Transcendence and Its Shadow: A Depth Psychological Inquiry into Transcendence, the Transcendent Function, and Spiritual Bypassing

Abstract

Depth psychotherapists work toward supporting clients in their process of individuation, not only in moving through the tasks of development but also in gaining access to the world of internal experience, identifying the complexes that drive an individual’s experience of pain and pleasure, and contacting the shadow, to shift toward a Self-oriented experience of life. To take on these grand tasks, depth psychotherapists strive toward co-creating a therapeutic experience that allows the transcendent function to occur within the course of therapy. This article arises out of questions exploring the relationship between the experience of transcendence and the transcendent function, as well as from concerns about the presentation of spiritual bypassing in clinical work. Considering a pattern common to human nature in which crisis is often followed by the desire to transcend, what is the impact of this impulse on the soul? What is the relationship between transcendence and the transcendent function? Do transcendence and the transcendent function contain each other conceptually? What happens to the soul that enters transcendence, and what is the shadow of that? Where does this shadow show up in the therapeutic process? If the shadow revealed is spiritual bypassing, does the transcendent function integrate that in a way that transcendence does not? How can depth psychotherapists support clients with integrating transcendent experiences and address spiritual bypassing? The author draws upon her clinical reflections alongside scholarship from Carl Jung, James Hillman, Thomas Moore, Jeffrey Miller, Joan Chodorow, Edward Edinger, Sherry Salman, John Welwood, and others.

Agnes Pelton, Sand Storm, 1932. Oil on canvas, 30.25 × 22 in. Courtesy of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, 2012.504. Photography by Edward C. Robison III.

Transcendence may lead to transformation. In depth psychology, the transcendent function is a fundamental process on the path of individuation. The transcendent function emulates qualitative aspects of the broad-spectrum state of transcendence, but a key aspect of the transcendent function includes integration. Without integration, a transcendent experience may carry a shadow that deters psychological growth. Carl Jung (1940/1958), the founding father of analytical psychology, proposed that everything and everyone has a shadow:

Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. If an inferiority is conscious, one always has a chance to correct it…. But if it is repressed or isolated from consciousness, it never gets corrected, and is liable to burst forth suddenly in a moment of awareness. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions. (p. 76)

Jungian analyst Murray Stein (1998) described the shadow as “the image of ourselves that slides along behind us as we walk toward the light. The persona, its opposite, is named after the Roman term for an actor’s mask” (p. 106). As the part of an individual that one cannot see, the shadow contains the unconscious elements an individual may not recognize, but others can perceive. Observing the shadow of transcendence requires stepping out of its magic to survey its impact. Transcendent experiences can offer amazement, wonder, elevation, and inspiration. The shadow of transcendence appears to be spiritual bypassing, in which disengagement masks, but does not necessarily alleviate, suffering.

This article primarily draws upon hermeneutic research, but is also influenced by my heuristic and phenomenological exploration of the subject matter. My orientation toward the world of spirit emerged from a religious upbringing, followed by my immersion in spiritual practice during young adulthood in the years following traumatic loss. Though it may not be the primary focus of this article, my gratitude and awe for the lifesaving, revitalizing nature of transcendent spiritual experiences; for me in particular through Sufi whirling, continue to inform the foundation of psychological well-being in my life, and I have witnessed this in others as well. Furthermore, I have benefitted from long-term depth psychotherapy in helping address the shadow of spiritual bypassing in my life. Perhaps in another work I will delve into this further, but it is not the focal point of this article. Additionally, the focus of this article centers on the psychological impact of transcendence on the individual psyche, and much more can be written about the relational dynamics that present in connection with this.

Transcendence is a concept that inherently invites both psychological and spiritual perspectives because it encapsulates an experience that affects soul and spirit (Moore, 1992). For the psychologically oriented, transcendence offers hope for change amid despair. From a spiritual outlook, transcendence promises absolution rising from joining with a divine beneficent power—an idea that is present in varying forms across most religious paths, whether monotheistic, polytheistic, orthodox, mystic, dogmatic, or pagan (Campbell, 2008; Frunza, Frunza, & Grad, 2019). Psychologist and scholar Frank C. Richardson (2013) delineated the broader meaning of transcendence as a response to suffering that provides one with worth and meaning:

Moreover, it [a way of life that seems inherently worthy] partakes of transcendence, whether or not one conceives of it in any particular set of religious terms, because it entails sharing in the heightened sense of a wider, palpable, austere meaningfulness that far transcends the satisfactions and disappointments of ordinary life. (p. 359)

Transcendence extends the possibility for life to be experienced differently than ever before. In the confusion and pain of suffering, whatever the circumstance, transcendence offers the potential force of generativity, creation, and uplifting change.

