Objectification occupies a contested and multivalent position within the depth-psychology corpus, where it functions simultaneously as pathological symptom, methodological danger, and — in alchemical and archetypal registers — a hard-won psychological achievement. Hillman’s readings of alchemy furnish the most elaborate positive valence: calcination and related operations ‘objectify’ libido and subjective emotion, burning off the compulsive ‘me-ness’ to yield a residue that is transparent, reactivatable, and cosmically available — what he calls the realization of Freud’s object libido as a material dynamic that loves the world. Against this, Hillman simultaneously warns that the phenomenological epoché is itself a fantasy of objectification, and that archetypal psychology can never attain pure phenomenal neutrality. McGilchrist diagnoses ‘morbid objectification’ as a left-hemispheric pathology correlated with schizophrenic breakdown of the ‘betweenness’ that constitutes genuine relation; for him, the collapse of subject-object reciprocity issues in both solipsism and deadening reification. Lacan addresses objectification in the clinical frame, insisting that the analyst cannot simultaneously objectify the subject and speak to him in the analytically proper mode. Jung’s active-imagination tradition, codified in Tozzi, treats objectification as a specific technical phase — the recording and fixing of inner images — integrated within a broader ethical encounter with the unconscious. The term thus traverses the spectrum from transformative alchemical work to cognitive-neurological deterioration to methodological self-deception, making it one of the more revealing fault-lines in depth psychology’s ongoing negotiation with scientific objectivity.
the result is not merely the objectification of subjective ‘me-ness,’ but the objectification of its material basis … The alchemical goal is the realization in its complete sense of Freud’s ‘object libido.’
Hillman argues that the alchemical opus achieves the objectification of libido as a cosmic material dynamic, not merely a psychologised self-awareness, fulfilling what Freud named ‘object libido.’
, Alchemical Psychology, 2010thesis
The residual powders of objectified emotions remain available as everyday potentials, but all the subjectivity, the me-ness has been cooked out of
Hillman describes calcination as the alchemical process that produces objectified emotional residues stripped of ego-possession, rendering them latent potentials refreshable by moisture or feeling.
, Alchemical Psychology, 2010thesis
deadening objectification. Both subjectivism and solipsism, on the one hand, and morbid objectification on the other … are equally found in schizophrenia: each is a breakdown of betweenness.
McGilchrist diagnoses morbid objectification as the neurological and existential counterpart to solipsism, both being failures of the relational ‘betweenness’ that the right hemisphere sustains.
, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, 2021thesis
deadening objectification. Both subjectivism and solipsism, on the one hand, and morbid objectification on the other … are equally found in schizophrenia: each is a breakdown of betweenness.
McGilchrist identifies morbid objectification and solipsism as twin pathologies arising from the collapse of the subject-other dipole, most acutely visible in schizophrenic experience.
, The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World, 2021thesis
epoché is itself a fantasy: of isolating, of objectification, and of a consciousness that can be truly addressed by phenomena as they are. Archetypal psychology maintains, however, that we can never be purely phenomenal or truly objective.
Hillman exposes the phenomenological claim to neutral objectification as itself a fantasy-structure, arguing that soul’s native dominants of fantasy always already colour any would-be objective stance.
, Archetypal Psychology, 1983thesis
epoché is itself a fantasy: of isolating, of objectification, and of a consciousness that can be truly addressed by phenomena as they are. Archetypal psychology maintains, however, that we can never be purely phenomenal or truly objective.
In the brief account of archetypal psychology, Hillman repeats his critique: objectification as method is a self-deluding fantasy rather than a genuine epistemic achievement.
, Archetypal Psychology: A Brief Account, 1983thesis
vous ne pouvez a la fois procéder vous-même à cette objectivation du sujet et lui parler comme il convient … l’objectivation en matière psychologique est soumise dans son principe à une loi de méconnaissance
Lacan contends that psychological objectification of the subject is structurally governed by méconnaissance, making it incompatible with genuine analytic address to the speaking subject.
, Écrits, 1966thesis
phase 3 (objectification/recording of images) 15; phase 4 (ethical comparison with the unconscious)
In the Jungian active-imagination schema, objectification is a specific technical phase — the recording and fixing of inner images — embedded within a four-stage ethical encounter with the unconscious.
, Active Imagination in Theory, Practice and Training, 2017supporting
The polarity between the ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ points of view is a creation of the left hemisphere’s analytic disposition. In reality there can be neither absolutely, only a choice between a betweenness which acknowledges itself, and one which denies its own nature.
McGilchrist relocates the objective-subjective polarity as a left-hemispheric artefact rather than an ontological given, showing how the drive to pure objectification is itself perspectivally conditioned.
, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, 2009supporting
solipsistic subjectivity on the one hand (with its fantasy of omnipotence) and alienated objectivity on the other (with its related fantasy of impotence) tend to collapse into one another, and are merely facets of the same phenomenon
McGilchrist, drawing on Sass, demonstrates that alienated objectivity and solipsistic subjectivity are mutually implicated pathologies rather than opposites, both arising from the loss of genuine relation.
, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, 2009supporting
Psyche is freed from idealization and objectification so that she can finally await her lover, Eros.
Epstein uses the Psyche myth to frame liberation from objectification — alongside idealization — as a prerequisite for authentic erotic and meditative encounter with the other.
, Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective, 1995supporting
The demand that he should see only objectively is quite out of the question, for it is impossible. We mus
Jung cautions that the injunction to pure objectivity in psychological observation is an impossibility, since the personal equation unavoidably inflects both perception and interpretation.
, Psychological Types, 1921supporting
‘objectivity’ lies not in propositions, but in a disciplined disposition; in a modest recognition that our existing answers are inadequate, and in a constant awareness of limitations
McGilchrist reframes objectivity as an ongoing ethical disposition rather than a fixed epistemic achievement, implicitly tempering any claim to complete objectification of reality.
, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, 2021aside
THE ‘SUBJECT-OBJECT DIVIDE’ AND WHERE THAT LEAVES THE CONCEPT OF OBJECTIVITY
McGilchrist frames the subject-object divide as a foundational conceptual problem that conditions all subsequent discussions of objectivity and objectification.
, The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World, 2021aside