Bridging the reductive and the synthetic: some reflections on the clinical implications of synchronicity

Journal title STUDI JUNGHIANI
Author/s Angela Connolly
Publishing Year 2016 Issue 2015/42
Language Italian Pages 21 P. 155-175 File size 107 KB
DOI 10.3280/JUN2015-042009
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

More than 60 years have passed since Jung wrote his groundbreaking paper on synchronicity and the psychoid unconscious, and while we are ever more aware that there is something in the analytical relationship that predisposes to synchronistic events, we are still unable to define exactly what we mean when we talk about synchronicity, just as we are still relatively uncertain as to the exact states of mind in analyst and patient that predispose to these occurrences and the meaning we should attribute to them. If, through our training and our clinical practice we are expected to be thoroughly grounded in the models of mind of either Freud or Jung, as Lloyd Mayer writes, To be thoroughly grounded in both something very few of us are - may suggest a route towards engaging the question of how the individual boundaried mind and the radically connected mind describe models of mind that can start to complement each other in new and critically important ways. In the same way, in China on the Mind, Christopher Bollas distinguishes between two different states of mind: one dominated by the paternal order which is causal, metonymic, diachronic, representational (privileging content over form) and dependent on words; and one under the sway of the maternal order which is metaphoric, synchronic, presentational (privileging form over content) and dependent on image. If, as Bollas writes, ‘the maternal order has been subjected to an ongoing repression within the psychoanalytical movement’ (ibid, p. 29), equally we could say that the repressed or shadow side of analytical psychology is the paternal order. I think that the image of the neglected and dying father in the first episode I mention above speaks also to this and to the need on the part of both psychoanalysis and analytical psychology to mediate and integrate these two opposite states of mind. By looking at the different states of mind that are involved in synchronicities, the hope is that we can begin to create bridges between the reductive and the synthetic approaches to the psyche.

Keywords: Telepathy, sunchronicity, causality and acausality, role of acategorial and non-categorial states of mind in synchronicity, reverie