George Teschner (1977), a scholar who specialized in the history of philosophy, drew connections between the psychological and spiritual perspectives on transcendence. In Teschner’s reflections on philosopher Søren Kierkegaard’s theories, he wrote:

In the simplest terms, transcendence means that moment whereby the personality renews or maintains its sense of possibility when it has become disillusioned by or lost what had constituted its future. The concept of transcendence implies that there is a discontinuity in the change from one consciousness of the future to another. The new world orientation is qualitatively different and not to be inferred from the old. In the thinking of Kierkegaard, this discontinuity means an emotional transition in which the personality must suffer the death of what it has loved in order to be reborn in a new consciousness of the future. Transcendence means this death and rebirth process. (p. 300)

With this in mind, transcendence can be viewed as a form of alchemy in which deep change occurs from the subjective experience of the unconscious rising and initiating a process of transformation (Romanyshyn, 2007, p. 263). Whether through a spiritual ritual or psychological upheaval, the transcendent experience initiates a threshold crossing. Teschner (1977) presented transcendence through Kierkegaard’s conception of God and transcendence: “Freedom from despair could only be found in a possibility which remained realizable under all conditions. For Kierkegaard, this unconditional possibility is God. ‘…for God is that all things are possible, and that all things are possible is God’ (Kierkegaard, 1954, pp. 173–174)” (p. 309). From a Christian-centric influenced perspective such as Kierkegaard’s, transcendence represents the possibility of absolution from sin. The state of transcendence suggests a radical change in perspective and body-mind experience, which could be reached by myriad spiritual paths, only dependent on the subjective experience of the practitioner.

As the field of psychotherapy developed in the Western world, mental health practitioners took on a role similar to that which had often been held by the clergy. In “The Vocation of Depth Psychotherapy,” Jungian analyst Edward Edinger (1997) traced the contemporary professional role of the depth psychotherapist to the long-standing positions of physician-healer, philosopher-scientist, and priest-hierophant. Edinger referenced the priest-hierophant as a source of mediating access to the sacred, granting forgiveness, and providing a gateway to transcendence. Though the obligations of the therapist may differ from those of the priest-hierophant, the presence of either can be transformational in a search for redemption through revelation. Both the priest-hierophant and the depth psychotherapist open the door for individuals to move beyond person-to-person dialogue. For the priest-hierophant, this means to access the divine since, with the exception of mystic ideologies, divinity is often considered to be outside of oneself in religious teachings. For the therapist, however, this means allowing the client to shift into internal dialogue: “The personal dialogue stage is transcended and the dialogue now occurs within the patient” (Edinger, 1997, p. 18). From this inner dialogue, clients may find a way to forgive themselves—absolving their psyches in the manner priest-hierophants assert they do on behalf of a deity. Transcendence in the form of self-reconciliation is not a task upheld by all psychotherapists, but it is important to the process of self-actualization, and so it reveals itself inside the intimacy of the psychotherapy room and out in the external world in the sacred experience of the individual. A transcendent experience might comprise a key part of the process of transformation. However, a transcendent experience does not necessarily resolve psychological stagnation.

Transcendence emerged as an important psychological concept primarily through the theoretical groundwork laid by Jung (1957/1960). Although Jung explored ideas that intertwined with mystic teachings, he also committed himself to presenting his ideas with an emphasis on metaphor rather than literalization. Jung noticed universal themes and collective patterns through his studies, and he identified them as inherent to the human psyche:

There is nothing mysterious or metaphysical about the term “transcendent function.” It means a psychological function comparable in its way to a mathematical function of the same name, which is a function of real and imaginary numbers. The psychological “transcendent function” arises from the union of conscious and unconscious contents. (p. 69)

Jung termed it the transcendent function to describe a movement within the psyche that occurs when the tension between the duality of conscious versus unconscious material morphs to form a triad, in which neither conscious nor unconscious content is lost, but is processed in a way that results in a new understanding of their existence and the dynamic between them. Jung proposed that the psychotherapist should embrace a position in which awareness of unconscious content will emerge within the client:

The basic question for the therapist is not how to get rid of the momentary difficulty, but how future difficulties may be successfully countered. The question is: what kind of mental and moral attitude is necessary to have towards the disturbing influences of the unconscious, and how can it be conveyed to the patient? The answer obviously consists in getting rid of the separation between conscious and unconscious. This cannot be done by condemning the contents of the unconscious in a one-sided way, but rather by recognizing their significance in compensating the one-sidedness of consciousness and by taking this significance into account. The tendencies of the conscious and the unconscious are the two factors that together make up the transcendent function. It is called “transcendent” because it makes the transition from one attitude to another organically possible, without loss of the unconscious. (p. 73)

Jung elucidated that the conscious and unconscious matter conflict in a way that creates tension between opposites. Sherry Salman (1997), psychologist and Jungian analyst, clarified:

