Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

external to the psyche in a numinous or I-Thou event, however it might be understood
differently by the other party. Ogden’s ‘thirdness’ is not exactly the same as a co-created
intersubjectivity advocated by Benjamin and Eigen. ‘There is a bi-directional dance
between patient and analyst that each person registers differently - a co-created dance
governed by what we call the third’ (Benjamin 2009: 441). There is also an implicit link
between thirdness and the doctrine of the Trinity in Christian theology, with Fiddes
adopting the term perichoresis to describe the dynamic dance of God (Fiddes 2000a).
Lamborn develops the ideas of Trinity and thirdness further by using the metaphor of ‘good
and near neighbours’ living alongside one another for mutual benefit (Lamborn 2007). 539
Stone describes this willingness to engage with the unconscious in,
the hope that such interplay will lead to transformation … in the direction of greater
self-transcendence. Thus both the analyst and the analysand … participate in any
verbal and non-verbal dance, full of emotional resonance, in which both rely on our
search for an underlying process … called “The Third” or the Ground of Being …
Some analysts … have understood this process of development through selftranscendence
as having an inherently spiritual dimension (Stone 2005: 423f.).
A hermeneutic of transition holds together religious, spiritual and psychoanalytic
engagement, moving beyond the symbolic, to offer a potential for experiencing in a new
way, such as ‘thirdness/Third’. Drawing on Winnicott, Schlauch argues that for this
transition to take place ‘we need to be connected to someone/something that exists outside
539 ‘The “analytic third” offer its neighbouring theology of the Trinity an example of the dialectic of unity and
multiplicity as it is embodied in human relational experience. It illuminates the possibility of living trinitarian
faith as practice: … The Trinity, itself, invites us to surrender ourselves to this “music,” entering into a deeper
recognition of the Divine Other who transcends the name “Three in One and One in Three.” Surrendering
ourselves to the triunity of Divine Life, we make our claim on the potential space of “thirdness” in our
relationships … Religion, for its part, offers its neighbor the possibility that, however much the “third” may be
called upon, it already exists “in being” for us. The “third,” as I conceptualize it and have experienced it in my
own analytic journey, is that which can reveal to us something of God - the “ground of being” which precedes
and animates our relating. Religion reminds us that we are not so much co-creators of the third, ushering it in
through our own efforts. We are, rather, co-participants in a realm that both transcends and resides within
our relating. Religion’s offering to psychoanalysis is a notion of “thirdness” envisioned not as
“developmental achievement,” but a Reality which lives forever beyond our intersubjective couplings … the
property of none, awaiting our dawning recognition’ (Lamborn 2007: 525).
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