Shared Realities

Advance Praise for
Shared Realities: Particpation Mystique and Beyond
“Jung’s use of the concept participation mystique has always struck me as among his
most original ideas and I could vaguely intuit its relevance to many contemporary
developments in psychoanalysis, from projective identification to intersubjectivity to
the mysteries of transitional space. Now, thanks to the extraordinary essays in this
book, one no longer has to “intuit” this relevance. It is spelled out in beautiful detail
by writers with expertise in many facets of our field. The breadth of these essays is
truly extraordinary. Reading them has enriched both my personal and professional
life. I highly recommend this book.”
—Donald Kalsched, Ph.D. author of The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal De-
fenses of the Personal Spirit and Trauma and the Soul: A Psycho-spiritual Approach to
Human Development and its Interruption.
The concept of “participation mystique” is one that is often considered a somewhat

arcane notion disparagingly equated with an unconscious, undifferentiated or “prim-
itive” dynamic. This collection of outstanding articles from Jungian analysts of dif-
ferent theoretical perspectives and analysts from different schools of depth psychol-
ogy redeems this concept and locates it as central to depth work, regardless of one’s
theoretical orientation. What may seem like an ethereal notion becomes grounded
when explored from the perspective of the clinical, the experiential and the theoreti-
cal. Linking participation mystique to the more clinical concepts of projective iden-
tification, unitary reality, empathy, the intersubjective field and the neurosciences
and locating this dynamic in the field of the transference and counter-transference,
brings this concept to life in a refreshingly clear and related manner. In addition, each
author does so in a very personal manner.
Shared Realities provides the reader with a wonderful example of amplification of

participation mystique, linking many diverse threads and fibers to form an image,
which, while it reveals its depth and usefulness, nevertheless maintains its sense of
mystery. This book is a true delight for anyone intrigued by those “moments of
meeting”, moments of awe, when the ineffable becomes manifest, when we feel the
shiver down our spine, be it in our work or in a moment of grace as we sit quietly
in nature. Shared Realities offers nourishment for the clinician, for the intellect and,
most importantly, for the soul. I highly recommend it!
—Tom Kelly, President, International Association for Analytical Psychology and

Past-President, Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts
Shared Realities
Participation Mystique and Beyond
Mark Winborn, Editor

Shared Realities
Copyright © 2014 by Fisher King Press
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iv
CONTENTS
Contributors
Introduction: An Overview of Participation Mystique
—Mark Winborn
Section I – Clinical Applications
1 Negative Coniunctio:
Envy and Sadomasochism in Analysis
—Pamela Power
2 Trauma, Participation Mystique, Projective
Identification and Analytic Attitude
—Marcus West
3 Watching Clouds Together:
Analytic Reverie and Participation Mystique
—Mark Winborn
4 Modern Kleinian Therapy, Jung’s Participation Mystique,
and the Projective Identification Process
—Robert Waska
Section II – Experiential Narratives
5 Songs Never Heard Before:

Listening and Living Differently In Shared Realities
—Dianne Braden
6 Variants of Mystical Participation
—Michael Eigen
7 Participation Mystique in Peruvian Shamanism
—Deborah Bryon
Section III – Theoretical Discussions
8 Healing Our Split: Participation Mystique and C. G. Jung

—Jerome Bernstein
9 The Transferential Chimera and Neuroscience
—François Martin-Vallas
10 Toward a Phenomenology of Participation Mystique and a Reformula-
tion of Jungian Philosophical Anthropology
—John White
Conclusion
—Mark Winborn
CONTRIBUTORS
Jerome S. Bernstein is a clinical psychologist and Jungian analyst in private practice in Santa
Fe, New Mexico. He is a graduate of the C. G. Jung Institute of New York (1980). Jerome
has a forty-year relationship with Navajo and Hopi cultures. His analytic work has been in-
fluenced by Navajo healing through his collaborative clinical work with a traditional Navajo
medicine man. He lectures and teaches internationally and is the author of Living in the Bor-
derland: The Evolution of Consciousness and the Challenge of Healing Trauma (Routledge 2005).
He is also co-editor, along with Philip Deloria, of the groundbreaking book, C.G. Jung and
the Sioux Traditions by Vine Deloria, Jr. (Spring Books 2009), guest editor of a special issue
of Spring Journal (Vol. 87) entitled, Native American Cultures and the Western Psyche: A Bridge
Between, and he has published dozens of articles covering various individual and collective
clinical topics. Email: [email protected]
Dianne Braden, MA, LICDC resides in Solon, Ohio where she maintains a private practice
as a Jungian analyst and Voice Dialogue Facilitator. She is a senior analyst in the Inter-Re-
gional Society of Jungian Analysts, (IRSJA) having served on their Admissions, Final Exam,
and Training Committees. She is also an affiliate member of the International Association for
Analytical Psychology (IAAP) as well as a member of the Jung Cleveland group. Dianne has
been a visiting faculty member of the C. G. Jung Analyst Training Program of Pittsburgh. In
2011 Dianne published The Fireside Chats in collaboration with Hal and Sidra Stone – the
originators of the psycho/spiritual process of Voice Dialogue. She is currently working on a
companion volume that examines the evolution of their work, from its roots in analytical
psychology, to its place in depth psychology, and its contribution to consciousness work of
the future. Dianne’s interest in exploring both the outer and the inner landscapes has been a
distinguishing feature of her life. Email: [email protected]
Deborah Bryon, PhD, NCPsyA is a licensed psychologist and diplomate Jungian analyst in
private practice in Denver, Colorado. Over the last decade, Deborah has received in-depth
training with the Andean medicine people. Currently, Deborah is leading groups combining
Jungian depth psychology, psychoanalysis, and shamanism in the United States and Peru. She
is the author of the books, Lessons of the Inca Shamans Part I: Piercing the Veil, and Lessons of
the Inca Shamans Part II: Beyond the Veil, and has written several articles which bridge sha-
manism and psychoanalysis. Email: [email protected]
Michael Eigen, PhD, author of twenty-two books, including Contact With the Depths, Feel-
ing Matters, The Sensitive Self, The Psychoanalytic Mystic, Kabbalah and Psychoanalysis, and A
Felt Sense: More Explorations of Psychoanalysis and Kabbalah. He is a control/training analyst
and on the faculty of the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis and faculty/
supervisor in the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psycho-
analysis. He has given a private seminar on Bion, Winnicott, Lacan and his own work for
forty years. Email: [email protected]
François Martin-Vallas is a psychiatrist, Jungian analyst, and member of the French society
for analytical psychology - Société Française de Psychologie Analytique (SFPA). He has a
private and institutional practice (for psychotic and autistic children, adolescents and adults),
and is the group supervisor of the routers of Georgia. He has written many papers, mostly
in the Cahiers jungiens de psychanalyse and in the Journal of Analytical Psychology. He won an
honorary prize of the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis in 2003
and the Special Fordham Prize for the 50th anniversary of the JAP in 2006. A former mem-
ber of the IAAP Program Committee (2007-2013) and of the editorial board of the Cahiers
Jungiens de Psychanalyse (2003-2009), he is editor-in-chief of an international peer-reviewed
French language journal, the Revue de Psychologie Analytique, the first issue of which has been
published in 2013. He is currently working on research about the transference and neurosci-
ences for a PhD from Lyon 2 University. Email: [email protected]
Pamela J. Power, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and Jungian analyst with a private practice
in Santa Monica, California. She is a member of the C G Jung Institute of Los Angeles and
the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts. She is past clinic director and past training
director at the Los Angeles Institute where she currently teaches and supervises in the analyst
training program. She has lectured nationally and internationally on a variety of topics and
has had numerous articles published in Psychological Perspectives and the Journal of Jungian
Theory and Practice. Email: [email protected]
Robert Waska LPCC, MFT, PhD is a graduate in psychoanalysis from the Institute for Psy-
choanalytic Studies and conducts a private psychoanalytic practice for individuals and cou-
ples in San Francisco and Marin County, California. He has taught and supervised in the San
Francisco Bay Area and presented papers and conducted workshops in the U.S. and interna-
tionally. Dr. Waska is the author of thirteen published textbooks on Kleinian psychoanalytic
theory and technique, is a contributing author for three psychology texts, and has published
over ninety articles in professional journals. He also serves on the review committee for sev-
eral journals and book publishers. His clinical work focuses on contemporary Kleinian topics
including projective identification, loss, borderline and psychotic states, the practical realities
of psychoanalytic practice in the modern world, and the establishment of analytic contact
with difficult, hard to reach patients. He emphasizes the moment-to-moment understanding
of transference, countertransference, and internal phantasy as the vehicle for gradual integra-
tion and mastery of unconscious conflict between self and other. Email: [email protected]
Marcus West is a Jungian Psychoanalyst and a Professional Member of the Society of Analyti-
cal Psychology working in private practice in West Sussex, England. He is a member of the
Editorial Board of the Journal of Analytical Psychology and previously the JAP Book Review
Editor. He is author of two books, Feeling, Being and the Sense of Self and Understanding
Dreams in Clinical Practice. He was the recipient of the Michael Fordham Prize in 2004, and
has taught and published on a number of subjects, including identity, narcissism, envy, at-
tachment, dreams and trauma. Email: [email protected]
John R White, PhD has taught philosophy for the past twenty years at a number of col-
leges and universities. He is also a psychotherapist at the Pittsburgh Pastoral Institute and an
analyst-in-training in the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts. His published research
includes work in medieval philosophy, Continental European philosophy, philosophy of his-
tory, environmental ethics, and philosophy of psychoanalysis. He is currently completing a
book manuscript on St. Bonaventure’s theory of knowledge as well as some article-length
studies on the work of psychoanalyst Robert Langs. He lives and works in Pittsburgh PA and
trains at the C G Jung Analytic Training Program there. Email: [email protected]
Mark Winborn, PhD, NCPsyA is a Jungian psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist. He is