Another way in which Jungian psychology approaches unconscious processes creatively is in its work with the experience of opposites in psychological life. This experience reflects the psychological fact that what is in the ego complex has a mirror “opposite” in the unconscious. A controlling ego will constellate disorder: a prince is also a frog. The psyche is not a perfect homogeneous entity. Disorderly frogs are usually pushed into the unconscious, forming a dissociated secondary personality which Jung called the shadow. Unless we bring such opposites into conscious awareness, further dissociation and illness will result. (p. 72)

For example, conscious aversion may be mirrored by unconscious desire. Jung (1957/1960) proposed that the transcendent function would produce a dynamic third in which, for example, conscious aversion and unconscious desire could evolve into an awareness of their interconnection:

The shuttling to and fro of arguments and affects represents the transcendent function of opposites. The confrontation of the two positions generates a tension charged with energy and creates a living, third thing—not a logical stillbirth in accordance with the principle tertium non datur but a movement out of the suspension between opposites, a living birth that leads to a new level of being, a new situation. The transcendent function manifests itself as a quality of conjoined opposites. So long as these are kept apart—naturally for the purpose of avoiding conflict—they do not function and remain inert. (p. 90)

The concept of transcendence is present in the transcendent function, and a transcendent experience may be integrated through the transcendent function. However, these are distinct concepts and processes. The tension between the opposites presents itself beautifully in the experience of one accessing the transcendent experience. Common examples could be seen in the depressive person accessing bliss and hope through ecstatic movement, the anxious person finding a sense of deep calm through meditation, and the manic person shifting into grounding through a stabilizing, containing communal ritual. Whether those possible revelations are long-lasting or impactful beyond the transcendent experience itself is not predictable.

Ambiguity from Jung (1957/1960) on the transcendent function has been acknowledged by other scholars of depth psychology, not in rejection of the transcendent function but in hopes of clarifying its meaning. Depth psychologist Jeffrey Miller (2004) commented:

Even having explored the way the transcendent function operates, its exact nature remains somewhat elusive. That it involves a dialogue between consciousness and the unconscious through the instrumentalities of fantasy and symbol is clear. But what is the transcendent function exactly? Is it the expression of the relationship between consciousness and the unconscious when in dynamic opposition? Is it the process that ensues out of such opposition? Is it the method one uses to conduct the process? Is it the final result, the third thing that emerges? Or is it some combination of all these? Indeed, Jung’s writings are unclear on this very point. (p. 55)

The questions Miller raised have been explored by Jungian analysts and depth psychological scholars continually since Jung described the transcendent function.

Joan Chodorow (1999), Jungian analyst, explained the transcendent function clearly:

Jung’s view of emotional dysfunction is that it is most often a problem of psychological one-sidedness, usually initiated by an over-evaluation of the conscious ego viewpoint. As natural compensation to such a one-sided viewpoint, an equally strong counterposition automatically forms in the unconscious. The most likely result is an inner condition of tension, conflict, and discord. The concept of the transcendent function arose out of Jung’s attempt to understand more deeply how one may come to terms with the unconscious. He found there is an innate, dynamic process that serves to unite opposite positions within the psyche. It draws polarized energies into a common channel, resulting in a new symbolic position that contains both perspectives. “Either/or” choices become “both/and,” but on a new and unforeseeable level. Thus the transcendent function facilitates a transition from one attitude to another. (pp. 236–237)

Chodorow’s clarification affirms the point that the transcendent function encompasses a movement from one state of being to another that entails the integration of unconscious material into conscious awareness. In contrast, a transcendent experience does not require such integration, which will be explored further in this article in the context of the concept of spiritual bypassing. Further exploration of the nuanced differences between these concepts serves the purpose of articulating the distinction between the psychological impact of these processes rather than invalidating the experience of transcendence. Salman (1997) further illuminated the importance of the transcendent function for psychological growth from a depth perspective:

The core issue remains one of maintaining a dynamic tension and a flexible relationship between the ego and the rest of the psyche. Jungian analysis is not primarily concerned with making the unconscious conscious (an impossibility in Jung’s view), or merely analyzing past difficulties (a potential impasse), although both come into play. Rather, loosening the boundaries between conscious and unconscious contents generates new psychic energy from the emergent tension, which is available for psychological growth. Jung referred to this process as activation of the transcendent function. He considered this the most significant factor in deep psychological work. (p. 61)

Depth psychotherapy takes the analytic approach of activating the transcendent function, which requires the therapist to be mindful of the potential trap of stagnation arising from only analyzing the past, and to strive instead toward creating new movement in the psyche.

