Empathic Resonance and Repetition in Art and Psychotherapy: Attunement With Image and Archetype.

摘要

This thesis asks the research question, "Does empathic resonance and repetition suggest a vital link between art and psychotherapy?" It explores attunement with image, emotion, and archetype in art through the following themes: ritual, repetition, mirroring, mimesis, and the phenomenology of perception. These themes are shown to be interdisciplinary in nature, intertwined in both art and psychotherapy. Using a phenomenological and alchemical hermeneutic methodology, the research explores function and form in art and psychotherapy through an imaginal, psychologizing interaction with abstract paintings by Jackson Pollock and Gerhard Richter. The research illuminates the relationship between art and archetypal and imaginal psychologies as it pertains to personification, beauty, and the revelation of unconscious complexes and wholeness. Clinical applications and implications for the field are discussed in returning to the intersection of art, image, and movement toward wholeness in psychotherapeutic work.