a training/supervising analyst of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts and is also
affiliated with the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis and the Inter-
national Association for Analytical Psychology. He was recently nominated to the American
Board for Accreditation in Psychoanalysis. In 2011 he published Deep Blues: Human Sound-
scapes for the Archetypal Journey with Fisher King Press. His areas of professional focus include
clinical technique, interpretation, theoretical integration, psychoanalytic pluralism, reverie,
and aesthetics. Dr. Winborn maintains a private practice in Memphis, Tennessee where he is
also currently the Training Coordinator for the Memphis-Atlanta Jungian Seminar – a train-
ing seminar of the IRSJA. Email: [email protected]
INTRODUCTION
An Overview of Participation Mystique
Mark Winborn
One of my most vivid experiences of participation mystique occurred while running one cool
spring morning. The sun was low – still making its slow ascent into the dawn sky. About a
mile into the run I was beginning to settle into my stride; my body awakening to the pulse
of its internal rhythm. As I entered a familiar stretch of road, completely covered by its dense
canopy of rich green trees, I noticed in the distance a single leaf had discharged itself from
the verdant awning. The leaf seemed completely singular: vibrant green on the top and a bold
yellow on the underside. I watched as it descended; spiraling like a slowly revolving helicop-
ter rotor. Time and space seemed to collapse inward – ceasing to have meaning or weight in
the moment. It was as if I’d entered a visual/cognitive tunnel in which time was arrested and
only the leaf and I existed in some unseen communion. After a few moments, which seemed
to exist as an eternity, the leaf found purchase with the earth and the enchantment slowly
dissolved. The leaf once again became just another leaf. However, the feeling of communion
I shared with that singular leaf has now persisted over a number of years and I continue to
experience the sensation that the leaf ‘spoke’ to me in that moment and invited me to par-
ticipate in its journey.
This volume began with a previous project which explored, in part, the relationship be-
tween the musical genre known as ‘the blues’ and participation mystique.1 The concept kept
emerging in discussions with close colleagues and during reflections on the analytic activity
of reverie. My colleagues and I often took note of the way the term had taken on a negative
valance within Jungian circles, which struck us as odd because each of us have had powerful,
deep experiences which we attribute to participation mystique dynamics.
When the publisher of Fisher King Press, Mel Mathews, extended an invitation to create
an edited volume exploring a major construct of analytical psychology it seemed like a natural
progression to focus on participation mystique. A survey of the available literature confirmed
the absence of an in-depth overview of the concept. There is, however, a series of interrelated
1 Mark Winborn, Deep Blues (Carmel, CA: Fisher King Press, 2011).
articles by Segal,2,3 Rowland,4 and Bishop5 that, as a group, comprise an intellectual-histori-
cal-literary-theoretical survey of the Jung’s views on ‘primitive man’ and his utilization of the
concept of participation mystique. These three articles provide an excellent background to the
selections in this volume.
Participation mystique has an interesting position in analytical psychology. It is a term
rather ubiquitous within the Jungian world but rarely adopted by analytic writers outside the
Jungian orientation. It is frequently mentioned in the Jungian analytic literature as well as
during presentations, supervisory sessions, and the training of analytic candidates. However,
the definition of the term is somewhat opaque and participation mystique is often referenced
as something to be cautious of and avoided when possible.
Jung’s Concept of Participation Mystique
C.G. Jung adopted the term participation mystique from anthropologist Lucien Lévy-Bruhl
who utilized the term in a series of books published from 19106 onward. Jung was taken
with the idea that the ‘primitives’ think differently than ‘modern’ people and adopted Lévy-
Bruhl’s ideas about the ‘primitive psyche’ as well as his concepts of participation mystique and
representations collectives7. Segal’s initial article8 provides an overview of the general criticisms
and limitations of Lévy-Bruhl’s work as well as Jung’s use of and misreading of Lévy-Bruhl,
therefore I won’t go into those points here. I will focus instead on providing a brief overview
of Jung’s use of the concept, which will serve as a foundation for later contrasts with contem-
porary utilizations.
2 Robert Segal, “Jung and Lévy-Bruhl,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 52 (2007a): 635-658.
3 Robert Segal, “Response to Susan Rowland,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 52 (2007b): 667-771.
4 Susan Rowland, “Response to Segal’s ‘Jung and Lévy-Bruhl’,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 52
(2007): 659-666.
5 Bishop, Paul. “The Timeliness and Timelessness of the ‘Archaic’: Analytical Psychology ‘Primordial’
Thought, Synchronicity,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 53 (2008):501-523.
6 Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, Les fonctions mentales dans les sociétés inférieures, translated (1926) from French
as How Natives Think, London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1910.
7 Jung’s development of the concept of archetypes of the collective unconscious was significantly
influenced by Lévy-Bruhl’s concept of representations collectives.
8 Segal, “Jung and Lévy-Bruhl,” 2007a.
Jung’s most extensive discussion of the concept of participation mystique is found in his
essay Archaic Man.9 This essay outlines his ideas about the mental activity of “primitive”
peoples, i.e. that they function in a “prelogical state of mind”, that they “were simpler and
more childlike”, and “unpsychological” by which he means that psychological experiences are
perceived as occurring outside of the “primitive” in an objective way. These inferences about
primitive thinking underlie Jung’s central notion of participation mystique – namely that in
participation mystique experiences there is a blurring of psychological boundaries between
individuals, between individuals and their environment, and in some instances between in-
dividuals and objects.
To understand more clearly Jung’s use of the participation mystique concept we can exam-
ine a few definitions provided by Jung in his volume Psychological Types10:
And if we go right back to primitive psychology, we find absolutely no trace of the

concept of an individual. Instead of individuality we find only collective relationship
or what Lévy-Bruhl calls participation mystique. The collective attitude hinders the
recognition and evaluation of a psychology different from the subject’s, because the
mind that is collectively oriented is quite incapable of thinking and feeling in any
other way than by projection.11
Participation mystique is a term derived from Lévy-Bruhl. It denotes a peculiar kind

of psychological connection with objects, and consists in the fact that the subject
cannot clearly distinguish himself from the object but is bound to it by a direct
relationship which amounts to partial identity (q.v.). This identity results from an a
priori oneness of subject and object. Participation mystique is a vestige of this primi-
tive connection. It does not apply to the whole subject-object relationship but only
to certain cases where this peculiar tie occurs. It is a phenomenon that is best ob-
served among primitives though it is found very frequently among civilized peoples,
if not with the same incidence and intensity. Among civilized peoples it usually oc-
curs between persons, seldom between a person and a thing. In the first case it is a
transference relationship, in which the object (as a rule) obtains a sort of magical - i.
e. absolute - influence over the subject. In the second case there is a similar influence
on the part of the thing, or else an identification (q.v.) with a thing or the idea of a
thing.12
9 C.G. Jung, “Archaic Man,” in The Collected Works, Vol.10 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1931a).
10 C.G. Jung, Psychological Types, The Collected Works, Vol. 6 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1921/1971).
11 C.G. Jung, Psychological Types, CW6, ¶12.
3
Shared Realities
I use the term identity to denote a psychological conformity…Psychological identity

presupposes that it is unconscious. It is a characteristic of the primitive mentality
and the real foundation of participation mystique (q.v.), which is nothing but a relic
of the original non-differentiation of subject and object, and hence of the primordial
unconscious state. It is also a characteristic of the mental state of early infancy, and,
finally, of the unconscious of the civilized adult, which in so far as it has not become a
content of consciousness, remains in a permanent state of identity with objects. Iden-
tity with parents provides the basis for subsequent identification (q.v.) with them; on
it also depends the possibility of projection (q.v.) and introjection (q.v.).13
In these passages Jung identifies several areas he wishes to address with the term participation
mystique. We can see that he highlights the blurring of subject-object boundaries resulting in
an experience of a priori oneness, that participation mystique is regularly observed in people
from cultures which Jung labels as ‘primitive’, and that it occurs in the mental states of early
infancy. Jung also calls attention to the presence of participation mystique in analytic transfer-
ences and lastly as an unconscious component of the ‘civilized adult’. Elsewhere, Jung14 also
includes under the umbrella of participation mystique the relationship between children and
their parents in general. In the same work15 he goes on to say that the participation mystique
which exists between children and their parents is gradually replaced by ties with the tribe,
society, church, or nation as well as during the emergence of romantic involvement associ-
ated with sexual maturity. Jung also associates participation mystique with sensuous feeling,16
and indicates that: it is the source of inspiration for the naïve poet,17 it is fueled by libidinal
investment,18 and it forms the basis for empathy.19
In addition to the characteristics and situations that Jung associates with participation mys-
tique, Jung also indicates that projection and identification are the two primary psychological
processes by which participation mystique is activated. Some of his observations regarding this
relationship are included below:
These identifications, brought about by projection, create a world in which man is

completely contained psychically as well as physically...in the projection of uncon-
scious psychic contents through participation mystique. For archaic man this distinc-

14 C.G. Jung, “Mind and Earth,” in The Collected Works, Vol. 10 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1931c), ¶70.
15 C.G. Jung, “Mind and Earth,” CW10, ¶71.
4
tion does not exist, because psychic happenings are projected so completely that they
cannot be distinguished from objective, physical events.20
Our whole mental life, our consciousness, began with projections...Now, inasmuch
as our world is still animated to a certain extent, or inasmuch as we are still in partici-
pation mystique, our contents are still projected; we have not yet gathered them in.21
Whenever an autonomous component of the psyche is projected, an invisible person

comes into being.22
The importance of Jung’s association of participation mystique with the psychological pro-
cesses of projection and identification will become apparent as we move into the discussion of
contemporary views of, and parallels with, participation mystique.
Although Jung discusses the psychology of primitive man in a way that strikes the contem-
porary reader as an ethnocentric perspective, he is also using this contrast to draw attention to
particular characteristics of the modern psychological state which he considered problematic.
Specifically, Jung believes that modern persons have become so overly reliant on rational
thought that we are split off from vestigial or phylogenetic layers of psychic experience:
The man who has attained consciousness of the present is solitary. The “modern”
man has at all times been so, for every step towards fuller consciousness removes him
further from his original, purely animal participation mystique with the heard, from
submersion to common unconsciousness.23
While Jung seems to view the diminishment of participation mystique experiences as a

loss for modern man, at the same time he also appears to have significant ambivalence about
the possibility of blurred subject-object distinctions and unconscious participation. In his
Commentary on The Secret of the Golden Flower,24 he clearly seems to indicate that the goal of
consciousness and of the analytic process is to reduce or rid oneself of tendencies towards par-
ticipation mystique states. In a section titled The Detachment of Consciousness from the Object,
Jung writes:
20 C.G. Jung, “Archaic Man,” in The Collected Works, Vol.10 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1931a), ¶¶134-135.
21 C.G. Jung, Zarathustra Seminars, Vol. 2 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), 1496-
1497.
22 C.G. Jung, “Archaic Man,” CW10, ¶137.
23 C.G. Jung, “The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man”, in The Collected Works, Vol. 10 (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1931b), ¶150.
24 C.G. Jung, “Commentary on ‘The Secret of the Golden Flower’,” in The Collected Works, Vol. 13
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1929b).
5
Shared Realities
By understanding the unconscious we free ourselves from its domination…The mag-

ical claim of things has ceased because the interweaving of consciousness with the
world has come to an end. The unconscious is not projected any more, and so the pri-
mordial participation mystique with things is abolished…I know this effect very well
from my practice; it is the therapeutic effect par excellence, for which I labour with my
students and patients, and it consists in the dissolution of participation mystique.25
A similar view can also be found in the writing of a number of Jungian authors. For ex-
ample, Harding26 writes: “We do not realize that we are not free from participation mystique
and that many of our basic life assumptions depend on it and condition our Umwelt.” Other
examples include: Bunster27 who, in a case illustration, equates the “illusion or delusion” of a
patient with participation mystique; Whitmont28 who focuses on group dynamics which, “can
assume magical power in the form of mass psychoses, sweeping away individual responsibility
in enchantment with participation mystique.”; and Maduro29 who indicates, “Although a posi-
tive transference is essential to analysis, a prolonged positive transference to a mother-analyst
can be a sign, not of progress, but of fusion (massive projective identification, participation
mystique), a stalemate which may ultimately lead to a negative therapeutic reaction.” Drei-
fuss30 provides a final example during a discussion of supervisory situations, “If the supervisee
has a natural gift of empathy I shall, in the course of supervision, point to the problem of too
much empathy whenever it occurs and bring the supervisee to the realisation of the shadow
of empathy, namely the danger of participation mystique and lack of conscious evaluation of
the analytical situation.” This same negative view of participation mystique can also frequently
be heard during theoretical papers, case presentations, and informal conversations around
analytic issues.
While these characterizations can all be accurate in certain instances, I believe the preva-
lence of such opinions underscores the frequent suspicion of participation mystique experi-
ences. A comparable pejorative attitude towards ‘primitive’ psychological states, similar in
description to participation mystique, can also found be in the psychoanalytic literature, espe-
cially around the concept of ‘regression in analysis.’ However, some psychoanalytic theorists,
such as Balint,31 have highlighted the therapeutic necessity and beneficial aspects of entering
25 C.G. Jung, “Commentary on ‘The Secret of the Golden Flower’,” CW13, ¶¶64-65.
26 Esther Harding, The I and the Not I. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965), 40.
27 Jane Bunster, “The Patient Difficult to Reach,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 38 (1993): 39.
28 Edward Whitmont, “Group Therapy and Analytical Psychology,” Journal of Analytical Psychology
9 (1964): 13.
29 Renaldo Maduro, “Correspondence,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 25 (1980): 103.
30 Gusta Dreifuss, “G. Dreifuss, Haifa,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 27 (1982): 108.
31 Michael Balint, The Basic Fault (London: Tavistock Publications, 1979).
6
into regression as a means of accessing into the patient’s area of experience, which he termed
‘the basic fault.’ Similarly, a case study by Bright32 provides a wonderful illustration of the
necessary and communicative function associated with the analyst’s capacity to participate in
regressive constellations in the transference/countertransference matrix (a form of participa-
tion mystique) and the unconscious identity, which often accompanies such regressive experi-
ences
Rolfe and Goodheart33 adopt a balanced attitude towards the clinical manifestations of
participation mystique - proposing that only certain constellations of a participation mystique
field are likely to interfere with an analysis, and that a “conscious approach to these behav-
iours often reveals a stalemating participation mystique in the form of an unconscious col-
lusion between the therapist and patient to circumvent or displace some extremely painful
or difficult experiences, such as separation anxiety, primitive terrors of being entrapped or
engulfed by one another, and powerful attractions of eros, or aggressive impulses against
one another.” But Rolfe and Goodheart also emphasize the communicative function of such
experiences and suggest that these participation mystique constellations permit the displaced
experiences “to emerge, and they become available for analysis in the microcosm of therapy.”
In like fashion, West34 highlights some of the potentially positive and powerful affective expe-
riences associated with participation mystique dynamics:
At these times, he [Jung] said, there could be powerful experiences of affect, numi-
nous feelings, the boundaries between one person and another become dissolved and
the phenomenon of participation mystique predominates—the individual has experi-
ences of union and oneness with others (or the universe). There can be experiences
of timelessness, eternity (feelings go on forever as there is no I to mark time), ‘living
in the now’, universality and what Freud called oceanic feelings. Feelings experienced
on this level have a sense of certainty, trueness and rightness that appears to follow
from the immediacy, power and the ‘fullness’ of the experience.
32 George Bright, “Regression in the Countertransference: Working with the Archetype of the
Abandoned Child,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 54 (2009): 379-394.
33 Eugene Rolfe and William Goodheart, “Correspondence,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 28
(1983): 70.
34 Marcus West, “Identity, Narcissism and the Emotional Core,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 49
(2004): 538.
7
Shared Realities
Developments Related to Participation Mystique
Having outlined how Jung came to utilize the term and the different ways he applied it, we
can now turn to developments and applications of the participation mystique concept since
Jung adopted it for inclusion in analytical psychology.
Projective Identification and Participation Mystique
A number of analytical psychologists, e. g. Gordon,35 Davidson,36 Samuels,37 Schwartz-