As Jungian analyst Ann Ulanov (1997) explained the transcendent function, her description reveals its accessibility and connection to the broader concept of transcendence:

Transcendence is not something up in the sky, far away from us, abstract; it is a change of place here and now—in the ego, in the object, in the body, in the world. Spirit and body go together. Transcendence always effects a striking conjunction of the particular and the universal, the awe-inspiring and the humdrum, the vast and the concrete. To live toward it we must name it. Analysands will find their own names and they must utter them, I believe, to realize and ritualize their relation to the reality to which the Self points. Otherwise, transcendence hangs in the air, or we wrap it up as precious and keep it in the back of the drawer, or in a locked safe. The transcendent is much too alive for such treatment. It wants to be lived, housed in our body, in our society, in different forms. (p. 137)

The mysterious nature of transcendence insinuates that it is somehow distant or unfathomable. However, Ulanov (1997) pointed to the possibility of incorporating the visceral, somatic experience of transcendence with embodiment and integration into reality.

Archetypal psychologist James Hillman (1992) critiqued the embrace of transcendence within humanistic psychology. To preface Hillman’s perspective, it is worth contextualizing that his skepticism may be introduced with his own proclamation: “We’ve had a hundred years of psychotherapy—and the world’s getting worse” (Hillman & Ventura, 1993). Hillman (1992) critiqued transcendence as a form of denial, creating unhelpful distance from psychopathology, which he highlighted in a series of lectures collected in Re-Visioning Psychology. Hillman saw this as especially present in humanistic psychology:

A third way to refuse psychopathology is to stand above it. This is the transcendental denial. It comes in several varieties, one of which is humanistic psychology…. For all the value of humanistic psychology in standing against the denigrations of the most experimental, analytical, and behavioristic psychologies, it has swung to another extreme. In attempting to restore his dignity to man, this psychology idealizes him, sweeping his pathologies under the carpet. By brushing pathologies aside or keeping them out of its sight, this kind of humanism promotes an ennobled one-sidedness, a sentimentalism which William James would have recognized as tender-mindedness…. Besides the fact that its notion of growth is simplistic, of nature romantic, and love, innocent—for it presents growth without decay, nature without catastrophes or inert stupidity, and love without possession—besides all this, its idea of the psyche is naïve if not delusional. (pp. 64–65)

Hillman insisted transcendence risked abandoning shadow, which would simply lead to another form of psychopathology. Hillman contended that transcendence as an approach to the treatment of psychopathology had become psychopathological itself:

Whenever the importance of experience is determined only by intensity, by absoluteness, by ecstatic Godlikeness or God-nearness and is self-validating, there is risk of possession by an archetypal person and a manic inflation. Transcendence by means of a “high,” an idea so widespread throughout the different forms of humanistic practice (body-highs, weekend-highs, LSD-highs), easily turns into a manic way of denying depression. Rather than a new means for meeting psychopathology, it is itself a psychopathological state in disguise. (p. 66)

Hillman postulated that the ecstatic nature of transcendent experiences reveals denial, not transformation.

In Hillman’s (1992) criticism of transcendental denial, he contextualized the mishaps that it results in as partially due to the Westernized misconception of Eastern spiritual concepts. In particular, Hillman viewed humanistic psychology as dangerously misguided in its murky appropriation of non-Western spiritual practices:

Another form of transcendental denial occurs in (Westernized) Oriental solutions to psychopathology. Again, it is admitted as existentially there, but is seen from another, finer perspective. Our pathologizings are but part of the ten thousand illusions to be encountered on the path of life, a piece of appearance that may be a goad, or even a load of karma to which one pays dues. But fundamentally, pathological events are evidence of the lower, unactualized rungs of the ladder. Our way shall be around them. Meditate, contemplate, exercise through them and away from them, but do not dwell there for insight. Analysis of them leads downward into fragmentation, into the bits and functions and complexes of partial man and away from wholeness and unity. (p. 66)

Hillman posited that such approaches encourage distance from actual daily experience of reality. Further, he suggested resistance to examination of suffering and shadow showed a bias toward promoting the illusion of wholeness and a delusional connection to otherworldly divinity as all good, whereas Hillman valued the truth of forces of disintegration. Hillman’s commitment to this perspective on transcendence seems complementary, though perhaps more radical, to the view held in classical Jungian theory and the clinical approach of working toward integrating the shadow. Salman (1997) surmised:

This theory of opposites revisions our picture of mental health, and relativizes feelings of inferiority and pathology. Wholeness rather than perfection is the goal. Everyone has a shadow complex; it is “just so,” an archetypal given of the psyche. The shadow is never removed or completely assimilated by the ego; rather there is an ethical imperative of acknowledging it and taking creative responsibility for it. Jung was firmly convinced that the way to psychological health and meaning was through the shadow. (p. 72)

Though the concepts of integration and disintegration may sound paradoxical conceptually, Hillman’s appreciation for the forces of disintegration, the meaning of suffering, and fragmentation underscores the actual process of contacting and acknowledging the shadow. Transcendence that leads to a total departure from or denial of the truth and meaning of suffering rejects the shadow and any possibility of wholeness.

