The concept of analysts' blind spots occupies a foundational position in the epistemology of depth-psychological practice, naming those sectors of the analyst's own psychic life that, unexamined, distort perception of the patient and corrupt the therapeutic field. The genealogy is precise: Jung credits Freud with the 'invaluable discovery that analysts too have their complexes and consequently one or two blind spots which act as so many prejudices,' while simultaneously claiming priority for the demand that the analyst be analysed. From this double origin, the concept radiates in two directions. The first is clinical-structural: blind spots are the functional consequence of unresolved personal complexes, inferior typological functions, or unmetabolised countertransference, all of which cause the analyst to project rather than perceive. The second is ethical-institutional: their existence mandates the training analysis, ongoing self-scrutiny, and the analyst's willingness to remain a fellow participant rather than an omniscient authority. Ella Sharpe's formulation — that to acknowledge blind spots 'is only to say that he remains a human being' — marks the mature post-Freudian consensus, in which the question shifts from eradication to recognition and use. Jacoby, Wiener, and Ogden each elaborate the mechanisms by which unacknowledged blind spots generate projective distortion, therapeutic misalliance, and countertransferential enactment, while locating the remedy in the analyst's sustained reflexive engagement with the unconscious dimensions of the therapeutic encounter.
In the library
10 passages
analysts too have their complexes and consequently one or two blind spots which act as so many prejudices. The psychotherapist gained this insight in cases where it was no longer possible for him to interpret or to guide the patient from on high
Jung identifies the originating Freudian discovery that analyst complexes generate blind spots functioning as prejudices, and links this directly to the institutional demand for the training analysis.
Jung, Carl Gustav, The Practice of Psychotherapy: Essays on the Psychology of the Transference and Other Subjects, 1954thesis
To say that the analyst will still have complexes, blind spots, limitations is only to say that he remains a human being.... We deceive ourselves if we think we have no counter-transference. It is its nature that matters.
Quoting Ella Sharpe, Wiener argues that blind spots are an ineradicable human condition for the analyst, and that clinical attention must therefore shift to understanding their nature rather than denying their existence.
Wiener, Jan, The Therapeutic Relationship: Transference, Countertransference, and the Making of Meaning, 2009thesis
like transference, it was an obstacle to progress in analysis because it led him to advocate self-analysis as a way of helping analysts overcome their blind spots.
Wiener traces Freud's earliest formulation in which countertransference-generated blind spots were conceived as obstacles to analytic progress, to be overcome through the analyst's self-analysis.
Wiener, Jan, The Therapeutic Relationship: Transference, Countertransference, and the Making of Meaning, 2009thesis
appraise their meaning, including an acknowledgement of our own blind spots and complexes. With this in mind we may view countertransference as a joint creation between patient and analyst
Wiener reframes countertransference — and the blind spots it contains — as a joint creation of analyst and patient, requiring the analyst's active acknowledgement rather than defensive suppression.
Wiener, Jan, The Therapeutic Relationship: Transference, Countertransference, and the Making of Meaning, 2009supporting
Does A really see P in an adequate light? Do A's evaluations, expectations and feelings correspond to the psychic reality of P, or does A project his own unconscious contents upon P?
Jacoby demonstrates how the analyst's unconscious projections upon the patient constitute operative blind spots affecting diagnosis, interpretation, and the entire evaluative framework of the clinical encounter.
Jacoby, Mario, The Analytic Encounter: Transference and Human Relationship, 1984supporting
No one can be useful to a patient about whom he or she has no feelings at all, and repression of such feelings only creates blind spots. Unexamined, these reactions can impinge upon and cloud the treatment, leading to distortions or disruptions of therapy.
Ogden cites the clinical axiom that repression of countertransference feelings, rather than their examination, is the primary mechanism by which blind spots arise and damage therapeutic work.
Ogden, Pat, Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy, 2006supporting
All have deficits in their parenting as a result of their own blind spots, childhood experiences, current stress, and life circumstances.
Ogden extends the concept beyond the analyst to the parental figure, locating blind spots as universal developmental residues of unresolved childhood experience that shape relational perception.
Ogden, Pat, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Interventions for Trauma and, 2015supporting
Sometimes these responses are intentionally malicious, but they can also be the result of a parent's own blind spots or past experience of proximity seeking with their own caregivers.
Ogden demonstrates how parental blind spots rooted in attachment history produce rejecting or misattuned responses to the child's proximity-seeking, illustrating the intergenerational transmission of perceptual lacunae.
Ogden, Pat, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Interventions for Trauma and, 2015supporting
there is also the danger of falling into a subtle, or not so subtle, possession by the presumption of having some special knowledge or wisdom. The best antidote I know to that possibility is for one to maintain a consistent regard for the opinion of others.
Edinger addresses the analyst's inflation as a structural condition that occludes self-knowledge, identifying in the analyst's dismissal of others' perspectives a distinctive form of institutionally reinforced blind spot.
Edinger, Edward F., Science of the Soul: A Jungian Perspective, 2002aside
I wanted to see if there was a way to amplify the blind spots in our spiritual practices, so that we might strive toward greater acceptance of our humanity, rather than unconsciously sliding into our psychological frailties
Mathieu adapts the blind-spot concept to spiritual practice, arguing that making perceptual lacunae visible is prerequisite to preventing their exploitation by unconscious defence.
Mathieu, Ingrid, Recovering Spirituality: Achieving Emotional Sobriety in Your Spiritual Practice, 2011aside