'Fascination', 'contagion' and naming what we do: rethinking the transcendent function

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Psychoanalysis
• Psychotherapy

Background:

• Carl Jung's concepts of "transcendent function" and "conflict of opposites" are central to understanding imagination and psychic transformation in analysis.
• Jung's earlier works, specifically "The psychology of the transference" and "Problems of modern psychotherapy," offer alternative descriptive language for these processes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To challenge the contemporary usefulness of the term "transcendent function" in psychoanalytic discourse.
• To explore Jung's earlier, more descriptive language (fascination, suffering, infection, influence) as a more accurate representation of analytic experience.
• To establish a theoretical basis for mutual transformation in psychoanalysis, rooted in Jung's ideas on unconscious relationships.

Main Methods:

• Textual analysis of Carl Jung's "The psychology of the transference" (1946) and "Problems of modern psychotherapy" (1931).
• Comparative analysis of Jung's descriptive language versus philosophically inspired terms like "transcendent function."
• Examination of Jung's concepts in relation to later psychoanalytic theories on countertransference and intersubjectivity.

Main Results:

• Jung's descriptive terms like "fascination," "suffering," "infection," and "influence" are argued to be more evocative of the analytic experience than "transcendent function."
• Jung's early writings foreshadowed later psychoanalytic concepts of countertransference and the impact of one mind on another.
• The paper posits that Jung's emphasis on mutual unconsciousness as the site of transformation is inadequately explained by traditional terminology.

Conclusions:

• The term "transcendent function" may be less effective than Jung's original descriptive language for understanding psychic transformation.
• Jung's early work provides a foundation for understanding mutual transformation within the analytic relationship.
• A radical analytic relationship based on mutual unconsciousness, as insisted upon by Jung, requires more nuanced terminology than currently employed.