Healing Within the Blur

Processing a dissociated relational enactment this morning, the following observations on the transference from Ann Ulanov came to mind:

Ann B. Ulanov: “Jung remarks that the sexual attraction is always used by the unconscious to represent the urge toward reconciliation with split-away parts of ourselves (1976, p.173). The sexual transference, then, is a spontaneous way by which the psyche seeks to bridge a gulf between the patient’s ego-identity and the contra sexual contents projected upon the analyst (von Franz, VI, pp. 3-4). What would otherwise be a humiliating fixation upon the analyst is redeemed by its hidden purpose – to bring light into the patient’s relation to the anima or animus,… Patients in this position need not then just go on feeling foolish for desiring someone they cannot have, and indulging in childish sulks, mopings, or resentments when refused gratification. Instead, such patients see the task set them by this welling up of emotion, impulse, and aspiration, and the sense of soul with which they cloak the analyst figure. When patients long for the analyst, it is their first direct experience of their strong longing to be reconnected to a missing part of themselves, to some aspect of their own souls (p. 73-74). Jungian Analysis (my bold)

For me, not a certified psychoanalyst, it can be helpful to think about this dynamic as potentially at play if ever/whenever we sense there is a bewitching element present in an attraction or infatuation. I included this source quote in a collection from Jung’s Psychology of the Transference.

This entry was posted on July 18, 2018 at 10:54 am and is filed under Transference and Countertransference. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.