Salant,38 Field,39 and Wiener40 have highlighted the similarity between Jung’s utilization of
the participation mystique concept and the concept of projective identification. This concept
was first proposed by Melanie Klein.41 In her description of the process, parts of the self and
internal objects of the infant are split off and projected onto an external object. In Klein’s
model, the object becomes identified with the projected split-off parts and interacted with
as though the object has become one with the split-off objects, often evoking a feeling in the
recipient of the projected element that is affectively congruent with the split-off part.
To illustrate this conceptual link, analytical psychologists who identify a close relation-
ship between participation mystique and projective identification highlight passages from Jung
where he refers to processes of projection, empathy, and ‘feeling-into’ in ways which sound
astonishingly close to Klein’s description of projective identification. For example:
Empathy…is therefore a kind of perceptive process, characterized by the fact that,

through feeling, some essential psychic content is projected into the object, so that
the object is assimilated to the subject and coalesces with him to such an extent that
35 Ruth Gordon, “Symbols: Content and Process,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 12 (1967): 23-34.
36 Dorothy Davidson, “Invasion and Separation,“ (in Analytical Psychology: A Modern Science, ed.
Michael Fordham, 162-172. London: Karnac, 1974).
37 Andrew Samuels, Jung and the Post-Jungians (London: Routledge, 1985).
38 Nathan Schwartz-Salant, “Archetypal Foundations of Projective Identification,” Journal of Analytical
Psychology 33 (1988): 39-64.
39 Nathan Field, “Projective Identification: Mechanism or Mystery?” Journal of Analytical Psychology
36 (1991): 93-109.
40 Jan Wiener, The Therapeutic Relationship (College Station, TX: Texas A & M University Press,
2009).
41 Melanie Klein, “Notes on Some Schizoid Mechanisms,” International Journal of Psycho-Analysis 27
(1946): 99-110.
8
he feels himself, as it were, in the object. This happens when the projected content
is associated to a higher degree with the subject than with the object. He does not,
however, feel himself projected into the object; rather the “empathized” object ap-
pears animated to him.42
This animation does not come from empathy, but from an unconscious projection
that actually exists a priori. The term “projection” hardly conveys the real meaning
of this phenomenon. Projection is really an act that happens, and not a condition
existing a priori, which is what we are obviously dealing with here. It seems to me
that Lévy-Bruhl’s participation mystique is more descriptive of this condition, since
it aptly formulates the primordial relation of the primitive to the object. His objects
have a dynamic animation, they are charged with soul-stuff or soul-force (and not
always possessed of souls, as the animist theory supposes), so that they have a direct
psychic effect upon him, producing what is practically a dynamic identification with
the object... With the abstracting attitude it is much the same, for here too the ob-
ject is alive and autonomous from the beginning and in no need of empathy; on the
contrary, it has such a powerful effect that the subject is forced into introversion. Its
strong libido investment comes from its participation mystique with the subject’s own
unconscious.43
Projection means the expulsion of a subjective content into an object; it is the op-
posite of introjection… Accordingly it is a process of dissimilation…by which a sub-
jective content becomes alienated from the subject and is, so to speak, embodied
in the object. The subject gets rid of painful, incompatible contents by projecting
them, as also of positive values which, for one reason or another - self-depreciation,
for instance - are inaccessible to him. Projection results from the archaic identity…
of subject and object.44
Sensuous feeling, or rather the feeling that is present in the sensuous state, is collec-
tive. It produces a relatedness or proneness to affect which always puts the individual
in a state of participation mystique, a condition of partial identity with the sensed
object. This identity expresses itself in a compulsive dependence on that object, and
in turn, after the manner of a vicious circle, causes in the introvert an intensification
of abstraction for the purpose of abolishing the burdensome dependence and the
compulsion it evokes.45

9
Shared Realities
It seems clear that Jung and Klein both conceptualize the analytic interaction as a situa-
tion in which the analyst will impact the patient and the patient will impact the analyst in
nuanced but powerful ways. As Knox points out, empathy requires the psychotherapist, “to
allow emotional contagion, to share, through the countertransference, the shame and humili-
ation of the patient as a victim.”46
Jung distinguishes between active and passive forms of projection. He indicates that the
passive form is associated with all pathological manifestations of projection and in many
forms of normal projection. In his view the passive form of projection is completely auto-
matic and unintentional. However, he conceptualizes the active form of projection in terms
of empathy:
The active form [of projection] is an essential component of the act of empathy…
Taken as a whole, empathy is a process of introjection, since it brings the object into
intimate relation with the subject. In order to establish this relationship, the subject
detaches a content - a feeling, for instance - from himself, lodges it in the object,
thereby animating it, and in this way draws the object into the sphere of the subject.47
Ogden,48 Grotstein,49 and Stark50 indicate that projective identification potentially serves
a number of different psychological functions depending upon the particular constellation of
the analytic dyad and the contribution of the participating individuals. From their perspec-
tive projective identification is a psychological process which functions as: a type of defense,
a mode of communication, the basis of empathy, a primitive form of object relationship, and
a vehicle for structural changes in personality. Some contemporary Jungians have arrived at
similar conclusions in regards to participation mystique. For example, Thomson highlights the
telelogical or prospective element potentially inherent in participation mystique, “Projective
identification as a process of emergence from participation mystique reveals itself as a means
of sharing understanding through non-verbal experience, where the verbalizations are at best
approximations of the content of the analytic relationship. Technically, it is a psychotic in-
volvement but it has within the confusions the possibility for understanding in a new way.”51
46 Jean Knox, “‘Feeling For’ and ‘Feeling With’: Developmental and Neuroscientific Perspectives on
Intersubjectivity and Empathy,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 58 (2013): 504.
48 Thomas Ogden, Projective Identification and Psychotherapeutic Technique (Northvale, NJ: Jason
Aronson, 1982).
49 James Grotstein, Splitting and Projective Identification (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1985).
50 Martha Stark, Modes of Therapeutic Action (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1999).
51 Jean Thomson, “Review of Roger Brooke (ed.) Pathways into the Jungian World: Phenomenology
and Analytical Psychology,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 46 (2001): 385.
10
Thomson goes on to suggest that projective identification is the specific mechanism of move-
ment from the less differentiated state of participation mystique to consciousness.
As a last word on projective identification, we might briefly visit the concept of ‘enact-
ment,’ which has been defined by Plakun,52 “…as a pattern of nonverbal interactional behav-
ior between the two parties in a therapeutic situation, with unconscious meaning for both.
It involves mutual projective identification between therapist and patient.” Here we see a
description of the behavioral extension of participation mystique whereby the shared psycho-
logical field results in a modification of the typical or agreed upon behavioral patterns of the
analytic relationship. These behavioral modifications can be seen as occurring ‘publically’, i.e.
observable by person in the analytic dyad, or ‘privately’, i.e. acted on in internally in phantasy
and therefore not visible to the other person but still impacting the analytic field.
Transference and Participation Mystique
As previously discussed, Jung saw the process of participation mystique as being intimately
tied with the process of projection but also with the transference dynamics of the analytic set-
ting. Illustrative of this point, Jung indicates that, “The psychological process of transference
is a specific form of the more general process of projection . . . that carries over subjective
contents of any kind into the object,” 53 and elsewhere Jung states, “The very word ‘transfer-
ence’ is closely akin to ‘projection’.” 54 Fordham is in agreement with Jung on this point. In
a passage exploring and ultimately advocating for a broader understanding of transference-
countertransference, Fordham indicates that, “...our understanding of transference as a whole
is better reflected by the wider usage, for participation mystique, projection and introjection
can play valuable, even essential parts in analytic procedures.”55 Developing this point further,
Wiener ties together the overlapping concepts of participation mystique, transference, projec-
tive identification, and intersubjectivity as well as highlighting the danger for the analytic
process if these connections are not recognized. She indicates that, “The research findings
52 Eric Plakun, “Enactment and the Treatment of Abuse Survivors,” Harvard Review of Psychiatry 5
(1998): 318.
53 C.G. Jung, “The Tavistock Lectures,” in The Collected Works, Vol. 18, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1935), ¶¶312-313.
54 C.G. Jung, “The Psychology of the Transference,” in The Collected Works, Vol. 16 (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1946), ¶359.
55 Michael Fordham, “Notes on the Transference,” in Technique in Jungian Analysis, ed. Michael
Fordham, (London: Karnac, 1989), 137.
11
Shared Realities
also support a central role for projective identification (in Jung’s language, participation mys-
tique) at the core of intersubjective relating. We cannot help but be affected by our patients,
and, consequently, we ignore transference phenomena at our peril.”56
Jung clearly understood the mutually influencing aspects of the transference relationship
and he saw those influences as being based, in large part, on the presence of participation mys-
tique in the analytic relationship. He recognized early on that, “It is not only the sufferer but
the doctor as well, not only the object but also the subject”57 who is affected during analysis.
His perspective on this, which goes beyond the unresolved or unexamined issues of the pa-
tient and the analyst, is captured most fully in The Psychology of the Transference which returns
frequently to the image of the alchemical bath as a metaphor for the mutual unconscious
influences of the analytic relationship. This reciprocal unconscious influence is also readily
seen in Jung’s diagram58 of the analytic relationship:
Fig. 1
Jacoby indicates that it is the lower line in Jung’s diagram, i.e. the analyst’s unconscious is
in mutual communication and influence with the patient’s unconscious, which depicts the
56 Jan Wiener, The Therapeutic Relationship, 54.

