Paradox and metaphor: transitional phenomena in the operations of the work ego

Transitional phenomenon, paradox, metaphor, and empathic process are examined with emphasis on discerning what impels the work ego, or autonomous analyzing functions of the analyst, to move alternatively between evenly hovering attention and verbal intervention. The study is based on the premise that there are interfaces, which it attempts to clarify and broaden, between aspects of the psychoanalytic and literary perceptions of human experience, as these latter have been traditionally epitomized and structured in paradox and metaphor. Paradox and metaphor are seen as forms adapted from literature and rhetoric which represent, indicate, and focus on dilemmas, predicaments, and conflicts of living. Provisionally, I conclude that they are adaptive and defensive processes, directed against primitive affects deriving from the separation-individuation period of child development, that they are closely linked with and expressive of adult forms of transitional phenomena and processes associated with the stresses and conflicts of the same period, and that they constitute an important segment of the data from which the work ego draws its stimuli and information. I offer clinical vignettes and literary instances illustrating these connections.