Traversing the Ineffable: Commentary on Sharon Farber’s “Becoming a Telepathic Tuning Fork”

Abstract

In this commentary I attempt to refine our definition of telepathy, questioning whether phenomena such as projective identification, dissociative processes, unconscious affective communication, and implicit relational knowing warrant equal classification. Should projective processes be distinguished from “telepathic” transmissions? I propose a continuum of mutual receptivity along which sensory and non-sensory-based forms of human empathic responsiveness might be positioned. This continuum will extend all the way to telepathic communications that defy material-based, Newtonian models of mind, since they occur between patient and therapist while situated in separate geographical locations.

Notes

¹ Ganzfeld method: telepathy research experiments in which a “receiver” relaxes in a sensory-deprived environment, mentally attempting to correctly name randomly selected cards or video clips “sent” mentally by another person in a distant location.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Janine de Peyer

Janine de Peyer, LCSW-R, is Faculty and Supervisor at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies and the Stephen Mitchell Relational Study Center. She is Associate Editor with Psychoanalytic Dialogues and has published on dissociation and unconscious communication in Psychoanalytic Dialogues and Psychoanalytic Perspectives. Janine’s (2016b) most recent article, “Uncanny Communication and the Porous Mind,” discusses anomalous transmissions between patient and analyst. Janine integrates EMDR within a relational psychoanalytic framework and is in private practice in Manhattan.