57 C.G. Jung, “Problems of Modern Psychotherapy,” in The Collected Works, Vol. 16 (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1929a), ¶173.
58 C.G. Jung, “The Psychology of the Transference,” CW16, ¶422.
12
state of participation mystique or identity in the transference matrix - “the area of common
unconsciousness between the two partners.” 59 He goes on to say, “...the unconscious connec-
tion indicates a state of identity or fusion, a oneness of the two. In analysis this connection
is called transference-countertransference, but any strong emotional tie involves this same
state of what Jung calls participation mystique. The other person is a part of myself and the
other way around.”60 Dieckmann61 also makes similar observations about the unconscious to
unconscious communication in Jung’s transference diagram. He indicates that this certainly
plays a role in in interaction between patient and analyst, but also in every encounter between
persons. In other words, Dieckmann sees participation mystique, not as an aberration from
normal psychological processes, but as a ubiquitous aspect of human experience.
Infant Development and Participation Mystique
In a critique of Neumann’s62 theories of infant development, Fordham63 draws on child

analyses and infant-mother observation studies to call into question Neumann’s exposition
of Jung’s model of psychic development in childhood. Specifically, Fordham criticizes Neu-
mann’s conception of a paradisal, fusional state of participation mystique in which there is no
psychological differentiation between mother and infant and in which the mother serves as
the infant’s Self. He also argues against the idea that of a phylogenetic view of the psyche in
which Neumann, following Jung, proposes that the mental state of ‘early man’ can be ob-
served in the mental life of the infants.
Fordham argues that the self is primary in infants and that they are individuals from the
beginning, but need primary caregivers to facilitate the ‘deintegration’ and ‘reintegration,’ or
building up, of the infant personality structure. Elsewhere, Fordham writes:
The notion that an infant lived at first in a state of primitive identity or ‘participa-
tion mystique’ was almost useless; that had been modified to talk of a ‘state of fusion’
between mother and her baby owing to the notion that babies had no boundaries,
but this was contradicted inasmuch as so many of the complex actions of an infant
showed that he was reacting to an object ‘out there’.64
59 Mario Jacoby, The Analytic Encounter (Toronto: Inner City Books, 1984), 28.
60 Mario Jacoby, The Analytic Encounter, 34.
61 Hans Dieckmann, Methods in Analytical Psychology (Wilmette, IL: Chiron, 1991).
62 Erich Neumann, The Child (Boston: Shambhala, 1990).
63 Michael Fordham, “Neumann and Childhood,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 26 (1981): 99-122.
64 Michael Fordham, Freud, Jung, Klein: The Fenceless Field (London: Routledge, 1995), 60.
13
Shared Realities
This is consistent with the conclusions Stern65 drew from his research on infant developmen-
tal processes, “The self-experience [of the infant] is indeed dependent upon the presence and
action of the other, but it still belongs entirely to the self. There is no distortion. ” Drawing
upon further infant observation studies and empirical infant research, Urban66 supports and
extends Fordham’s critique of participation mystique as characteristic of early mother-infant
relationships. She underscores the primary existence of the infant as a discrete psychological
entity which interacts in a reciprocally influencing manner with the mother to elicit responses
from the mother in order to build up a sense of core self and core other.
Based on his clinical experiences, Feldman67 adopts a somewhat intermediate stance be-
tween the positions of Jung and Fordham: “While I would agree with Fordham that the
infant experiences a sense of separateness from the mother at birth, I have also observed that
there are states of fusion and identity during the first year of life which are important for
the infant’s developing self and which help to facilitate individuation in infancy and early
childhood.” Feldman’s position has similarities to Balint’s68 notion of the “harmonious inter-
penetrating mix-up”, which, in turn, has implications for both infant development and the
analytic setting, and in which the ‘other’ is experienced as neither self or as a distinct object.
Physics and Participation Mystique
Mansfield and Spiegelman69,70,71 highlight the parallels between participation mystique experi-
ences and quantum physics. They indicate that the phenomena experienced in analytic ses-
sions often parallels the non-local, acausal activity of quantum fields rather than the local,
causal activity of classical physics in which the actions between objects in the field are predict-
able. They also point to the principle of complementarity and the underlying inter-dependent
65 Stern, Daniel. The Interpersonal World of the Infant: A View from Psychoanalysis and Developmental
Psychology (New York: Basic Books, 1985), 105.
66 Elizabeth Urban, “States of Identity,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 43 (1998): 261-275.
67 Brian Feldman, “Identity, Sexuality and the Self in Late Adolescence,” Journal of Analytical Psychol-
ogy 41 (1996): 492.
68 Michael Balint, The Basic Fault, 66.
69 Victor Mansfield and J.M. Spiegelman, “Quantum Mechanics and Jungian Psychology,” Journal of
Analytical Psychology 34 (1989): 3-31.
70 Victor Mansfield, “The Opposites in Quantum Physics and Jungian Psychology,” Journal of
71 Victor Mansfield and J.M. Spiegelman, “On the Physics and Psychology of the Transference as an
Interactive Field,” Journal of Analytical Psychology, 41 (1996): 179-202.
14
unity of the field; a field which is greater than the sum of the components present in the
field and which generates entirely new properties. Mansfield and Spiegelman72 highlight the
implications of these parallels for the perception and understanding of transference experi-
ence, particularly as it is described by Spiegelman in his theory of psychotherapy as ‘mutual
process.’73
Neuroscience and Participation Mystique
Knox74 discusses the neuroscientific and developmental influences on empathy and inter-
subjectivity, both of which are concepts/experiences that are closely linked to participation
mystique. She reviews the research on mirror neuronal activation and empathy (which we’ve
identified as an essential component of participation mystique). Knox also presents findings
which indicate that strongly ‘feeling with’ someone who is in pain can have the effect of force-
fully activating one’s own neurological pain matrix. This tendency is more pronounced in
adolescents diagnosed as conduct disordered suggesting a greater difficulty for that group in
differentiating someone else’s distress from their own. Finally, Knox highlights research which
indicates that an empathic response from a therapist or significant other is essential to core
affective regulation in individuals with early relational trauma.
Mizen, referencing Schore,75 highlights the likely physiological correlates of interpersonal
participation mystique experiences: “…neurological systems operate in a synchronous fashion
between individuals in a way that can communicate aspects of subjective (mostly uncon-
sciously perceived sensory and affective) experience. Between carers and infants this includes
the capacity to evoke unconscious, affective, biopsychological states in each other, for ex-
ample, as a means of communication; upon this depends a carer’s capacity to attune to, man-
age, mediate and regulate an infant’s body states, including affects.”76 It seems clear that the
research reviewed by Mizen and Knox points towards mutual identificatory and regulatory
72 Victor Mansfield and J.M. Spiegelman, “On the Physics and Psychology of the Transference as an
Interactive Field,” 1996.
73 J.M. Speigelman, Psychotherapy as a Mutual Process (Tempe, AZ: New Falcon Press, 1996).
74 Jean Knox, “‘Feeling For’ and ‘Feeling With’: Developmental and Neuroscientific Perspectives on
Intersubjectivity and Empathy,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 58 (2013): 491–509.
75 Allan Schore, “Clinical Implications of a Psychoneurobiological Model of Projective Identification,”
in Primitive Mental States, Vol. II, ed. Shelley Alhanati, London: Karnac, 2002.
76 Richard Mizen, “The Embodied Mind,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 54 (2009): 257.
15
Shared Realities
processes that are occurring constantly on a neurological level whenever there is interpersonal
interaction.
Experimental Research and Participation Mystique
Reed77,78 has presented the results and discussion from a novel set of experimental designs
to examine whether participation mystique phenomenon, which he equates associates with a
broader category of liminal experience, can be constellated and evaluated in a research setting.
Reed describes the experiment and his conclusions in this way:
The phenomenology of the experience of being in psychic contact with another per-
son was explored in a series of observations using a novel dyadic interaction in ima-
ginal space. Research participants working in pairs with eyes closed received instruc-
tions to imagine being in mental contact with one another for three minutes while
they observed their internal experiences. Their reports indicated that the imagined
contact was experienced as real, as intimate, and aroused the ambivalences usually
associated with intimacy as well as phenomena suggestive of projective identification
effects. This first part demonstrated that the liminal zone, or the transitional space
between individuals, can be experimentally observed through the imagination.79
Unitary Reality and Participation Mystique
I’d like to close this section with an examination of Neumann’s concept of ‘unitary reality’80
which I believe is one of the most unappreciated conceptual developments to emerge from
Jung’s incorporation of participation mystique into the system of analytical psychology. Neu-
mann indicates that a primary feeling experience of unitary reality is the sense that something
is being unified, something previously split is coming together again and redeemed, or that
77 Henry Reed, “Close Encounters in the Liminal Zone: Experiments in Imaginal Communication
Part I,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 41 (1996a): 81-116.
78 Henry Reed, “Close Encounters in the Liminal Zone: Experiments in Imaginal Communication
Part II,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 41 (1996b): 203-226.
79 Henry Reed, “Close Encounters in the Liminal Zone,” 81.
80 Erich Neumann, The Place of Creation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989).
16
something previously in exile or banishment is reclaimed. He also describes the experience of

unitary reality as “the process whereby reality becomes transparent.”81
Neumann’s work on unitary reality was originally published in the 1952 Eranos Yearbook
and he should probably be considered, along with Jung, one of the first intersubjective theo-
rists (intersubjectivity will be discussed more fully in the next section). His theory of unitary
reality anticipates similar work in the area of intersubjectivity by authors such as Atwood and
Stolorow,82 Ogden83 and Benjamin.84 At the same time Neumann’s work is broader, more
encompassing, than the authors he antedates.
Neumann proposes that there are two types of consciousness: “conscious knowledge” and
“perceiving knowledge” or “extraneous knowledge.” He associates “conscious knowledge”
with the ego-complex which splits experience into polarized categories, and indicates that
“perceiving” or “extraneous” consciousness is knowledge that is beyond the ability of the
ego-complex to process. It is through this “extraneous knowledge dimension” that Neumann
hypothesizes a meaningful order and connection with our environments is discernible. Neu-
mann’s conceptual model has strong similarities with the contemporary work of the Boston
Change Process Study Group around ‘explicit’ and ‘implicit’ domains of experience.85
Neumann argues that through the excess focus on conscious knowledge we have renounced
awareness of the world’s unity and continuity, as well as its aliveness and significance, which
Neumann indicates is primarily experienced through feelings and intuition. Expanding on
this idea, Neumann indicates, “We have lost our sense of unitary reality, our experience of
identity and of the sympathy of all things, and as a result we have fallen into solitude and
isolation of a dead and empty cosmic space.”86
Neumann goes on to argue that the term abaissement du niveau mental 87 is used somewhat
pejoratively as though no consciousness is present in these states where extraneous knowledge
dominates. In a similar fashion, he desires to resurrect the idea of participation mystique from
being used as a label to characterize primitive forms of thinking, in which the distinction
between subject and object is blurred, to one in which a specific type of knowledge is avail-
81 Erich Neumann, The Place of Creation, 1989, 124.

