Aesthetic experience and analytic process

Abstract

In this paper, it is proposed that all individuals have an innate (archetypal) aesthetic urge that is a central organizing influence for our actions, experiences, perceptions, self-perceptions, and relationships. The attitudes towards aesthetics held by Freud, Jung, and later theorists are reviewed. Drawing on ideas from aesthetic philosophy and neuroscience, it is suggested that many of the experiences associated with analytic process – such as the experience of depth, the emergence of meaning, transcendence, coherence, narrative flow, or moments of meeting – can be viewed through the lens of aesthetic experience. This aesthetic substratum is discussed in terms of analytic narrative and interpretation as well as exploring the impact that various artistic modalities, such as poetry and music, can have on analytic process.

Keywords:

• aesthetics
• aesthetic experience
• analytic process
• neuroscience
• aesthetic universals
• archetype
• interpretation
• narrative

Notes on contributor

Mark Winborn, PhD, NCPsyA is a Jungian Psychoanalyst affiliated with the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts, the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis, and the International Association for Analytical Psychology. He maintains a private practice of psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and clinical supervision in Memphis, Tennessee, USA; is the Training Coordinator for the Memphis Jungian Seminar (a training affiliate of the I-RSJA); and serves on the American Board for Accreditation in Psychoanalysis. His published works include Deep Blues: Human Soundscapes for the Archetypal Journey and Shared Realities: Participation Mystique and Beyond.

Notes

1. For example, Tomlin (‘Contemplating the Undefinable’, 2008, p. 1) indicates that Wittgenstein found aesthetic experience difficult to define and discuss in his philosophical investigations.

2. In this section, Jung is commenting on Wilhelm Worringer's constrast between abstraction and empathy as set forth in Abstraction and Empathy (1953) translated by Michael Bullock, London (original – Abstraktion und Einfühlung, 3rd ed., Munich, 1911).

3. The concept of the depressive position is a psychological developmental state articulated by Melanie Klein in which whole object relatedness predominates and in which object loss can be tolerated and grieved.

4. ‘Archetypes are typical modes of apprehension, and whenever we meet with uniform and regularly recurring modes of apprehension we are dealing with an archetype … The collective unconscious is the sum of the instincts and their correlate, the archetypes … In my view it is impossible to say which comes first – apprehension of the situation or the impulse to act’ (C.G. Jung, ‘Instincts and the Unconscious’ in 1948, CW8, para. 280–282). See also Jung's infrared ultraviolet light spectrum analogy, in which he identifies a continuum of experience that bridges instinct and archetype, spirit and matter (Jung, ‘On the Nature of the Psyche’, in 1954, CW8, para. 414).

5. ‘Some Thoughts on the Use of Language in Psychoanalysis’ (1997); ‘A Question of Voice in Poetry and Psychoanalysis’ (1998); and ‘The Music of What Happens in Poetry and Psychoanalysis’ (1999).

6. The term reverie was taken up by Wilfred Bion in reference to his model of the container and the contained whereby the analyst serves as the container for the analysand's psyche just as the mother serves as the container for the infant's initial experiences. In analysis, reverie is often experienced as the dreamy interweaving between sleep and wakefulness, thought and non-thought, waiting and engagement, the see-saw movement back and forth between the unknown or dimly perceived and moments of understanding revealed (Winborn, 2014).