At-one-ment: Beyond Transference and Countertransference

Abstract

Through the inscrutable state of at-one-ment, one (be)comes to know the other from the inside, to experience the other’s experience as one’s own, rather than like one’s own. In the clinical setting, this occurrence is valuable in and of itself, even when it is not acknowledged or understood by the analytic pair, as it allows the enigmatic possibility of communicating the incommunicable that lies beyond words and relations, echoing the unique embryonic form of being and communicating. Such clinical occurrences invite us to reconsider the common formulations of transference and countertransference and move beyond their inherent notion of twoness.