82 George Atwood and Robert Stolorow, Structures of Subjectivity: Explorations in Psychoanalytic Phe-
nomenology (Hillsdale, NJ: Analytic Press, 1984).
83 Thomas Ogden, Subjects of Analysis (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1994).
84 Jessica Benjamin, “Beyond Doer and Done To,” Psychoanalytic Quarterly 73 (2004): 5-46.
85 Boston Change Process Study Group, Change in Psychotherapy: A Unifying Paradigm (New York:
Norton, 2010).
86 Erich Neumann, The Place of Creation, 98.
87 A term utilized by Pierre Janet (1859–1947), adopted by Jung, to denote a lowering of the threshold
of consciousness and a loss of available psychological energy available for ego functioning.
17
Shared Realities
able. He refers to this as ‘field knowledge’ which is exchanged between one being and another
existing within the same ‘reality field.’
The concept of unitary reality builds on Jung’s work around the psychoid realm (the
essentially indivisible connection between psyche and matter), participation mystique, syn-
chronicity (the meaningful but non-causal relationship between events – often inner and
outer events), the archetypal structure of experience, the anima mundi (world soul), the unus
mundus (i.e. one world), and the unio mentalis (the unification of soul and spirit). Many of
these terms seemed rather mystical to contemporaneous critics of Jung’s theories but his ideas
are striking prescient when considered in light of the current understanding of quantum
mechanics and complex field theory. Neumann indicates that inner and outer are merely cat-
egories of a conscious knowledge system, not reality. In the field of unitary reality, the distinc-
tion between inner and outer is diminished, psychical and physical are no longer opposites,
and the boundaries of form defining a person or object can become blurred. In this vein he
is referring to the “transgressive character” of the archetype, i.e., the capacity of the archetype
to move beyond dichotomous reality, as defined by Jung.88 Hence he is associating unitary
reality with the structure of the archetypal field.
Neumann argues that when a personality is immersed in an archetypal field it means,
“There is a reciprocal co-ordination between world and psyche…a co-ordination which is
based on the archetypal structure which embraces both, or of which both are partial as-
pects…” which “leads to an emotionally toned unitary experience.” 89 He underscores the
essentially inter-dependent nature of the field of unitary reality and states that unitary fields
encompass interactions between human beings, between human beings and animals, between
human beings and things, and between animals and their environment.
Similar Concepts from Psychoanalytic Theory
While there have been many concepts and theoretical systems that have emerged since Jung
original work on participation mystique, particularly his understanding of the application of
participation mystique to the transference situation, I’ll highlight only a few of these analogous
developments to illustrate the similarities with Jung’s hypothesis about the reciprocally influ-
encing qualities of participation mystique experiences. The ongoing emergence and evolution
88 C.G. Jung, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, The Collected Works, Vol. 8 (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1969), ¶964.
89 Erich Neumann, The Place of Creation, 27.
18
of similar ideas in contemporary psychoanalysis and analytical psychology underscore the

prescience in Jung’s model of analytical psychology.90
Bipersonal Field
Baranger and Baranger91 introduced the term ‘bipersonal field’ to describe the shared uncon-
scious phantasy that produces the structure of the bipersonal field which is characterized by
its fluidity, a lack of definition, and reliance on projective and introjective identification in its
structuring activities. The sum of the bipersonal field is considered greater than the sum of the
internal situations of the participants and the field can oscillate between mobilization, stagna-
tion, integration, and splitting. This concept has been further elaborated at length by Langs.92
Selfobject Theory
Corbett93 identifies a close parallel between participation mystique and Heinz Kohut’s94 con-
cept of ‘selfobjects’, in which the patient unconsciously utilizes aspects of the analyst’s psychic
structure to facilitate the development or repair of their own self structure. Corbett indicates,
“Subjectively, the selfobject experience is a kind of participation mystique (a shared conscious-
ness or merger), with an unconscious diffusion of normal boundaries, in which soul-to-soul
90 On a personal note, it pains me to draw distinctions between theories of the psyche emerging from
psychoanalysis and analytical psychology, however the distinction between the fields continues to
exist in the literature. My personal position is that these distinctions are arbitrary and no longer reflect
the rapprochement that has occurred, both theoretically and clinically, between psychoanalysis and
analytical psychology. As Robert Wallerstein, a Past-President of the International Psychoanalytic
Association has said, “If the Jungian viewpoint had arisen today, it would be accommodated within
the body of psychoanalysis the way Kohut has been, rather than Jungians feeling they had to leave.
The kind of unity that Freud tried to impose was an impossible one because it demanded a real
orthodoxy.” (in Virginia Hunter, Psychoanalysts Talk, New York: Guilford Press, 1994: 333).
91 Madeline Baranger and Willy Baranger, “The Analytic Situation as a Dynamic Field,” International
Journal of Psycho-Analysis 89 (2008): 795-826 [originally published 1961-1962].
92 Robert Langs, The Bipersonal Field (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1976).
93 Lionel Corbett, The Religious Function of the Psyche (London: Routledge, 1996).
94 Heinz Kohut, The Analysis of the Self (New York: International Universities Press, 1971).
19
Shared Realities
communication occurs which is analogous to that of shamanic healing, especially when the
therapist can imaginatively ‘see’ the patient’s unconscious situation.” 95
Intersubjectivity
Out of the work on the bipersonal field and Kohut’s self psychology emerged the intersubjec-
tive perspective (e.g. Atwood and Stolorow96) in psychoanalysis which incorporated the idea
of a mutually constellated and influencing field in analysis. Intersubjective analysts began
to argue against the “myth of the isolated mind’ which “ascribes to man a mode of being in
which the individual exists separately from the world of physical nature and also from engage-
ment with others.”97
Intersubjective theorists have adopted the term ‘the analytic third’98 to refer to the mutu-
ally constructed field generated in the analytic setting. The language utilized is very similar to
Jung’s articulation of the transcendent function and its by-products, “The confrontation of
the two positions generates a tension charged with energy and creates a living, third thing...a
living birth that leads to a new level of being, a new situation. The transcendent function
manifests itself as a quality of conjoined opposites.”99
Benjamin has suggested that we need to move further from the idea of two separate psyches
contained in an intersubjective field, a movement ‘beyond doer and done to.’ She proposes
a theory that “includes an early form of thirdness involving union experiences and accom-
modation, called the one in the third, as well as later moral and symbolic forms of thirdness
that introduce differentiation, the third in the one.” 100 Benjamin defines intersubjectivity in
terms of “a relationship of mutual recognition—a relation in which each person experiences
the other as a ‘like subject,’ another mind who can be ‘felt with,’ yet has a distinct, separate
center of feeling and perception.”101 In her model, “The third is that to which we surrender,
and thirdness is the intersubjective mental space that facilitates or results from surrender. In
95 Lionel Corbett, The Religious Function of the Psyche, 124.

96 George Atwood and Robert Stolorow, Structures of Subjectivity, 1984.
97 Robert Stolorow and George Atwood, “The Myth of the Isolated Mind”, Progress in Self Psychology
10 (1994): 233.
98 Thomas Ogden, Subjects of Analysis, 1994.
99 C.G. Jung, “The Transcendent Function,” in The Collected Works, Vol. 8 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1916), ¶189.
100 Jessica Benjamin, “Beyond Doer and Done To,” 5.
20
my thinking, the term surrender refers to a certain letting go of the self, and thus also implies
the ability to take in the other’s point of view or reality. Thus, surrender refers us to recogni-
tion—being able to sustain connectedness to the other’s mind while accepting his separate-
ness and difference.”102
Interactive Field
The concept of the ‘interactive field’103,104 emerged out of the work of the Barangers, Langs,
and the intersubjective school of psychoanalysis. The term is often used, in a more general
way, to refer to the mutual, reciprocal, and often unconscious ways by which the participants
in the analytic dyad influence each other. It is also used to refer to the subtle and complex
ways a mutually constellated field is impacted by the interpersonal and intrapsychic influ-
ences of both parties involved.
Fusion
Finally, I’ll mention the concept of fusion,105,106 which describes an interactive constellation
wherein there is a dissolution of self boundaries, or self boundary expansion, and where
aspects of an object relationship, are incorporated and perceived, to varying degrees, as as-
pects of the self. Fusion relationship is marked by the fact that a subject is experiencing the
object (or part of it), with which fusion is occurring, as a part of his or her self. Some mental
content can thus flow beyond usual self boundaries and are not perceived as separate from
the analogous one existing in the object. A limited fusion experience is taking place between
two people performing the same music, simultaneous movements, or between people who
are wearing the same uniform. In the analytic situation, fusion can be used defensively when
one of the parties is unable to tolerate separation or differentiation, in some instances because

103 Murray Stein, ed., The Interactive Field in Analysis: Chiron Clinical Series, Wilmette, IL: Chiron,
1995.
104 Nathan Schwartz-Salant, The Mystery of the Human Relationship (London: Routledge, 1998).
105 Peter Giovacchini, “Fusion States, Collective Countertransference, and Mutual Dependence,”
Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalytic Dynamic Psychiatry 23 (1995): 411-423.
106 Paolo Fonda, “La fusionalità e i rapporti oggettuali”, Rivista di Psicoanalisi 46 (2000): 429-449.
21
Shared Realities
differentiation or separation is perceived as a threat to omnipotent control or potential loss

of the object.
Summaries of Chapters
This collection is a response that emerged from dialogue about an idea, participation mystique,
not a collection of previously published papers. Each writer responded in their own way to an
invitation to participate in this project. Two of the authors, Michael Eigen and Robert Waska,
come from psychoanalytic orientations other than the Jungian perspective but were intro-
duced to the idea and asked to respond with experiences and concepts they felt were related.
In addition to reaching across theoretical orientations, this collection also brings together
authors from across the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. Two of the authors,
Marcus West and François Martin-Vallas, are past recipients of the Michael Fordham prize
which is awarded annually to the most creative and original paper published in the Journal
of Analytical Psychology and is considered the highest recognition for analytic writing with
the Jungian analytic community. The focus for the volume is to move beyond Jung’s writing
on participation mystique and to see how contemporary analysts are utilizing the concept of
participation mystique, as well as related concepts. Hopefully, this collection challenges both
the authors and readers to examine their views and experiences around the notion of ‘shared
realities.’
The chapters in this volume are grouped in three loose categories: (I) Clinical Applica-
tions, (II) Experiential Narratives, and (III) Theoretical Discussions. Naturally, these catego-
ries are rather broad and there will be aspects of several categories in each chapter.
Pamela Power, Jungian analyst, author and former Director of Training for the C.G. Jung
Institute of Los Angeles initiates our exploratory journey into the world of shared realities
and participation mystique through the alchemical motif of the coniunctio, in this instance,
the negative coniunctio. In alchemy, coniunctio refers to a sacred marriage or sexual intercourse
between two human figures. In the analytic setting it is used to refer to the joining of two
psychic aspects within the unconscious. Drawing on the theories of Jung, Klein, and Bion,
Pamela utilizes coniunctio as a specific configuration of the participation mystique experience
and illustrates how it can be constellated in a ‘negative’ configuration through ‘envious pair-
ing’ and sadomasochism. She utilizes both clinical case material and examples from film to
explore the implications of negative coniunctio constellations.
In Chapter 2, Marcus West, a Jungian analyst in the United Kingdom, explores Jung’s
concept of participation mystique, comparing and contrasting it with the Kleinian concepts
22
of projective identification and the paranoid-schizoid position. Marcus, a Fordham prize re-
cipient in 2004, has authored two books and a number of articles, as well as serving on the
editorial board for the Journal of Analytical Psychology. He provides case material to illustrate
the continuing usefulness of the participation mystique concept, particularly in elucidating
the difficulties the analyst may have in working with patients for whom participation mystique
plays a significant role. He ends by exploring ways that the analyst’s own personality and
experiences influence participation mystique states and, in some instances, limit the therapy.
Mark Winborn, editor of this volume, authors the third chapter. Mark is a Jungian ana-
lyst, author, and Training Coordinator for the Memphis-Atlanta Jung seminar. His chapter
explores the concept and experience of reverie as a form of participation mystique, particularly
as it applies to the analytic setting. He discusses the origin of the concept in Wilfred Bion’s
theoretical framework and examines the parallels to Jung’s notion of participation mystique
as well as the Jungian concepts of active imagination and non-directed thinking. Finally, he
discusses the connection between reverie and the cultivation of the analytic attitude.
Robert Waska is a contemporary Kleinian analyst. He has published thirteen books and
over 90 articles on Kleinian theory and technique. His chapter examines, in depth, a case of
early phase psychoanalytic treatment from a Kleinian perspective. Through the case material
Robert illustrates the dynamics of projective identification with a difficult patient who de-
mands to be emotionally fed and fixed without sharing, participating, or risking involvement.
Transference and countertransference issues are discussed with a particular focus on parallels
to Jung’s participation mystique concept. In particular, the Kleinian understanding of projec-
tive identification based transference profiles and the resulting pressures in the countertrans-
ference are seen as indistinguishable from Jung’s theory of participation mystique.
Dianne Braden is a Jungian analyst and writer with a deep relation to nature. Her con-
tribution to this volume explores the interior shifts she experienced during a writing retreat
on the Hawaiian island of Kauai and how that experience continued to reverberate in her
psyche, dreams, and life well after her return. In a nuanced and sensitive manner she invites
us into the experience she was drawn into through her interaction with her environment on
Kauai. She also shares with us the ways in which that experience of participation mystique then
became constellated in her work with her patients.
Michael Eigen is well known to most readers of analytic literature. He is most frequently
associated with relational trends in psychoanalysis and has shaped the development of that
orientation with his prolific writing, which includes twenty-two books and numerous articles
on a wide variety of analytic subjects. In addition he has taught and supervised at a number
of universities and psychoanalytic institutes as well as his own ongoing seminar for over 40
years. Michael enters into the world of participation mystique by turning the phrase on end
– making it into ‘mystical participation.’ In a unique approach, Michael weaves together
23
Shared Realities
personal remembrances, interactions with acquaintances, clinical vignettes, theoretical reflec-

