Presence, Mourning, and Beauty

Elements of Analytic Process

Bibliographic Data

ID8333445
AuthorsHenry C Markman (0000-0002-7789-8555, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume65
Issue6
Pages979-1004
Publication date2017-12-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-0651 • E-ISSN: 1941-2460
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0003065117747877
PMID29327617
OpenAlexW2783131115
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited6

Analyst and patient occasionally arrive at moments of heightened meaning and aliveness. These moments can be transformative and lead to psychic change in the patient. They give life and arouse hope, and feel “real” in a new way, though often entailing emotional turbulence. Specific internal work must be done by the analyst to allow for and foster these experiences. This involves a kind of mourning process in the analyst that allows for “presence” and “availability” as described by Gabriel Marcel, and for the “at-one-ment” described by Bion. These transforming moments can be viewed in an aesthetic realm, along the lines of Keats’s “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” This embodies the analytic value of emotional truth. These moments are shared and their emergence is an intersubjective creation. Clinical illustrations show how the internal work of mourning by the analyst through directed introspection allows for presence and availability, and then for shared moments of beauty with the patient

Aesthetics · Beauty · Cognitive psychology · Epistemology · Introspection · Meaning (existential) · Process (computing) · Psychic · Psychoanalysis · Realm · Value (mathematics) · Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology · Computer Science · Medicine · Mental Health and Psychiatry · Philosophy · Psychology · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications

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