  1. Atmanspacher H., Fach W. (2005). Acategoriality as mental instability. Journal of Mind and Behavior, 26: 181-206. DOI 10.1515/9783110328363.39.
  2. Atmanspacher H., Fach W. (2013a). A structural-phenomenological typology of mind-matter correlations. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 58, 2: 219-45. DOI 10.1111/1468-5922.12005.
  3. Atmanspacher H., Fach W. (2013b). Encouraging metaphysics: a reply to the commentary by Tresan. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 58, 2: 254-8. DOI 10.1111/1468-5922.12007.
  4. Bion W. (1962). Learning From Experience. London: Maresfield Reprints (trad. it. Apprendere dall’esperienza. Roma: Armando, 1972).
  5. Bollas C. (2013). China on the Mind. London: Routledge (trad. it. La Mente Orientale: Psicoanalisi e Cina. Milano: R. Cortina, 2015).
  6. Botella C., Botella S. (2005). The Work of Psychic Figurability: Mental States without Representation. Hove and New York: Brunner, Routledge (trad. it. La raffigurabilità psichica. Roma: Borla, 2006).
  7. Bright G. (1997). Synchronicity as a basis for analytical attitude. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 42, 4: 613-35. DOI 10.1111/j.1465-5922.1997.00613.x.
  8. Cambray J. (2004). Synchronicity as Emergence. In: Cambray J., Carter L., eds., Analytical Psychology: Contemporary Perspectives in Jungian analysis. Hove & New York: Brunner-Routledge (trad. it. Psicologia analitica: prospettive contemporanee di analisi junghiana. Roma: Fioriti, 2010).
  9. Cambray J. (2009). Synchronicity: Nature and Psyche in an Interconnected Universe. College Station: Texas A&M Press (trad. it. Sincronicità. Natura e psiche in un universo interconnesso. Roma: Fattore umano, 2013).
  10. Colman W. (2011). Synchronicity and the meaning-making psyche. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 56, 4: 471-92. DOI 10.1111/j.1468-5922.2011.01924.x.
  11. Colman W. (2012). Reply to Wolfgang Giegerich’s “A serious misunderstanding: synchronicity and the generation of meaning. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 57, 4: 500-12. DOI 10.1111/j.1468-5922.2012.01992.x.
  12. Connolly A.M. (2010). Analyzing Projections, Fantasies and Defences. In: Stein M., ed., Jungian Psychoanalysis: Working in the Spirit of C.G Jung. Chicago, La Salle: Open Court.
  13. Chertok L., Stengers I. (1992). A Critique of Psychoanalytical Reason. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
  14. Derrida J. (1988). Telepathy. Oxford Literary Review, 10: 3-41.
  15. Devereux G., ed. (1953a). Psychoanalysis and the Occult. New York: IUP.
  16. Devereux G. (1953b). A Summary of Istvan Hollos’s Theories. In: Devereux G., ed., Psychoanalysis and the Occult. New York: IUP.
  17. Donati M. (2004). Beyond synchronicity: the worldview of Carl Gustav Jung and Wolfgang Pauli. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 49, 5: 707–29. DOI 10.1111/j.0021-8774.2004.00496.x
  18. Ehrenwald J. (1947). Telepathy and Medical Psychology. London: Allen & Unwin.
  19. Fach W., Atmanspacher H., Landholt K., Wyss T., Roessler W. (2013). A comparative study of exceptional experiences of clients seeking advice and of subjects in an ordinary population. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 65: 1-10. DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00065.
  20. Ferro A. (2010). Tormenti di anime: Passioni, sintomi, sogni. Milano: R. Cortina.
  21. Fordham M. (1963). Notes on the transference and its management in a schizoid child. Journal of Child Psychotherapy, 12, 1: 7-15. DOI 10.1080/00754176308254882.
  22. Gay P. (1989). Freud: A Life for Our Time. New York: Anchor Books (trad. it. Freud: una vita per i nostri tempi. Milano: Bompiani, 1988).
  23. Hartman E. (1991). Boundaries in the mind. A new psychology of personality. New York: Basic Books.
  24. Hollos I. (1933). Psychopathologie alltaglichertelepathischer. Erscheinungen. Imago, 19: 529-46.
  25. James W. (1982). The Varieties of Religious Experience. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin (trad. it. Le varie forme dell’esperienza religiosa. Brescia: Morcelliana, 1998).
  26. Jones E. (1957). The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud. Vol. 3, The Last Phase. 1919-1939. New York: Basic Books (trad. it. Vita e opera di Sigumnd Freud. Milano: Il Saggiatore, 1973).
  27. Jung C. G. (1930). Nachruf für Richard Wilhelm (trad. it. Necrologio di Richard Wilhelm. In: Opere, vol. 13. Torino: Boringhieri, 1988).
  28. Jung C.G. (1952). Synchronizität als ein Prinzip akausaler Zusammenhänge (trad. it. La sincronicità come principio di nessi acausali. In: Opere, vol. 8. Torino: Boringhieri, 1996).
  29. Jung L., Meyer-Grass M., eds. (2008). Kinderträume. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press (trad. it. I sogni dei bambini. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 2013).
  30. Lammers A.C. (2011). The Jung-Kirsch Letters: The Correspondence of C.G. Jung and James Kirsch. London, NewYork: Routledge.
  31. Main R. (2004). The Rupture of Time: Synchronicity and Jung’s Critique of Modern Western Culture. Hove, New York: Brunner-Routledge.
  32. Main R. (2007). Synchronicity and analysis: Jung and after. European Journal of Psychotherapy and Counselling, 9, 4: 359-71. DOI 10.1080.13642530701725924.
  33. Mangan B. (2007). “Cognition, Fringe Consciousness and the Legacy of William James”. In: Velmans M., Scheider S., eds., The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
  34. Mayer E. L. (2001). On “Telepathic dreams?”: an unpublished paper by R.J. Stoller. Journal of American Psychoanalytical Associates, 49: 629-58. DOI 10.1177.00030651010490021201. 
  35. Mayer E.L. (2002). Freud and Jung: the boundaried mind and the radically connected mind. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 47, 1: 91-99. DOI 10.1111.1465592200291.
  36. Ogden T. (1989). On the concept of an autistic-contiguous position. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 70: 127-40. DOI 10.1111/j.2044-8341.1996.tb01857.
  37. Petzold H.G. (1993). Integrative Bewegungs und Leibtherapie. Schriften zu Theorie, methodik und Praxis. Band II/I. Paderborn: Jungfermann.
  38. Stein M. (2005). Some reflections on the influence of Chinese thought on Jung and his psychological theory. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 50, 2: 209-223. DOI 10.1111/j.0021-8774.2005.00524.x
  39. Taylor E. (1984). William James on exceptional mental states. Amherst: University of Massachussetts Press.
  40. Thalbourne M.A. (2000). Transliminality: a review. International Journal of Parapsychology, 11: 1-34. DOI 10.1037/t14091-000.
  41. Tresan D. (2013). A commentary on “A structural-phenomenological typology of mind-matter correlations” by H. Atmanspacher and W. Fach. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 58, 2: 245-54. DOI 10.1111/1468-5922.12006.
  42. Yiassemides A. (2011). Chronos in synchronicity: manifestations of the psychoid reality. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 56, 4: 451-71. DOI 10.1111/j.1468-5922.2011.01923.x

  • Imaginatio alchemica e nessi acausali versus terzo analitico intersoggettivo nella spiegazione dei fenomeni sincronici Stefano Fissi, in STUDI JUNGHIANI 59/2024 pp.47
    DOI: 10.3280/jun59-2024oa18133

Angela Connolly, Tra riduttivo e sintetico. Alcune riflessioni sulle implicazioni cliniche della sincronicità in "STUDI JUNGHIANI" 42/2015, pp 155-175, DOI: 10.3280/JUN2015-042009