which appear spontaneously in dreams and visions, (p. 80) —C. G. Jung, 1943/1966

How Does the Transcendent Function?

How Does the Transcendent Function?

Transference, the transcendent function, and transcendence

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.

Grief as a Transcendent Function and Teacher of Spiritual Growth

Death is an inevitable phase of life, so is grief. This paper attempts to pinpoint the enormous potential of grief in advancing our spiritual growth. Jung states that when encountering a crisis such as loss, the unconscious often breaks through to help us with new adjustments, whereby a transcendent function takes place (Jung, 1971). Instead of becoming an emotional trauma, grief can transcend our everyday experiences and awaken us to our spiritual essence.

Presence and absence through the mirror of transference: a model of the transcendent function

The workings of the transcendent function are explored through the development of a model of psychical process which is founded on the symbolism of the mirror. The model consists in a three‐dimensional psychical manifold comprising apperceptive, reflective, and subjective axes. A fourth, temporal axis is implicit in the process character of the model. A fifth, affective axis is not discussed. The model is used to enhance understanding of both failed and successful transcendent functioning. Parallels with modes of initiation are developed. The transference role of the therapist is explored.

Trauma and Symbol

With the help of the conceptualizations of Amati and Bleger, and of Jung, the loss of instinctual experience and reality sense in the victims of incestuous abuse is described as an extreme regression to a primary undifferentiated stage of development: that of 'ambiguity' and 'identity'. At this stage the identity of the victim is taken over by that of the aggressor and becomes petrified in a form of mimicry. Differentiation processes are partially blocked. Through the therapeutic work with a woman who was sexually abused as a child, and whose daughter was also being incestuously traumatized, it is demonstrated how, through the use of fantasy, the instinctive reaction of thanatosis can be given up, together with the attempt to find meaning through self-sacrifice, which continually places the victim in renewed danger. By means of activating the transcendent function, the positive pole of the archetype can be set up as a counterforce in the internal world which was once feared like an abuser, and thus as a balance to the images of actual historical violation. The positive pole of the archetype then allows the inner world to loosen itself from the tangled aggressive and auto-aggressive layers of identity. This leads to a revival of protective instinctual reactions and to an improvement in reality functioning. It is emphasized that it is not the recall of actual abuse that promotes therapeutic progress but the evolving symbolizations. The analysis of the symbolic experience leads to the following conclusion: the hypothesis that, on the grounds of positive feelings, the children 'have also wanted' the incestuous activity, cannot be upheld.

Clowns in the hospital: their role with pediatric patients, their parents and their caregivers: ‘Le Rire Médecin’

A drama therapy approach to working with addiction using clown therapy was developed via a process through which clients were led to discover their inner clown. Using drama therapy techniques, each client’s key/dominant and oppositional personality roles were recognized and brought together through embodiment, leading to the emergence of the clown. The theoretical and practical foundation of the approach are presented here, with reference to the drama therapy literature, to the Jungian concept of the transcendent function, and to Winnicott’s transitional phenomenon. The stages of the process are described, illustrated with techniques and short case studies. Viewed as the archetypal embodiment of paradox, it is suggested that the clown can serve as a container of ambivalence, thereby acting as a strategy for normalizing paradox in the process of recovery and rehabilitation. Symbolizing the bridge between antagonistic sides of the self, the encounter with the inner clown allows individuals to tolerate and live with paradox, resolving the feeling of being stuck in a state of inner and outer conflict.

Symbolic Process and the Role of the Therapist in Sandplay

This article examines Jung's definition of the symbol and its function to bring about psychic healing and transformation. The author explores the impact of the presence of the therapist on sandplay, and suggests that the interacting fiends of observing attitude of therapist and client can work together to stabilize and strengthen symbolic transformation. The article explains the appearance of the opposite poles of the symbol and their function in the process of psychic transformation. The transcendent function is defined and illustrated by the case vignette of a 7-year-old girl, whose sandplay addresses issues of feminine identity.

An Added Degree of Complexity

Unconscious compensation, which is characteristic of the transcendent function, most often appears in moments of disorientation, emptiness, and solitude. The opposing viewpoint it offers provides the conscious ego with elements it hitherto lacked in order to confront a more complex reality. Two types of unconscious compensation are analysed: that of the ego by the self and that of the self by the ego (more common in borderline states). In the second case, the ego tends to gradually diminish the riches it intuits from the self to give them a communicable dimension.