Hillman (1992) saw transcendence as ignorant of the wisdom and expression of the soul:

The archetypal content of Eastern doctrines as experienced through the archetypal structures of the Western psyche becomes a major and systematic denial of pathologizing. If I have disparaged the transcendental approaches of humanistic and Oriental psychology, it is because they disparage the actual soul. By turning away from its pathologizings they turn away from its full richness. By going upwards towards spiritual betterment they leave its afflictions, giving them less validity and less reality than spiritual goals. In the name of the higher spirit, the soul is betrayed. (p. 67)

More than four decades have passed since Hillman published lectures on this subject, but his assessment of the detriment of Western appropriation of Eastern principles remains relevant. However, there may be spiritual and soulful aspects of transcendence that correspond with individuation more than Hillman was open to perceiving. Nonetheless, before delving into that idea further, the subject of spiritual bypassing needs attention.

John Welwood (2002), clinical psychologist and pioneer in studying the integration of Eastern spiritual practices with Western psychology, coined the term spiritual bypassing. In contrast with the transcendent function, in which elements of the unconscious become integrated, spiritual bypassing involves the continuation or expansion of the power of the unconscious over the individual psyche. Welwood developed his perception of the subject following his engagement in spiritual communities as a meditation practitioner:

Although many spiritual practitioners were doing good work on themselves, I noticed a widespread tendency to use spiritual practice to bypass or avoid dealing with certain personal or emotional “unfinished business.” This desire to find release from the earthly structures that seem to entrap us—the structures of karma, conditioning, body, form, matter, personality—has been a central motive in the spiritual search for thousands of years. So there is often a tendency to use spiritual practice to try to rise above our emotional and personal issues—all those messy, unresolved matters that weigh us down. I call this tendency to avoid or prematurely transcend basic human needs, feelings, and developmental tasks spiritual bypassing. (p. 12)

Welwood observed that engagement in spiritual practices can lead to the avoidance of the examination of suffering, whether that is the intention of the spiritual practice or not. Notably, Welwood contended that the features of disconnection within spiritual bypassing are not due to transcendence itself but to precipitous disengagement with tending to personal needs and emotions. Unlike the transcendent function, in which the unconscious and conscious join in a way that deepens self-awareness, spiritual bypassing resorts to dependence on the impersonal, omnipotent divine. In psychological terms, spiritual bypassing may present as dissociation, delusion, and denial.

Bahman A. K. Shirazi (2013), integral psychologist and archivist, explored spiritual bypassing in the context of metaphysical instincts, which he described as a level of the unconscious unique to human beings:

In traditional spiritual practices, western or eastern, awakening the metaphysical instincts has often been done at the expense of suppressing the biological instincts—a process referred to as spiritual bypassing in transpersonal psychology. The body and its associated needs and desires are often regarded as impure and as an obstacle to spiritual attainment. This could be rooted in a belief that life on Earth and in the body is a form of banishment from heavenly realms. In other instances, this could be a result of an overly masculinized attitude which holds a fear of the body and the senses and privileges transcendent consciousness over embodied existence. (p. 111)

Transpersonal and integral psychology give more attention to spirit in contrast with the focus of other depth psychologies on soul. However, it is significant to note that from both transpersonal and other depth psychological perspectives, spiritual bypassing is understood as neglectful of the personal and real needs of an individual, which Shirazi detailed in its impact on the somatic experience. Shirazi highlighted that the ultimate development of consciousness would incorporate integration of all levels of awareness from the unconscious:

Traditional depth psychology often focuses on expanding the sphere of human consciousness by incorporating materials from the lower unconscious regions to the conscious regions, while traditional yoga attempts to engage with the higher realms of the unconscious and is not necessarily interested in transforming the lower unconscious psyche as much as it is interested in developing the higher unconscious. This could result in disinterest in ordinary consciousness and evolution of embodied consciousness. In integral yoga the goal is no less than the complete illumination, transformation and integration of the psyche and evolution of embodied consciousness. (p. 113)

This high goal reflects the key elements of the transcendent function.

Psychologist and spiritual teacher Robert Masters (2010) explored the psychological impacts of spiritual bypassing. Masters detailed the distinctions between transcendence that leads to psychological growth and transcendence that causes psychological stagnation or regression (spiritual bypassing):

The detachment that characterizes healthy transcendence is not at all dissociative, keeping us close enough to whatever is being transcended to know it well and just far enough away to be able to see it clearly, to bring it into lucid focus. By contrast, spiritual bypassing keeps us so removed that we are unable to cultivate any significant intimacy with our experience. (p. 34)

Masters’ description of healthy transcendence corresponds with the model of the transcendent function. Transcendence can lead to greater intimacy with oneself and heightened self-awareness, but it can also result in spiritual bypassing.

