At-one-ment and twoness are not opposites.

Abstract

This paper explores how at-one-ment and twoness interact in the clinical setting. Namely, how the unconscious mode of knowing the other intuitively from the inside, by becoming at-one with them, interacts with the conscious-rational mode of knowing about the other from the outside; how experiencing the other's experience as one's own, rather than like one's own, informs (and is informed by) the common clinical stance of twoness, in which analyst and patient meet as separate persons. Through clinical illustrations, I argue that these are complementary (rather than contradictory) modes of knowing, communicating and being and that, paradoxically, twoness is essential for the emergence of at-one-ment, even though the latter is inadvertent.