I have heard this question several times, and each time, I have a different answer. My mind goes to two ideas: religion and the concept of play. We might even say that both have a transitional space where someone can exist between both reality and transcendence or fantasy. I do not believe in magic, and that is quite tragedy. I often imagine what life would look like if I believed it contained magic. However, in spite of my not believing in magic, I do believe in a sense of wonder and the power of creativity.
Donald Winnicott was one of the first people who talked about both wonder and creativity within the same space in the context of psychotherapy. "The capacity to still feel wonder is essential to the creative process," DW Winnicott. More on Winnicott in a bit.
I recently discovered Dr. Joel Whitebook's work. Dr. Whitebook is a critical theorist and "psychoanalyst-secularist" who has an interest in the intersectionality between the transcendent and the magical. A quote he shared in a recent podcast (without knowing the author) was: "Analysis is what occurs when the seeker of magic meets the purveyor of insight." A few psychoanalysts talk about religion and spirituality as being an infantile state. To them, religion can be described as a primitive aspect of humanity and a search for enchantment. These ideas sound much more harsh than what I think they mean: maybe we can think of religion as a strong transference (feelings of love toward) a higher power; reminiscent of the heart of analytic love. Don Carveth has a wonderful YouTube video on this very idea.
Religion offers an individual a place between reality and transcendence, where the "as if" aspect is maintained: wine as blood, bread as body. Similarly, Winnicott believed that the goal of psychoanalysis is to find magic that is not psychotic (the denial of reality). Isn't it refreshing to think of therapy as the process of finding magic? But what was he even talking about?
I think of Lowell. He described these ideas beautifully; in the transference drama, a transitional phenomenon is created and the analyst and patient together try to understand the drama that is being enacted. Being aware of these enactments can create an immense sense of creativity, and it can also tap into the infantile. As a simple example, I love art. Art can be described as an infantile illusion, a transitional realm, a "third" space. My feelings and thoughts are projected through my art, only to be contained by the limits of the edges of my canvas. Can we not think of the frame of psychotherapy similarly?
In order for this to work though, as therapists we have to be open to play. We have to be open to the various characters into whom our patients transform. We have to give our patients (and ourselves) the freedom to think and speak what is on their minds, and to be who they want to be in the sessions. We might not always like the characters they bring, but we have to maintain their "as if" quality, just like our patients do. We have to be open to playing in the transference because only in playing can our patients be free to be creative and heal.
It is in playing, and perhaps only in playing, that the child is free to be creative - DW Winnicott
- cg
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