Researchers Jesse Fox, Craig Cashwell, and Gabriella Picciotto created a clinical study of spiritual bypassing. In this study, the researchers designed the Spiritual Bypass Scale-13 (SBS-13) to assess the relationship between spirituality and religiosity in terms of stress, anxiety, depression, and personality. Fox et al. (2017) asserted:

Possible negative consequences of spiritual bypass include the need to control others and self, dichotomous thinking, shame, spiritual obsession, fear, emotional confusion, addiction, high tolerance for inappropriate behavior, codependence, pain, compulsive goodness, narcissism or ego inflation, obsession or addiction, blind belief in charismatic teachers, spiritual materialism (use of spiritual practice for material gain), developmental arrest, and abdication of personal responsibility. (p. 275)

Using the SBS-13, Fox et al. found it is possible to assess and measure the psychological effects of spiritual bypassing:

This study investigated the validity and reliability of a psychological measure of spiritual bypass. The dimensionality of the SBS-13 was assessed through an EFA which identified a two-factor structure to the instrument. The first factor we called psychological avoidance because items on that factor all pointed to a process of sidestepping or avoiding difficult emotions, experiences, or circumstances through spiritual beliefs or assumptions. The second factor we called spiritualizing because items on that scale all described ways of appraising ordinary scenarios and exaggerating their spiritual significance…. The results confirmed the two factors of psychological avoidance and spiritualizing. (p. 283)

Fox et al. verified that avoidance and delusional thinking are consequences of spiritual bypassing. In particular, their research showed that spiritual bypassing behaviors may arise from authentic spiritual or religious engagement but lead to obfuscation of psychological clarity (p. 283). Fox et al. developed the SBS-13 in response to a lack of empirical research on spiritual bypassing in order to deepen understanding of psychospiritual health, and their validation studies suggested future research will benefit from the implementation of their scale (p. 286).

The consequences of spiritual bypassing suggest that, without integration, a transcendent experience may not demonstrate the true meaning of transcendence. Teschner (1977) maintained:

Transcendence is a rectification of the world in any of these senses. By rectification is meant an interpretation which correctly and realistically represents the world as it is. An immature response to suffering would be a misrepresentation of the world which would constitute a narrowing and constricting of the consciousness of what is actual and real. (p. 301)

Distinguishing transcendent experiences from the transcendent function is both nuanced and abstract. Richardson (2013) reflected on the fullest meaning of transcendence:

True transcendence would be more like a depth dimension of the everyday world, one in which one might not be able to help feeling some of the rich sense of belonging to everything that is and the tremendous sense of meaningfulness of which much religious experience speaks. (p. 362)

In light of this concept of true transcendence, questions of semantics may be raised. Rather than dwell on those, I am focusing on the meaning of the transcendent function in contrast with transcendence in general in order to bring attention to implicit problems that may develop in connection with transcendence. Miller (2004) expressed the significance and meaning of the transcendent function: “Simply put, the transcendent function is crucial to the central mission of depth psychology, which is to access, explore, and integrate the unconscious, and thereby apprehend the deeper meanings of soul” (p. 3). The transcendent function is the process through which meaning making evolves. Perhaps the analytical appreciation for the transcendent function includes this process of true transcendence, according to Richardson (2013), and in contrast with Hillman (1992), who implored that transcendence in general contains psychopathological features:

There may well be more psychopathology actually going on while transcending than while being immersed in pathologizing. For any attempt at self-realization without full recognition of the psychopathology that resides, as Hegel said, inherently in the soul is itself pathological, an exercise in self-deception. Such self-realization turns out to be a paranoid delusional system, or even a kind of charlatanism, the psychopathic behavior of an emptied soul. (p. 70)

To revisit etymology for the sake of illustrating Hillman’s impassioned stance, as well as reiterating the focus of this exploration from a psychological orientation, psychopathology refers to the study of the reason or cause of the suffering of soul (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). Hillman (1992) unequivocally viewed transcendence as wounding the soul because it has the potential to remove the psyche from its contact with suffering through delusion and avoidance.

The differentiation between soul and spirit matters greatly in this subject. Whereas transpersonal and integral psychology grant primary significance to spirit, depth psychology tends to soul. These theoretical approaches are not necessarily innately at odds, and interdisciplinary psychologists like Welwood (2002) have explored using the psychotherapeutic setting to propose how the soul may be cared for in alliance with a spiritual approach:

The core wound we all suffer from is the disconnection from our own being. This inner disconnection originally took place in childhood as we contracted in fearful reaction to an environment that did not fully see, welcome, or accept us. When practiced in a spiritual context, psychotherapy can be a form of soul-work, helping us find a deeper meaning in our suffering: our particular pain and neurosis show us exactly where we have shut down, and thus where we also need to unfold as individuals. Soul in this sense is a direction of inwardness, a deep experiencing of individual meaning, purpose, aliveness. (p. 16)

Welwood’s approach to psychotherapy and spirituality is significant: he is wary of the desire to numb suffering but not opposed to the power of transcending out of it. Depth psychotherapist Thomas Moore (1992) described a complementary psychological approach as “care of the soul”:

