Date: 11-15-2024
Tags: wholeness transformation growth individuation
By engaging with and embracing the seeming contradictions of the world and of our own being, we can rise to a greater awareness that includes more of what life has to offer.
Big Idea
The transcendent function is the process by which we reconcile opposites within our psyche. This process is analogous with the defining quality of reality, which is nonduality. When we can break away from black and white thinking and rest in reality as it is, we are free from the warring opposites that divide and distort our perceptions.
Problem
Because of social conditioning, cognitive biases, survival instincts, and a number of other factors, human beings tends towards black and white thinking. Being able to quickly categories things as “good” or “bad”, “right” or “wrong” is an efficient way to process and navigate the enormously complex world we live in. Black and white thinking also provides a sense of comfort and control, which can be soothing and even beneficial when we face overwhelming circumstances. The problem is that black and white thinking leaves out a whole lot of potentialities and limits our experience both of life and of our own being. When we reduce the world and ourselves to simplistic, dualistic terms, we cut ourselves off from the richness and fulness of life.
Goal
The “transcendent function”, a term coined by Carl Jung, is a psychological process that facilitates the integration of opposites within the psyche — like conscious and unconscious, rational and irrational, or light and shadow. The transcendent function is a sort of coalescence of opposites that culminates into a higher state of being and awareness, which allows a person to experience more of life and more of their own being. This is the essence of wholeness and of integration, and a major factor in the healing process.
Quote
“In modern behavioral therapies, absolute reality is accessed through what psychologist Marsha Linehan describes as the ‘synthesis of opposites’, a way of accommodating two or more seemingly conflicting truths. In dialectical behavior therapy, the therapists job is to help the client hold both the need for change and the need for radical self-acceptance at once. Both are real, and both are crucial to the process.” - Tarot for Change - Jessica Dore
Benefits
When we are able to hold the tension between the seemingly opposed aspects of our psyche and of our experience of the world, we find ourselves perceiving and making decisions from a higher perspective — one that includes and embraces more of who we are and more of what life has to offer. We free ourselves of limited thinking that can stifle us and stunt our growth.