Modes of Therapeutic Relationship in the Rosarium Philosophorum

Jung (1961/1995) wrote about alchemy, ‘I had stumbled upon the historical counterpart of my psychology of the unconscious’ (p. 231). In The Psychology of the Transference he connects the transferential relationship in psychotherapy with an alchemical text called the Rosarium Philosophorum. This article explores the possibility that this text describes not only the transference, but the range of relational modalities Clarkson (1995) describes in The Therapeutic Relationship. Following a review of Clarkson's framework the Rosarium is examined picture by picture, and a number of parallels are highlighted. As Jung (1946/1998) wrote, ‘this venture must be regarded as a mere experiment’ and this article, perhaps, goes some way to confirming Jung's view that the alchemical metaphor of relationship, the coniunctio, is the archetype not only of Analytical Psychology, but of relational psychotherapy in general.