Our work in psychology would change remarkably if we thought about it as ongoing care rather than as the quest for a cure. We might take the time to watch and listen as gradually it reveals the deeper mysteries lying within daily turmoil. Problems and obstacles offer a chance for reflection that otherwise would be precluded by the swift routine of life. As we stop to consider what is happening to us and what we’re made of, the soul ferments, to use an alchemical word…. Care of the soul, looking back with special regard to ancient psychologies for insight and guidance, goes beyond the secular mythology of the self and recovers a sense of sacredness of each individual life. This sacred quality is not just value—all lives are important. It is the unfathomable mystery that is the very seed and heart of each individual. (p. 19)

Moore’s description of “care of the soul” offers the possibility of being with suffering, transcendence, and the spectrum between those states of being without denying pain or bliss, nor marrying either for eternity; nor watching those states passively, but instead actively tending to psyche.

A denial of pain paralyzes the process of individuation. From Hillman’s (1992) view, the soul experiences suffering as growth-inducing:

We can experience soul and spirit interacting. At moments of intellectual concentration or transcendental meditation, soul invades with natural urges, memories, fantasies, and fears. At times of new psychological insights or experiences, spirit would quickly extract a meaning, put them into action, conceptualize them into rules. Soul sticks to the realm of experience and to reflections within experience. It moves indirectly in circular reasonings, where retreats are as important as advances, preferring labyrinths and corners, giving a metaphorical sense to life through such words as close, near, slow, and deep. Soul involves us in the pack and welter of phenomena and the flow of impressions…. Soul is vulnerable and suffers; it is passive and remembers…. Soul is imagination, a cavernous treasury—to use an image from St. Augustine—a confusion and richness, both. Whereas spirit chooses the better part and seeks to make all One. Look up, says spirit, gain distance; there is something beyond and above, and what is above is always, and always superior. (p. 69)

As Hillman suggested, soul and spirit may be interconnected, but each one’s presence moves in a different direction. When transcendence occurs, both soul and spirit are impacted, but not with equity. The theory of the transcendent function proposes that transcendence can initiate a process of inspiration and metamorphosis that leads to the integration of the unconscious. However, transcendence does not necessarily offer integration, and, for many, transcendence encourages the continuation of psychological suffering in a muted form.

The psychological benefits of transcendence cover a vast amount of mental and emotional territory. Transcendent experiences provide qualities of uplifting, soothing, inspiring, motivating, changing, and creating. Transcendence suggests movement from one state to another. These qualitative shifts are welcome remedies to the gripping effects of anxiety, depression, grief, and trauma.

The psychological aspects that can emerge from the shadow side of a transcendent experience include dissociation, detachment, denial, depersonalization, derealization, and delusion (Fox et al., 2017; Welwood, 2002). Welwood (2002) explained the shadow of transcendence as primarily avoidant: “Trying to avoid negative feelings and emotions through heavenly transcendence—rising above, trying to purify oneself through denying the lower impulses—can lead to spiritual bypassing and inner division” (p. 17). The psychological impacts of spiritual bypassing are all related to the general theme of disconnection. The antidote then appears to be activating connection with suffering and nurturing self-awareness, which Masters (2010) explored:

Cutting through spiritual bypassing means turning toward the painful, disfigured, ostracized, unwanted, or otherwise disowned aspects of ourselves and cultivating as much intimacy as possible with them. To do this, we inevitably will have to deal with our numbness, approaching it with as much care as we can, ceasing to numb ourselves to numbness. (p. 13)

Here it is worth noting that the insight that Masters shared in his text seems to have emerged from heuristic experience as he gave few clinical examples nor references to scholars’ work.

Hillman’s (1992) dissent on transcendence is laced with a wariness toward bliss-seeking spirituality. Re-Visioning Psychology is based on a collection of lectures Hillman gave in 1972 at Yale University, and his comments from decades ago are highly relevant to contemporary trends in psychospirituality. Current popular culture is enmeshed with bliss-seeking spirituality, propagated by social media and self-proclaimed spiritual gurus preaching manifestation and transcendence with a tagline of “good vibes only.” Hillman would likely be appalled and repulsed by the trendy tropes that give little significance to suffering. For Hillman, soul growth emerges from suffering, and so psychological pain should not be numbed, quieted, or pacified. Miller (2004) explained the possibility of an integrated transformation process:

The transcendent function has to do with opening a dialogue between the conscious and unconscious to allow a living, third thing to emerge that is neither a combination of nor a rejection of the two. It has a central role in the self-regulating nature of the psyche, individuation, and the Self’s drive toward wholeness. (p. 5)

Rejection appears to be a central component of spiritual bypassing. In contrast, the transcendent function acts as a transition imbued with allowance, including for suffering.

