The Hidden and the Seen: Art as an Intersubjective Medium

This paper explores the intersection of art and psychoanalysis, specifically the various ways in which the introduction of works of art into treatment can open pathways of intersubjective exploration and understanding of the patient’s unconscious processes that may have been otherwise hidden. Similar to the function of dreams and free association in psychoanalysis, a patient’s connection and identification with specific works of art may illuminate aspects of their unconscious organizing activity, or simply reiterate and re-confirm already-discovered dynamics of their internal world. Art in this context acts as an intersubjective medium through which associations from both the analyst and the analysand reflect one another and reveal deeper interpretations. This topic is explored by way of a clinical vignette in which the patient’s love for a particular painting opens up associations for both the patient and the analyst, areas of exploration that lead into deeper realms of the patient’s internalized relational world and his exhibitionism. Although the patient in this vignette has had significant experience with psychoanalysis, elusive areas of unconsciousness remain. His associations to his favorite painting by the Renaissance painter Giorgione and the analyst’s own associations to the painting help to illuminate hidden sectors of the patient’s unconscious processes, including how his developmental longing for admiration is in direct contradiction to his felt need to remain hidden, and how this conflict expresses itself in his exhibitionism.