tion, and the wisdom of the Kabbalah to create an extended meditation on the mystery of
union. Utilizing an inductive style of writing he pulls the reader into the very experience that
is the subject of his chapter.
Deborah Bryon approaches the subject of participation mystique through the lens of Pe-
ruvian shamanism. Deborah is a Jungian analyst with a decade of study with the Andean
medicine people in Peru. These experiences have been the focus of two books and several
articles on the subject. Her vision involves bringing Inca shamanic traditions to the West -
particularly the analytic community. She brings this same vision to her current contribution
in this volume; identifying contrasts and complements between the perspectives of Andean
medicine and the modern world. She weaves personal experience, reflections on industrial-
ized society, and the principles of Peruvian shamanism, which are rooted in connection to the
natural world and the spirit realm, to highlight the importance of “learning to live in a state
of participation mystique.”
In Chapter 8, Jerome Bernstein, a Jungian analyst and clinical psychologist from Santa
Fe, New Mexico examines the concept of participation mystique, as it has been appropriated
by Jung, and explores its impact on, and pervasiveness in, Jungian thought and writing up to
the present time and forward. Jerome’s perspective on the material is strongly informed by his
forty year relationship with the Navajo and Hopi cultures and his close relationship to several
elders from those cultures. The perceptual, cultural, and language issues which limited the
observations and conclusions of both Jung and Lévy-Bruhl are discussed. However, utilizing
the tools provided by Jung and his familiarity with Native traditions, Jerome outlines a po-
tential bridge between the Western psyche and the Native psyche through the development
of dynamic reciprocity and the creation of new ways of seeing which he terms ‘borderland
consciousness.’
The chapter authored by François Martin-Vallas, Chapter 9, is a continuation of his ongo-
ing theoretical-clinical work on the ‘transferential chimera’: work for which he was awarded
the Michael Fordham Prize from the Journal of Analytical Psychology in 2006. François
brings his extensive experience in France as a psychiatrist, researcher, Jungian analyst, and edi-
tor to the relationship between participation mystique and neuroscience, as viewed through the
concept of the transferential chimera. For those unfamiliar with the chimera, it is a composite
beast from Greek mythology with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a snake’s tail. François uses
the metaphor of the chimera to articulate a new perspective on transference phenomenon, as
a manifestation of participation mystique, while utilizing research from the neurosciences to
support his hypothesis.
In the closing chapter, John White, a philosopher, psychotherapist, and analytic candi-
date, brings his knowledge of analytical psychology, philosophy, and language to bear on the
24
concept of participation mystique. John begins with a discussion of the cultural, philosophi-
cal, and linguistic difficulties in translating Jung from German to English. He continues his
exploration with a review of the work of German phenomenologist Max Scheler who was a
contemporary of Jung’s. Utilizing the framework laid out by Scheler, John helps the reader
to see how Scheler’s theories can be utilized to develop a more differentiated and nuanced
understanding of Jung’s concept of participation mystique and how that richer perspective can
be applied in clinical situations.
Conclusion
As we can see, as a concept, participation mystique has a rich background. A review of the
participation mystique literature allows us to recognize that the projective and identificatory
tendencies, which are at the heart of participation mystique, can sometimes be acknowledged,
recognized, or reduced. However, these processes are always a part of our intersubjective inter-
action and communication in all facets of our lives, and particularly in analysis. Participation
mystique does not function like a light switch – to be turned off or on depending upon the
situation – regardless of whether one has been cautioned about its potential dangers. The de-
gree of influence from participation mystique is distributed as a continuum of experience and
is ever present in our interactions with others and our environments. These influences will
likely never be eliminated, nor would it be desirable to do so if we could. In fact, to blindly at-
tempt to restrict participation mystique experience is to reduce the depth to which we are able
to connect with others and our surroundings, or to reduce the available ‘field knowledge’ in
the analytic setting. At this point, given our current relationship to psyche, we might wonder
about the motivation behind a desire to limit such connection rather than develop a relation-
ship to such experiences.
The intent of this book is to provide a new look at participation mystique - coming at it
from various points of view: from personal narratives, theory, clinical experience, cross-cul-
tural exploration, and archetypal dynamics. Ultimately, my hope is that these chapters paint a
picture of participation mystique as a broader umbrella term for a wide variety of intersubjec-
tive phenomena. In its traditional usage, the clinical utility of the term is limited because the
term often hasn’t been used in a differentiated manner. Hubback finds it, “regrettable that
the anthropologist Lévy-Bruhl should have had his phrase over-used and distorted, when
the perhaps rival psychological concepts of projection, introjection, identification and the
transcendent function really serve us better. Identifying with those structures in the analyst
which have developed as a result of her working on instinctual ‘animal nature’ in herself, can
25
Shared Realities
and does happen within the therapeutic relationship; projections and introjections can be
discerned and described. I think they are marvelous, but not mystical.”107 The term becomes
useful when used to describe a class of interactive experiences. When the various component
constituents for the class are seen as being related, i.e. having a similar underlying process,
then participation mystique acquires usefulness – somewhat like how the term ‘particle phys-
ics’ defines and delineates a particular area of inquiry within physics.
Participation mystique evolves, just as psyche evolves, and we are now at a point of greater
receptivity to what participation mystique offers than we were a century ago when depth
psychology was in its infancy. We are at a significant juncture in the development of psycho-
analysis in general and analytical psychology specifically; a time of convergence and cross-
fertilization in which we have the opportunity to re-examine established or accepted theories
and concepts based on cumulative clinical experience, developments in others fields, and
shifts in our culture - all of which ultimately impact how we practice as analysts and analytic
therapists. Just such an exploration is undertaken in the chapters that follow.
107 Judith Hubback, “Depressed Patients and the Coniunctio,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 28
(1983): 315.
26
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31
INDEX
A attachment style 56, 58, 60, 70, 88

Atwood, George 15, 18, 26, 29
abaissement du niveau mental 16, 161
autistic contiguous position 157
Abram, David 166, 168, 182
auto-organisation 191, 195
acting out 33, 47, 105, 205
Avatar - film 119, 180, 182
active imagination 21, 71, 72, 77, 82, 87
Addison, Ann 202, 212 B
Adler, Alfred 217
Adorno, Theodor 186, 193, 215 bad object 37, 105, 106
affect 6, 8, 14, 51, 52, 56, 58, 60, 69, 77, 83, Balint, Michael 5, 13, 26, 133, 142, 187, 212
130, 147, 191, 192, 202, 203, 204, 205, Bandura, Albert 153, 162
208, 219, 228, 233, 238 Baranger, Madeline and Willy 18, 19, 26
aggression 6, 48, 55, 60, 100, 101, 105, 107, Barfield, Owen 133, 142
153, 155, 198 basic fault 6
alchemy 11, 21, 33, 39, 58, 91, 159, 194, 239 Beebe, Beatrice 60, 66
alienation 154, 155, 156 Benjamin, Jessica 15, 19, 26, 84, 92
alpha function 55, 75, 203, 208 Beowulf 80
American Indian 165, 166, 167 Bernstein, Jerome 22, 165, 180, 182
analytical psychology 1, 17, 70 beta elements 55, 203, 208
analytic contact 86, 99 Biano, Ochwiay 176, 177, 178, 179, 180
analytic frame 196, 203, 206, 207 Bick, Esther 75, 92
analytic third 19, 21, 71, 72, 74, 85, 86, 91, Bild 225
103, 119, 123, 239 Bion, Wilfred 21, 35, 45, 47, 49, 55, 58, 64,
Anzieu, Didier 194, 212 66, 74, 75, 77, 78, 87, 92, 93, 95, 98,
aqua vitae 39 101, 109, 110, 136, 137, 142, 194, 203,
Arbib, Michael 206, 212 212
archetype 1, 6, 16, 17, 24, 33, 35, 36, 43, 44, bipersonal field 18
55, 57, 63, 70, 77, 131, 145, 157, 159, Bishop, Paul 1, 26
167, 170, 174, 175, 177, 178, 188, 189, Bohm, David 133, 142
192, 194, 195, 210, 211, 229, 239 Bollas, Christopher 57, 66, 79, 92, 190, 212
asymmetrical 133, 205, 206, 207 Bolognini, Stefano 80, 84, 89, 92
Index
borderland consciousness 23, 173 communicative function 6