Clients reporting experiences of transcendence may need support with integrating them and should be assessed for traits of dissociation, denial, delusion, and depersonalization so that the clinician does not collude with a client who is spiritually bypassing. Instead, with greater awareness of this subject, psychotherapists may be able to better facilitate the process of the transcendent function. When a client shares about spiritual practice, a psychotherapist must primarily treat the client’s experience with respect and spaciousness for the client’s authentic feelings. However, a clinician should also consider the potential psychological defenses at play. Psychiatrist and Jungian analyst Lionel Corbett (1996) elucidated:

It is possible to use the experience of the numinosum defensively, as a way of avoiding problems of the personal self. By focusing entirely on striking images from dreams and fantasy, some people ignore the fact that their everyday life is a disaster. An overemphasis on intrapsychic imagery (sometimes fostered by a therapist who is mainly interested in this material) may allow disavowal of the need for psychotherapeutic work on a relationship or a work situation. It is not unusual for this kind of individual to present him/herself for psychotherapy loaded with volumes of spectacular dreams, while his marriage and children are in dire straits. (p. 29)

Corbett’s cautioning of the possibility of using the numinosum defensively applies to engagement with transcendence and seems especially significant for the consideration of depth psychotherapists. A shadow within depth psychotherapeutic work may be a desire for clinicians to presume the occurrence of the transcendent function and perceive individuation without either having been fully developed or integrated within the client. The meaning of the transcendent function implies that shadow aspects will be integrated, but this does not guarantee a therapist will always correctly recognize this process occurring within a client due to limitations in the therapist’s perception and countertransference. Further, the nature of the integration of the shadow in relation to the transcendent function is somewhat mysterious. Miller (2004) reflected:

In Jung’s psychology, though the shadow can never be eradicated, coming to terms with it is an integral step along the path of individuation. Until we can recognize and integrate that which is unacceptable to us inside of ourselves, we cannot grow to our full potential …. The transcendent function is the mechanism through which the shadow will be brought into conversation with the ego and the opposites in each brought together. (p. 73)

Promoting somatic awareness is another approach that can be used within psychotherapy to address symptoms of dissociation. Somatic processing and grounding would be important in the treatment of symptoms of spiritual bypassing. Chodorow (1999) explained the significance of incorporating a somatic, movement-based approach in treatment: “When movement is used in psychotherapeutic intervention, it activates both conscious and unconscious processes. By its very nature, movement as a therapeutic tool will explore, strengthen and integrate multiple aspects of the human psyche” (p. 238). Exploring this subject further calls for more research into spiritual practices that draw upon the body but may not guarantee experiences of embodiment; for example, if spiritual bypassing developed from practices that include somatic rituals, like asana practice in yoga, as well as mindfulness practices that might amplify distancing from self.

The allure of the transcendent function is its promise of integration, a seemingly necessary part of individuation. And yet, in light of Hillman’s (1992) alarming response to transcendence and the negative consequences of spiritual bypassing, disintegration appears to be as vital as integration as a driving force for deep transformation. Cultivating an awareness of the impact of transcendent experiences is highly relevant to the field of psychology. The popularity of ecstatic spirituality appears to be increasing, and for clients inclined toward spiritual practice, clinicians need to provide psychological support for the effects of spiritual bypassing. If the shadow of transcendence is spiritual bypassing, this suggests there is a complex that constellates around a fear of suffering reality coupled with a desire to go beyond it. The core wound in that is a deeply human experience: to feel deep pain and to want life to be inspired by something more beautiful and hopeful than suffering. If that complex can be integrated, then one might be able to carry both the shadow and the light, pain and beauty. Further, transcendent experiences are not something for therapists to discourage or reject, as transcendent experiences can propel the process of transformation and deepen an individual’s experience of Self. Spiritual bypassing, however, can be seen as resulting from transcendence that neglects the soul, which suffers through a nonconsensual submission to spirit. Yet it is possible to integrate the beauty and wonder of a transcendent experience with tending to soul and suffering via the transcendent function.

Bust of Five-Headed Shiva, (artist unknown—Cambodia), Angkor period, ca. mid-10th century. Stone, H. approx. 31.5 in. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of Enid A. Haupt, 1993. Accession Number: 1993.387.1.

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Maura Tousignant

Maura Tousignant, MA, LMFT, is a depth-oriented and somatic psychotherapist with a private practice based in Santa Monica, CA. Her clinical work has a focus on complex trauma, anxiety, grief, and relationship issues, and her therapeutic approach draws upon analytical, psychodynamic, and attachment theories. In addition to training in depth-oriented psychotherapy, she has also studied Hakomi mindful somatic psychotherapy. She serves as adjunct faculty and provides thesis advising at Pacifica Graduate Institute, where she teaches in the Masters of Counseling Psychology program. For more information, please visit her website: www.therapywithmaura.com.