The Part-Whole Relation. Otto Rank, David Bohm, and a Therapeutic Third

What is it about?

This is a comprehensive study of Otto Rank's linkage with David Bohm's implicate order and the author's notion of a "therapeutic third". The dissertation examines the mind-matter relation and the client-therapist dyad through dual-aspect monism, which embraces a psycho-physically neutral realm and a tripartite picture, mirrored in Bohm’s "implicate order of the undivided universe," and Rank's “Beyond," which is related to Schopenhauer's will, Plotinus "unio mystica" and Buber’s I-Thou. This realm is empirically inaccessible but is subject to experience and knowledge from being. In the therapeutic situation it is the “therapeutic third”: the at once intersubjectively-generated and self-cosmically contextualized "unio mystica" between client and therapist.

Featured Image

Photo by Yann Jacobsen on Unsplash

Photo by Yann Jacobsen on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Existential psychoanalyst, Otto Rank, has significantly shaped contemporary experiential and relational psychotherapy, influencing various thinkers and underlining developments in humanistic psychoanalysis and existential-humanistic psychology. This dissertation offers a comprehensive analysis of the mutual philosophical speculations that derive from the distinct areas of Rank's post-Freudian psychology and Bohm's contributions to quantum physics. While there exists no direct biographical overlap between Rank and Bohm, the thesis identifies important conceptual similarities, and contends that the changes proposed by both, are instrumental in bringing about a critical widening and deepening of the prevalent scientific epistemological framework. By identifying and highlighting a common ground, which the author calls "the therapeutic third", the work suggests innovative paths toward the experiential practice of therapy.

Perspectives