borderline personality 32, 57, 62, 100, 101, 106 complementarity 13, 210
Bormann, F.H. 181, 183 complex 12, 15, 16, 19, 36, 39, 40, 43, 52, 56,
Boston Change Process Study Group 16, 26, 59, 60, 61, 63, 65, 78, 80, 91, 160, 185,
59, 64, 66, 195, 212 188, 189, 192, 200, 205, 206, 209, 211,
Botella, César and Sára 86, 92 230, 240, 243
Bovensiepen, Gustav 73, 75, 87, 92 complexio oppositorum 33
Bowlby, John 52, 56, 58, 66 complex systems 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191,
192, 195, 196, 199, 202, 203, 204, 206,
Braden, Dianne 22, 116
208, 211, 243
Bravesmith, Anna 73, 92
compulsion 8, 46, 47
Bright, George 6, 26, 117, 195, 212
coniunctio 21, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 39, 40, 44,
Bryon, Deborah 22, 144 45, 46, 47, 48
Buddhism 87, 95 contagion 9, 90, 197, 231
Bunster, Jane 5, 26 container/contained 75, 78
containment 55, 58, 59, 75, 100, 110, 225
C Cooper, Steven 89, 90, 92
Cajete, Gregory 169, 170, 182 Corbett, Lionel 18, 26
Cambray, Joe 195, 212 countertransference 6, 9, 10, 11, 22, 39, 42, 59,
Caper, Robert 61, 62, 66 60, 72, 77, 80, 85, 99, 102, 103, 104,
capitalism 221 105, 106, 107, 108, 185, 226
Carlsmith, James 153, 162 Covington, Coline 185, 212
Cater, Nancy 173, 182 Cwik, August 73, 89, 90, 92
Cavalli, Alessandra 57, 68
chaos 42, 100, 125, 133, 188, 191, 201, 207, D
210, 211, 214 Damasio, Antonio 52, 66, 79, 92, 193, 202,
Charon, Rita 174, 182 208, 212
childhood 3, 12, 34, 43, 44, 140, 236 Dante 130
chimera, transferential 23, 184, 185, 186, 194, Davidson, Dorothy 7, 26, 72, 88, 93
195, 196, 197, 199, 204, 206, 207, 208, Davies, Jody Messler 63, 66
211 death instinct 34, 36, 37, 43, 54, 65, 100, 102
Christianity 33, 145 defense 9, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 44, 57, 58, 61,
church 3 87, 100, 153
collective energetic connection 149 deintegrate-reintregrate process 78
collective representations 166, 231 De Jaegher, Hanne 199, 204, 213
collective unconscious 1, 91, 159, 167, 169, Deloria, Vine 165, 166, 167, 168, 172, 180,
170, 178, 194, 231, 243 182
Colman, Warren 75, 92 delusion 5
commensal relationship 35
Shared Realities: Participation Mystique and Beyond
dependency 8, 37, 55, 57, 79, 107, 110, 154, Enthoven, Raphaël 70, 93
160, 167 envy 21, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 44, 55,
depressive position 90, 97, 109 64, 109
Desanti, Jean Toussaint 213 Envy 214
Descartes 52, 66, 79, 92, 202, 212, 222 eros 6, 139
destructive impulses 34, 35, 38, 39, 45, 46, 48, eternity x, 6, 135, 136
50, 54, 106, 109, 130, 154, 185 ethical attitude 209, 210
Dieckmann, Hans 11, 26 ethos 231
Di Paolo, Ezequiel 199, 204, 213 eudaemonia 228
directed thinking 76 evenly suspended attention 76
dissociation 58, 173, 175, 176, 230, 236 explicit experience 16, 58, 71, 78, 87, 198, 219
Ditto, William L. 191, 213 extraneous knowledge 16. See field knowledge
dominance 43
dream ego 123 F
Dreifuss, Gusta 5, 26
faith 87, 131, 135
Driesch, Hans 219
feeing
Duran, Eduardo 171, 172, 182
sensuous 3, 8
Durkheim, Emile 229
Feldman, Brian 12, 26
dynamic reciprocity 23, 167
Feldman, Michael 99, 102, 111
dysregulation 56
Ferro, Antonino 72, 86, 93
Festinger, Leon 153, 162
E
field knowledge 24, 77. See extraneous knowl-
Edinger, Edward 35, 49, 82, 93, 239 edge
ego 15, 16, 35, 36, 43, 45, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, Field, Nathan 7, 18, 26, 53, 66
56, 58, 60, 61, 62, 65, 77, 82, 84, 88, field theory 16, 243
100, 126, 135, 148, 152, 155, 159, 166,
figurability 86
169, 173, 174, 178, 181, 197, 239
Fonagy, Peter 66, 67, 68, 78, 93
Eigen, Michael 20, 22, 87, 93, 130, 131, 132,
Fonda, Paolo 20, 26
133, 134, 135, 138, 140, 142
Fordham, Michael 7, 10, 12, 20, 21, 23, 26, 69,
Einfühlung 233
78, 93
Eisenberger, Naomi 54, 66
Frawley, Mary 63, 66
Elkin, Henry 133, 142
Frayn, Douglas 80, 93
emergence x, 9, 17, 36, 37, 71, 72, 75, 77, 83,
Freud, Sigmund 6, 12, 17, 32, 34, 40, 49, 76,
84, 89, 90, 91, 134, 148, 155, 159, 160,
93, 134, 170, 182, 185, 187, 192, 193,
161, 173, 185, 187, 189, 191, 192, 194,
194, 207, 213, 216, 217, 218, 219, 222
195, 196, 197, 199, 202, 204, 205, 207,
211 fusion 5, 11, 12, 13, 20, 37, 47, 139, 148, 155,
157, 159, 210, 233
empathy 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 14, 51, 83, 208, 232, 238
enactment 10, 33, 64, 100, 102, 103, 105, 169
Index
G I
Gabbard, Glen 72, 75, 93 identification 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 21, 22,
Gallagher, Shaun 213 23, 24, 35, 40, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55,
Gallese, Vittorio 51, 67, 201, 203, 208, 213 56, 57, 58, 59, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 76,
77, 78, 80, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102,
Garden of Eden 175, 177
104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 147,
Geist 220 155, 168, 169, 174, 230, 231, 232, 233,
Gergely, Gyorgy 67 234, 236, 237, 239
German romanticism 187, 233 identity 2, 3, 6, 8, 11, 12, 13, 16, 33, 51, 54,
Ghent, Emmanuel 84, 93 56, 60, 88, 97, 139, 147, 148, 152, 154,
Giovacchini, Peter 20, 27 157, 160, 168, 169, 172, 190, 198, 230,
Giustino, Gabriella 88, 93 233, 234
God 132, 134, 135, 136, 138, 139, 140, 141, illusion 5, 41, 42, 130, 177, 184
145, 179, 221, 241 imaginal sight 73
good breast 64 implicit experience 16, 43, 59, 64, 71, 75, 77,
Goodheart, William 6, 29, 77, 86, 93 78, 87, 141, 243
good object 36, 38 Inca 22, 156
Gordon, Ruth 7, 27, 84, 93 individuation 13, 32, 33, 35, 43, 44, 78, 146,
160, 207, 239
Granger, Gilles Gaston 186, 213
industrialization 221
Grendel 80
infancy 3, 13, 24, 50, 51, 56, 58, 98, 148, 150,
Grinberg, Leon 108, 111
168, 210
Grotstein, James 9
infant 7, 12, 13, 14, 43, 51, 54, 55, 74, 76, 78,
Guillermit, Louis 213 79, 107, 147
inflation 157, 181
H Interactive Brain Hypothesis 199, 204, 213
hallucination 130 contemporaneous 200, 204
Harding, Esther 5, 27 developmental 199, 200, 204
Hargreaves, Edith 99, 111 interactive field 19
harmonious interpenetrating mix-up 13 intersubjective 11, 15, 18, 19, 23, 24, 72, 74,
Hawkins, Lucinda 57, 68 83, 86, 90, 234, 237, 243
Hillman, James 70, 225, 241 intersubjectivity 9, 10, 14, 15, 19, 28, 243
Hiroto, Donald 155, 162 intrapsychic 20, 72, 110, 149, 150, 153, 239
Hogenson, George 194, 195, 211, 213 introjection 3, 8, 9, 10, 18, 24, 36, 48, 75, 77
Hopi 23, 166, 169 intuition 76
Hubback, Judith 24, 27 isolated mind 18
Hunter, Virginia 17
Husserl, Edmund 135, 142, 223
hysterical personality 57
J 171, 172, 173, 177, 178, 180, 183, 185,

