Countertransference as Mystical Experience

    
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In these times, many of our clients suffer from deep anxieties.  Frequently, these anxieties reach into the psychic territory of unsymbolized experience: thoughts that cannot be thought, and feelings that cannot be felt. Use of countertransference as a clinical tool was developed so that psychotherapy could reach a broader range of people, to include the unsymbolized aspects of experience common for those who have suffered early relational trauma.

Even so, in the world of countertransference the therapist is always a beginner. The meaning of countertransference is not truly, definitively knowable. It is ephemeral—a momentary flicker from implicit realms. We can only seek to put fluid symbolic meaning onto the somatic or emotional points of light.

In doing so, we may come to think of countertransference as a form of mystical experience.  Jungian analyst Andrew Samuels explores the similarities between mystical experience and countertransference:

"First, mystical states are ineffable; that is, they cannot be fully described to one who has not experienced something similar.  Second, mystical states lead to knowledge and insight, often delivered with a tremendous sense of authority.  Third, mystical states are transient.  Fourth, mystical states happen to a person; even if he or she prepared him/herself, he or she is gripped by a power that feels quite foreign.  Fifth, there is a sense that everything is connected to everything else, an intimation of purpose.  Sixth, the mystical experience is timeless.  Finally, the familiar ego is sensed not to be the real ‘I.’"  (1989, p. 166)

Even “mundane,” ordinary countertransference  may be experienced as mystical as it delivers understanding in an ineffable, timeless way.

Samuels, A. (1989). The plural psyche: Personality, morality and the father. London: Routledge.

    
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The Four Archetypal Relational Fields: Field Four

    
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Field Four: The Numinous Field of the Transcendent Function

Image by Eric Cheng

Sometimes, Field Three leads us into Field Four (O’Connell, 1986), The Numinous Field, the heart of the transcendent function. The essence of Field Four is a dramatic shift in attitude accompanied by a sense of awe and the constellation of the Self that is so familiar to Jungian sandplay therapists. Field Four is a shared, transcendent, relational experience of the union of conscious and unconscious, and it is an experience completely void of anxiety. In the diagram below, the Field Four area is the outer layer of the Self In Relationship circle. This represents an ever present, numinous psychic holding. The therapeutic goal, within this timeless container of shared psychic experience, is to gradually move into embodied, emotionally connected self-reflection, and to establish fluid oscillation between all four fields. Field Four is the ever present, numinous container.
   

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The Four Archetypal Relational Fields: Field Three

   

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Field Three: The Field of Differentiated Oneness/ Transitional Space

Image by Eric Cheng

Field Three is characterized by the meaningful use of the symbol and deep relational connection. It holds the experience of fluent empathy where the unconscious minds of patient and therapist are aligned. It is a field of rich symbolic meaning, full associations, or meaningful silence. This is the secured-symbolizing field of transitional space (Goodheart, 1980). It is also the field that is most often described in sandplay, and it is usually experienced as a field of fluid, symbolic understanding. Experiences of meaningful resonance with the movement of psychic energies are common in this field. Dreams and sandplay often activate this field of deep meaning and connection. In the diagram below, the Field Three area is represented by the third ring from the center in the Self In Relationship circle. This represents the integrated somatic/ emotional/ symbolic-relational aspect of the Self. The therapeutic goal is to gradually move into easy connection with this field of embodied, emotionally connected self-reflection, and to establish fluid oscillation between all four fields.
   

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