Jung has an ambivalent attitude toward “transference,” because it involves problems which are multilayered and full of paradoxes, like any other phenomenon of the soul. But “transference” is essential for individuation, since an internal and subjective process of integration is inseparable from the process of developing objective relationships. These ideas fit together with his fundamental point of view — “esse in anima.”
Jung criticizes Freud’s view that “transference” is an artificial new edition of the old disorder. Jung thinks it is a
natural phenomenon caused by
fate. Since in any intimate human relationship it can take place anywhere outside the consulting-room, there is no technique with which we could control it. Both the occurrence and the resolution of transference are stages of a transformation which involve transpersonal
numinous experiences. But at the same time the resolution demands the total effort of both the analyst and his client. Only their moral torment occasioned by the opposites will make a symbolic resolution possible.
“One connection in the transference which does not break off with the severance of the projection” is the state linked to the
All-Zusammenhang (
unus mundus). This is a positive aspect of the
participation mystique. Only then can one realize one’s whole personality which is open to others and the world, and which is founded on the
numinosum. Jung says, “Individuation always means relationship.”
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