211, 214, 229, 230, 231, 243
Jacoby, Mario 11, 27 libido 3, 8, 36, 39, 134
Janet, Pierre 16, 56 Liebes, Yehuda 140, 142
Johnson, Mark 170, 183 life instinct 34, 37, 47
Joseph, Betty 98, 99, 101, 105, 106, 108, 111 liminality 14, 15, 173, 178
Jurassic Park - film 116 linear systems 187, 189, 191, 192, 207
Jurist, Elliot 67 linguistics 23, 204, 205, 218, 219
lived body 223, 224, 226, 227
K Lloyd, Geoffrey 180, 183
Kabbalah 22, 134, 135, 136, 138, 139, 140, Logos 167, 170, 171, 174
142, 143 Lorenz, Edward 188, 190, 214
Kaes, René 194, 214 Lubbock, John 69
Kalsched, Donald 57, 67 Luke, Helen 120, 121, 129
Keats, John 47 Luria, Aleksander 52, 67
Khan, Masud R. 84, 94
King, Jeff 172, 183 M
Klein, Melanie 7, 8, 12, 21, 28, 34, 36, 37, 43,
Maduro, Renaldo 5, 28
49, 54, 55, 56, 65, 67, 90, 97, 98, 100,
101, 111, 194, 214 Mahall, B.E. 181, 183
Knight, Zelda 85, 94 Mansfield, Victor 13, 28
Knox, Jean 8, 9, 14, 28, 56, 67, 192, 194, 195, Marquis de Sade 40
211, 214 Martin-Vallas, Francois 20, 23, 184, 192, 195,
Kohut, Heinz 17, 18, 28, 75, 76, 77, 88, 94, 202, 206, 209, 210, 211, 214
147, 162 masochism 34, 40, 42, 43, 44, 63
Korn, Henri 188, 201, 211, 214 Mason, Albert 101, 112
Masterson, James 88, 94
L Mathew, Marilyn 71, 73, 94
Matt, Daniel Chanan 140, 143
Lacan, Jacques 87, 93, 130
Matte Blanco, Ignacio 52, 67, 133, 143
Lachmann, Frank 60, 66
Matter of Heart- film 179, 183
Lakoff, George 170, 183
Matthers, S.L. MacGregor 140, 143
Lambert, Kenneth 60, 67
Mead, GRS 79, 94
Langs, Robert 18, 19, 28
Mearleau-Ponty, Maurice 168
Laroche, Serge 193, 201, 214
meditation 22, 83, 87, 136, 151
learned helplessness 155
Meltzer, Donald 33, 49
Leib 223
memory, long-term 201
Lévy-Bruhl, Lucien 1, 2, 8, 23, 24, 28, 29, 34,
50, 52, 145, 159, 162, 166, 167, 168, mentalization 78, 86
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 223, 238, 241, 242
Index
metaphysics 174, 187 non-differentiation 3, 50, 51, 53, 97, 168, 230,
Milgram, Stanley 153, 162 234
Mills, John 237, 241, 242 non-directed thinking 21, 76
mind 218, 219 non-representable 86
Minton, Kekuni 58, 60, 68 numinous 6, 33, 126, 127, 132, 144
mirror neurons 14, 51, 200, 203
Mizen, Richard 14, 28 O
Murakami, Haruki 32, 49 objective psyche 74, 91
music object relations 97, 104, 110
blues x objects 55
M’Uzan, Michel de 215 external 7
MUzan, Michel de 184, 190, 194, 195, 196 internal 7, 48, 200
mystical 16, 22, 24, 33, 53, 70, 97, 130, 134, oceanic feeling 6
140, 172, 173, 177, 218, 219 Oedipal conflict 107
mystical participation 22, 130, 137, 139 Ogden, Pat 58, 60, 68
Ogden, Thomas 9, 15, 19, 28, 71, 72, 75, 80,
N 81, 83, 85, 86, 87, 89, 90, 93, 94, 157,
narcissism 32, 39, 57, 62, 83, 100, 101, 106, 163
196 Ortega y Gasset, Jose 71
narrative 58, 150, 156, 174, 198, 206 Osofsky, Joy 88, 95
nation 3 over-determined 76
nature 17, 18, 22, 24, 39, 53, 72, 76, 107, 123,
144, 145, 146, 150, 151, 155, 156, 157, P
158, 159, 160, 165, 166, 170, 176, 177,
Pain, Clare 58, 60, 68
179, 181, 187, 221, 231, 243
paranoid-schizoid position 21, 50, 54, 56, 65,
Navajo 23, 166, 169
90, 97
negative capability 47
parasitic relationship 35, 45, 47
negative therapeutic reaction 5, 34, 45
parents 3
neo-reality 185
Pelled, Esther 87, 95
neo-system 185, 195, 196
persecution 37, 54, 106, 107, 109, 136
Neumann, Erich 12, 15, 16, 17, 27, 28, 77, 94,
Peru 22, 146, 147, 149, 156, 157
144, 145, 163, 170, 183, 239
phenomenology 15, 23, 149, 150, 151, 168,
neuroscience 14, 23, 51, 70, 79, 184, 185, 186,
174, 217, 222, 223, 224, 226, 227, 230,
187, 192, 193, 199, 200, 206, 207, 211
232, 243
Neuroscience 54
Philemon 70
neurotic 32, 35, 101
phylogenetic 4, 12
Nietzsche, Friedrich 219
physics 24, 91, 186, 187, 211
physics, classical 13
physics, quantum 13, 16, 243 Ramachandran, V.S. 193, 202, 215, 216
Plakun, Eric 10 rationality 4, 52, 173, 174, 221
Plaut, Alfred 87, 88, 95 Read, Herbert 131, 143
Poincaré, Henri 188, 189, 215 Reed, Henry 14, 15, 29
Popper, Karl 186, 193, 215 regression 5, 6, 47, 53, 62, 121
post-traumatic stress disorder 56 religious instinct 43
potential space 76 repetition compulsion 34, 45
Power, Pamela 21 resistance 32, 33, 85, 122, 125
preconscious 69, 75, 89 reverie x, 21, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77,
prelogical 2, 172, 173, 174 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87,
prima materia 39, 40, 159 88, 89, 90, 91, 123
primary maternal preoccupation 53, 76 reverie deprivation 85
primitive man, psychology of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, Richardson, Thomas 206, 216
12, 16, 34, 51, 52, 55, 60, 85, 107, 145, Riesenberg-Malcolm, Ruth 90, 95
159, 160, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, ritual 122, 126, 151, 158, 169
171, 172, 173, 175, 176, 177, 178, 229, Riviere, Joan 34, 183
231, 236, 243 Rizzolati, Giacoma 200, 216
primordial 3, 5, 8, 133, 148, 159, 161, 167, Rizzolatti, Giacomo 51, 68
168
Rolfe, Eugene 6, 29
projection 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 24, 55, 57, 60,
romance 3
74, 77, 88, 98, 99, 102, 107, 108, 109,
110, 145, 148, 154, 155, 159, 160, 169, Rosch, E. 199, 216
176, 177, 230, 237 Rosenfeld, Herbert 34, 36, 98, 101, 103, 112
projective identification 7, 9, 10, 15, 22, 34, 37, Rowland, Susan 1, 29
47, 55, 56, 59, 65, 74, 77, 97, 98, 99, Ruggiero, Irene 100, 112
100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107,
109, 110, 123, 194, 226, 232 S
psyche 222, 226, 227, 228, 231, 232, 236, 238
sacred marriage 21, 33
psychoid 16, 121, 159, 178, 202
sadism 34, 40, 43, 44, 46
psychosis 5, 9, 32, 35, 105, 109, 132, 189, 191,
sadomasochism 21, 32, 33, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44,
197, 199, 209
45, 47
Pueblo 121, 171
sadomasocism 42, 45, 46
Puritanism 221
Samuels, Andrew 7, 29
Sandler, Joseph 99, 101, 102, 103, 111, 112,
Q 113
Quincey, Christian de 179, 180, 183 Schafer, Roy 98
Schaverien, Joy 72, 95
R
Racker, Heinrich 63, 68, 80, 95
Index
Scheler, Max 23, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, somatic experience 58, 71, 77, 79, 80, 86, 130,
228, 229, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 133, 151, 156, 157, 158, 161, 202, 203,
237, 238, 239, 241, 242 205, 210, 223
Schelling, Friedich 219 Sophocles 136
schizoid personality 57 soul 8, 16, 18, 71, 82, 118, 121, 122, 124, 126,
Schopenhauer, Arthur 219 127, 128, 131, 135, 136, 138, 141, 160,
Schore, Allan 14, 29 172, 176, 187, 188, 218, 219, 220, 222,
224, 225, 234, 235, 239
Schwartz-Salant, Nathan 7, 19, 29, 73, 95, 229,
242 Speziale-Bagliacca, Roberto 81, 95
Secretary - film 45, 46, 47, 49 Spiegelman, J.M. 13, 28, 29
secured symbolizing field 86 Spielrein, Sabina 185, 193, 212
Seele 218, 219, 220, 224 Spillius, Elizabth 98, 101, 112
Segal, Hanna 98, 112 spirit 16, 22, 117, 121, 122, 125, 127, 135,
145, 150, 157, 161, 176, 177, 179, 220,
Segal, Robert 1, 29, 36, 149, 159, 163, 166,
222, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 232,
167, 171, 172, 173, 174, 177, 178, 183,
234, 235, 236, 239
230, 231, 241
Spitz, Rene 210, 216
self 7, 8, 12, 13, 18, 19, 20, 34, 37, 42, 43, 45,
46, 47, 51, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, split ego 82
63, 64, 75, 78, 79, 82, 85, 88, 90, 98, splitting 4, 7, 15, 18, 36, 37, 41, 56, 82, 98,
99, 101, 102, 106, 108, 109, 110, 130, 101, 154, 175, 176, 222
132, 133, 134, 136, 146, 148, 172, 179, Stark, Martha 9, 29
181, 185, 189, 190, 207, 228, 243 Steiner, John 98, 99, 100, 101, 109, 110, 113
selfobject 18, 88 Steiner, Riccardo 101, 113
Seligman, Martin 155, 162 Stein, Murray 19, 29, 195, 212, 216, 229, 242
separation anxiety 6, 160 Sterba, Richard 82, 95
Serrano, Miguel 179 Stern, Daniel 12, 29, 54, 56, 68
sexual abuse 58 Stevns, Martha 57, 68
sexuality 3, 21, 33, 42, 137, 233 Stolorow, Robert 15, 18, 26, 29
shadow 5, 32, 39, 79, 153, 154, 155, 221 subject-object relationship 2, 3, 4, 8, 16, 50,
shaman 146 51, 75, 97, 98, 168, 230, 233, 234, 235,
shamanism 18, 22 236, 237
Sharp, Daryl 71, 79, 95 submission 43
Siegel, Daniel 58, 60, 68 supernatural 173, 174
Siegelman, Ellen 81, 95 supervision 1, 5, 73
Sioux 165 surrender 19, 84, 85, 156
society 3, 22, 54, 124, 152, 153, 155, 236 suspension 84
Society for Analytical Psychology 69, 70 Swentzell, Porter 171, 183
Solms, Mark 52, 68 symbiotic relationship 35, 133
Solomon, Hester 209, 216 symbol 52, 79, 228, 229
symbol formation 52 unitary reality 15, 16, 17, 77

symbolic attitude 75, 86 unthought known 79
symmetry 52, 189, 205 Urban, Elizabeth 12, 29
Sympathiegefühl 232
synchronicity 16, 170, 178, 192, 195 V
Van der Kolk
T Bessel 58, 68
Tacey, David 177, 183 Varchenker, Arturo 99, 111
Target, Mary 67 Varela, F.J. 199, 216
telos 227 Vermorel, Henri and Madeline 187, 216
Tewa 169, 171 Von Franz, Marie-Louise 148, 163, 170, 183
The Night Porter - film 45, 46, 47, 49 von Krafft-Ebing, Richard 40
Thompson, E. 199, 216 von Sacher-Masoch, Leopold 40
Thomson, Jean 9, 29 voodoo 121
timelessness 6, 80
total transference 105, 106, 108 W
transcendent function 19, 24, 75, 239 Wallerstein, Robert 17
transference 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 11, 13, 17, 22, 23, Waska, Robert 20, 21, 86, 95, 97, 98, 99, 100,
26, 27, 32, 37, 38, 39, 43, 53, 59, 60, 106, 108, 113
64, 72, 77, 97, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103,
Weber, Max 220, 221, 241
104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 168, 184,
185, 188, 189, 193, 196, 206, 207, 209, Welt 220
226 Werner, Heinz 133, 143
transitional space 15 West, Marcus 6, 20, 21, 22, 30, 52, 53, 57, 62,
translation 23, 109, 217, 218 63, 64, 68, 116
transpersonal 174, 181 Wharton, Barbara 185, 212
transrational 173, 174, 177 White, John 23, 217, 222, 234, 236, 237, 238,
241
trauma 14, 32, 48, 51, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61,
63, 64, 65, 87, 88, 100, 109, 204, 206 Whitmont, Edward 5, 30, 229, 239, 242
tribal 54, 169 Wiener, Jan 7, 10, 11, 30, 195, 216
tripartite anthropology 222 Wilber, Ken 174, 183
Tronick, Ed 56, 58, 68 Willeford, William 84, 95
Williams, B.R. 206, 216
U Winborn, Mark 21, 30, 69, 243
Winnicott, Donald 53, 56, 62, 76, 85, 96, 130,
Umwelt 5, 220
139, 143
unio mentalis 16
Winson, Jonathan 50, 68
union 6, 19, 22, 53, 130, 133, 134, 139, 141,
Word Association Test 192
148, 233, 239
Index
Wright, Kenneth 148, 163
Y
Yohai, Rabbi Shimon bar 140
Z
Zahavi, Dan 243, 245
Zohar 140, 141, 142, 143
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What is the concept of participation mystique?

What is the concept of participation mystique?

What are some ways the essays in the book redeem and locate the concept of participation mystique?

What are some ways the essays in the book redeem and locate the concept of participation mystique?

Advance Praise for

Shared Realities: Particpation Mystique and Beyond

The concept of “participation mystique” is one that is often considered a somewhat

Shared Realities provides the reader with a wonderful example of amplification of

—Tom Kelly, President, International Association for Analytical Psychology and

Mark Winborn, Editor

Fisher King Press

Front cover image © is from an original painting by Susan Bostrom Wong.

Section I – Clinical Applications

Section II – Experiential Narratives

5 Songs Never Heard Before:

8 Healing Our Split: Participation Mystique and C. G. Jung

Mark Winborn, PhD, NCPsyA is a Jungian psychoanalyst and clinical psychologist. He is

Jung’s Concept of Participation Mystique

And if we go right back to primitive psychology, we find absolutely no trace of the

Participation mystique is a term derived from Lévy-Bruhl. It denotes a peculiar kind

I use the term identity to denote a psychological conformity…Psychological identity

These identifications, brought about by projection, create a world in which man is

13 C.G. Jung, Psychological Types, CW6, ¶741.

Whenever an autonomous component of the psyche is projected, an invisible person

While Jung seems to view the diminishment of participation mystique experiences as a

By understanding the unconscious we free ourselves from its domination…The mag-

Developments Related to Participation Mystique

Projective Identification and Participation Mystique

A number of analytical psychologists, e. g. Gordon,35 Davidson,36 Samuels,37 Schwartz-

Empathy…is therefore a kind of perceptive process, characterized by the fact that,

42 C.G. Jung, Psychological Types, CW6, ¶486.

Transference and Participation Mystique

56 Jan Wiener, The Therapeutic Relationship, 54.

Infant Development and Participation Mystique

In a critique of Neumann’s62 theories of infant development, Fordham63 draws on child

Physics and Participation Mystique

Neuroscience and Participation Mystique

Experimental Research and Participation Mystique

Unitary Reality and Participation Mystique

something previously in exile or banishment is reclaimed. He also describes the experience of

81 Erich Neumann, The Place of Creation, 1989, 124.

Similar Concepts from Psychoanalytic Theory

of similar ideas in contemporary psychoanalysis and analytical psychology underscore the

95 Lionel Corbett, The Religious Function of the Psyche, 124.

102 Jessica Benjamin, “Beyond Doer and Done To,” 7.

differentiation or separation is perceived as a threat to omnipotent control or potential loss

personal remembrances, interactions with acquaintances, clinical vignettes, theoretical reflec-

Atwood, George and Stolorow, Robert. Structures of Subjectivity: Explorations in Psychoana-

Rolfe, Eugene and Goodheart, William. “Correspondence,” Journal of Analytical Psychology

A attachment style 56, 58, 60, 70, 88

borderland consciousness 23, 173 communicative function 6

J 171, 172, 173, 177, 178, 180, 183, 185,

symbol formation 52 unitary reality 15, 16, 17, 77

Wright, Kenneth 148, 163

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