On the physics and psychology of the transference as an interactive field

Authors: Mansfield, Victor¹; Spiegelman, J. Marvin²

Source: Journal of Analytical Psychology, Volume 41, Number 2, April 1996 , pp. 179-202(24)

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Abstract:

An analyst and a physicist combine their disciplines in studying the transference as an interactive field. Through a description of the history and evolution of the therapeutic relationship as one moving from asymmetry to symmetry, from reductive causal interaction to acausal, synchronistic expression of meaning, we describe four levels of interaction.

To unpack the notion of interactive field we describe the physics of local, causal, classical fields and directly connect them to the therapeutic encounter of the first two levels. The second two levels require discussion of nonlocal, acausal, quantum fields. In this connection, the subtle body and joint active imagination provide a physiological and symbolic experience of the interactive field.

Fundamental questions and challenges arise from this study regarding the relationship between analyst and analysand and psyche and soma. This continues and deepens the hoped for interplay between physics and depth psychology espoused by Jung, Pauli, Meier, and von Franz.

Keywords: Transference; symmetry; field; acausal; levels; energy

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-5922.1996.00179.x

Affiliations: 1: Hamilton, NY 2: Studio City, CA

Publication date: 1996-04-01