Matrix Mind Relations Psychoanalytic Dialogue

The transcendent function is the psyche’s way to fetch the consciousness and the unconscious into a dialog with each other towards individuation and psychological growth. Carl Jung believed that we each have this function, which yearns to evolve and transcend. This is an archetypal process, which mediates opposites and enables the transition from one attitude to another, a third way, by using symbols. The function has a healing effect by bridging the conscious and unconscious, extenuating motion beyond one-sidedness.

Since we are all distinguishable in our life expressions, so is our procedure of growth and healing. We use dissimilar coping accomplishments at respective times to deal with adversity and suffering. Whether it is to routine unsolved feelings, or get in touch with a disowned part of ourselves, we all need a bridge to tap into the dark corners of our shadows. Art, music, yoga, poetry, dance, originative writing and tai-chi are a heap of ways that quiet the mind and grant the connection to the concealed unconscious material.

Music has been employed for a good deal of years as a powerful tool for the atonement of mind and body. Our innate capacity to use music and sound to facilitate deeper levels of self-awareness and transformation may be traced back to ancient times and throughout cultures. Music remains one of the most effective bridges amidst cultures that exist. But most importantly, music may unite us with other living beings and with the planet at large.

Music influences and attunes us with the mystery that resides within our depths. The healing power of music may arouse our patterns of wholeness and unleash our potential for getting alive. Music, with it is own particular vocabulary of rhythm, melody, harmony, pitch, and tone, speaks directly to the unconscious. It makes the connection with deeply buried sensations and emotions by reaching the layers of the psyche, which are cut off from normal state of consciousness.

Introducing Dr. Allen Bishop

Dr. Allen Bishop is a psychoanalyst, professor, and musician living in Montecito, California. Having served as the Chair of the Clinical Psychology Department at Pacifica Graduate Institute, he received his analytic training at the Psychoanalytic Center of California in Los Angeles, is the former president of the Santa Barbara Music Club, and presently serves on the Board of Directors of the American Beethoven Society. He proceeds to instruct students, merging his life long interests of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, music and culture to inspire ability to create and depth amid us.

As one of his students, I’ve had the honor of learning from his tremendous sea of knowledge. Together with Brenda Murrow, my dear friend and co-author of this blog, we not so long ago had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Bishop on his thoughts when it comes to music and psychology. We will dedicate the next few posts to music and it is use as not only a personal therapeutic modality, but as a medium of healing in the collective.

During our interview, we asked in regards to the deep psychic and archetypal experience that oftentimes seeks expression in music, in specially the works of great composers such as Beethoven and Mozart. Dr. Bishop referred to musicians as “having the capacity to create a form of expression that transcends time, and not just drop away in the dust bin of history”. Below is an excerption from our interview, and his response to this question:

“Composers have the capacity to think beyond the personal to the transpersonal experience and elevate to what Jim Grothstein would call a ‘transcendent position’. That means in a heap of ways they have moved beyond the normal ways people relate and interact to life and are connected not so much to humans as the necessary mode of experience, but connected to humanity. And thus, they feel they have a gift to be shared with all of humanity and not just a collaborator or a spouse. They have these changes in terms of their rudimentary approach to object-relations. As opposed to the intermediate person, who often times gets caught by conformity to the external world and gets stifled.”

“There is, for the outstanding artisan and composer, an optimal amount of psychological pain and anguish that serves as the prima materia for a much more elaborated interiority and a set of lenses to look at deep psychological experience beyond just the personal. They may articulate aroused truth in regards to the humane condition which language is unable to convey.”

It seems to me as if suffering inner pain and anguish may serve as the vessel towards a realization that one may be the medium for the more prominent picture; a deeper connection to humanity. The triumph over adversity, as in the case of Beethoven’s deafness, may “create a willingness to create oneself as a distinctive person and choose ability to create over conventionality”. When asked in regards to his personal choice in Beethoven, Dr. Bishop replied:

“Beethoven and his music has inspired a more finish elaboration of my capacities, aroused availability and abiding faith in the mystery of life. He helps all of us stay close to our interiority.”

Whether you’re drawn to classical, jazz, rock or hip-hip, music allows us to get in touch with a deeper share of our psyche and connect to the songwriter/composer’s dreams. This way, we may transcend to a higher level of consciousness and connection to humanity.

What is your musical experience? How do you surrender and grant yourself to be get over with a deeper sense of cognizance with the music in your life?

Matrix Mind Relations Psychoanalytic Dialogue Image

Matrix Mind Relations Psychoanalytic Dialogue Pic

Matrix Mind Relations Psychoanalytic Dialogue Picture

Matrix Mind Relations Psychoanalytic Dialogue Picture