Reverberation and resonance: An exploration of the intersections between psychoanalytic and Jungian views of reverie

This dissertation employs a thematic hermeneutic method to reveal qualities of a psychodynamic phenomenon, reverie, through a dialectic between psychoanalytic and Jungian points of view. Noting that reverie as a term occurs with increasing frequency in depth psychological discussion, this study assumes an attitude of contemplation that seeks out the appearances of reverie among depth psychological theories and discovers reverie as a point of intersection. This study responds to an overarching research question that contemplates how psychoanalytic and Jungian formulations of reverie complement one another.;This project initially notes the work of Bion, Winnicott, and Ogden in terms of reverie and intersubjectivity in tandem with the contemplations of Jung, Hillman, Bachelard, and Romanyshyn in terms of reverie and the imaginal. Mythopoeic themes of chaos and creation are associated with reverie, and linked to a contemporary image of chaos and complexity that allows for a multidimensional phenomenological view. The project then explores the relationship of reverie and hermeneutics, finding reverie to be a mode of awareness uniquely suited to phenomenology, and revealing the roles of hermeneutics and reverie in the psychotherapeutic encounter. The work then attends to parallel observations arising out of the fields of interpersonal neurobiology and cognitive linguistics. A phenomenological sense of reverie is illuminated in a dialectic between Winnicott's (1971) notion of potential space and Bachelard's (1958/1994) images of spatiality. Finally, the psychoanalytic view and the Jungian view are revealed as complementary valences. This study finds that psychoanalytic based formulations of reverie tend to emphasize relational and intersubjective aspects, with implicit attention to reverie's relationship to image, whereas Jungian attitudes tend to emphasize the role of reverie in accessing image, while acknowledging the importance of relationship in establishing the conditions for this imaginal work. The results of this discussion suggest that a clinical attitude that recognizes both aspects of reverie, relational and imaginal, provides the fullest possible potential for transformation and growth in the psychotherapeutic endeavor.