Bridging the Unbridgeable: Toward a Meta-Reductive Science of Experience: Response to Harris and Cartwright Commentaries

ABSTRACT

The two commentaries on “Synchronicity, Acausal Connection and the Fractal Dynamics of Clinical Practice” (this issue) raise a number of important philosophical and clinical issues when working with the “uncanny” and nonlocal phenomena. While Harris focuses on the importance of bridging prevalent binaries in clinical work, Cartwright contrasts veridical information sharing with the transformational aspects of local and nonlocal intersubjective connection, raising important questions about the nature of interobjectivity. Both reviewers reference parallels to Bion’s thoughts on Caesura. In this necessarily brief response, we attempt to clarify the utility of fostering fractal consciousness and intuitive knowing in clinical work, and wider implications for the collaboration between meta-reductive science and psychoanalysis.

This article responds to:

Can We Sing Potatoes? Primary Substrates, Synchronicity, and Fractal Dynamics in Clinical Practice

Discussion: “Synchronicity, Acausal Connection, and the Fractal Dynamics of Clinical Practice”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Terry Marks-Tarlow

Terry Marks-Tarlow, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Santa Monica, California, who teaches and trains through the Insight Center, Los Angeles, Pacifica Graduate Institute, Santa Barbara, California, and California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, California.

Yakov Shapiro

Yakov Shapiro, M.D., is a clinical professor of psychiatry, psychotherapy supervisor, and director of the integrated psychotherapy/psychopharmacology service (IPPS) at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.