The mirror of art reflection
THE MIRROR OF ART: REFLECTIONS ON
TRANSFERENCE AND THE GAZE OF THE PICTURE
Joy Schaverien
The images in this paper are strictly for educational use and are protected by United States copyright laws.
Unauthorized use will result in criminal and civil penalties.
1
Cognition, language, myth and art: none of them is a mere mirror simply reflecting images of inward or outward data; they are not indifferent media, but rather true sources of light, the prerequisite of vision, and the well-springs of all formation.
(Cassirer 1955a, p. 93)
This presentation (given at the Art and Psyche conference in San
Francisco, 2008) is about art and its formative nature. To be clear about the title,
I am not suggesting that art is a mirror in the sense of a cold or flat reflection.
Rather, within analysis, art reveals and so reflects the multi-layered contents of the psyche and presents them for the gaze. It is the irreducible, non-discursive role of pictures that is psychologically transformative and so, within analysis, art offers a very particular means of mediation. The making of art may lead to confrontation with shadow elements of the unconscious, revealing mythical or archetypal images as well as their underlying psychological states. Thus
Contemporary Developmental and Classical Jungian approaches to understanding individuation converge in “the field of vision.”
Two Aspects of Art within Analysis
There are two different stages related to image making and the viewing of pictures within analysis. These I have called “the life in the picture” and ”the life of the picture” (Schaverien, 1992). ”The life in the picture” relates to the imagery that is revealed in the art work, whilst “the life of the picture” refers to the effects of its continued existence as an object in time and space. The first stage, the making of the picture, uncloaks images, previously experienced only as unformed sense impressions or transient mental imagery, and
TRANSFERENCE AND THE GAZE OF THE PICTURE
Joy Schaverien
The images in this paper are strictly for educational use and are protected by United States copyright laws.
Unauthorized use will result in criminal and civil penalties.
1
Cognition, language, myth and art: none of them is a mere mirror simply reflecting images of inward or outward data; they are not indifferent media, but rather true sources of light, the prerequisite of vision, and the well-springs of all formation.
(Cassirer 1955a, p. 93)
This presentation (given at the Art and Psyche conference in San
Francisco, 2008) is about art and its formative nature. To be clear about the title,
I am not suggesting that art is a mirror in the sense of a cold or flat reflection.
Rather, within analysis, art reveals and so reflects the multi-layered contents of the psyche and presents them for the gaze. It is the irreducible, non-discursive role of pictures that is psychologically transformative and so, within analysis, art offers a very particular means of mediation. The making of art may lead to confrontation with shadow elements of the unconscious, revealing mythical or archetypal images as well as their underlying psychological states. Thus
Contemporary Developmental and Classical Jungian approaches to understanding individuation converge in “the field of vision.”
Two Aspects of Art within Analysis
There are two different stages related to image making and the viewing of pictures within analysis. These I have called “the life in the picture” and ”the life of the picture” (Schaverien, 1992). ”The life in the picture” relates to the imagery that is revealed in the art work, whilst “the life of the picture” refers to the effects of its continued existence as an object in time and space. The first stage, the making of the picture, uncloaks images, previously experienced only as unformed sense impressions or transient mental imagery, and
References: Robert Avens (1980). Imagination is Reality. Dallas Texas: Spring. Ernst Cassirer (1955 & 1957). The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms 3 Volumes, New Haven: Yale University Press. Fordham, M. (1976). The Self and Autism in Volume 3 of “The Library of Analytical Psychology,” London: Heinemann. Jung, C.G. (1946). The Psychology of the Transference, CW 16. Jacques Lacan (1977). “The mirror stage as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience” in Ecrits: a Selection Langer, Suzanne (1957). The Problems of Art. London: Routledge and Keegan Paul. Reid, L.A. (1969). Meaning in the Arts, London: Allen and Unwin. Schaverien, Joy (1987). “The Scapegoat and the Talisman: Transference in Art Therapy” In Images of Art Therapy _____. (1992; 1999). The Revealing Image: Analytical Art Psychotherapy in Theory and Practice Donald W Winnicott (1971). “The mirror-role of mother and family in child development” in Playing and Reality