title: Aesthetic experience.
abstract: An initial clinical question, 'Why does an analysand talk about his/her relationship with an aesthetic object?' opens an investigation into the nature of aesthetic experience. Three principal aspects of the psychoanalytic approach are presented: sublimation, a Freudian concept concerning the vicissitudes of the drives; reparation, a Kleinian concept linked to depressive anxiety; and transformation, a concept of object-relations theory about primitive ego-states. The article discusses the psychic function of aesthetic feelings in mastering anxiety as related to ego, id and superego. The transformation of the experience of passivity is a common link underlying these aspects. Such transformation relies on tolerating ambiguous and contrary feelings within the self, fostered by contact with an aesthetic object. This balance can, however, be upset: two excessive forms of aesthetic experience ensue, namely, fascination and bewitchment. The first belongs to the experience of awe; the second can lead to claustrophobic anxiety. The initial clinical question requires an elaboration of aesthetic transference, a variant of the narcissistic transference, whereby the analysand invites the analyst to share his/her internal state as a common unspoken object.
authors.affiliation: 1115 des Laurentides, Suite 2, Cité de Québec, QC - G1S 3C2, Canada. sirois.rondeau@sympatico.ca
authors.forename: François J
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: Sirois
mesh_terms: D001007:Anxiety / Q000628:therapy*; D004954:Esthetics; D006801:Humans; D011573:Psychoanalytic Interpretation; D011575:Psychoanalytic Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D013359:Sublimation, Psychological; D014167:Transference, Psychology