Encounter with Beauty

Transference as a product of the energy generated by the various opposites at work within both the analyst and analysand enters into the experience of the transcendent function. This function, as defined by Jung and as shown by examples from the author’s clinical practice, is elaborated as a result of an increasing awareness of attitudes which either hinder or help the relationship between the conscious and unconscious. Two of these attitudes stand out ; although they oppose one another, they also complement one another. They are namely Einfühlung, being the process by which a subject can identify with an object which is meaningful to him, and therefore introject it, and Abstraktion, the process of avoidance of the outer object, innately dangerous, based on the need for subjective values to qualify what is meaningful. In seeking the primitive components of these attitudes, the author joins Meltzer’s concepts of esthetic impact and esthetic conflict, by defining, as he does, the archetypal experience of beauty as central to the individuation process.