Meira Likierman - Aesthetic Experience in Analysis

Conclusion: "This paper puts forwards a thesis on the origin of the aesthetic/creative human capacity. In doing so, two psychoanalytic theories are first examined. One is Freud's 'sublimation' theory, the other, the Kleinian attribution of art to depressive processes. Both are felt to be unsatisfactory in that the aesthetic is viewed as a secondary phenomenon, and linked to the mastering of primitive trends.

By contrast, this paper postulates that the aesthetic experience originates at the beginning of life, and owes its nature to the earliest 'good' experiences. Since these are 'split off' they have no conceptual, relative or temporal boundaries. They are therefore assumed to be in the nature of a 'sublime infinity'.

During 'depressive' integration the infant transfers a forceful, early aesthetic experience on to a perception of a whole good/bad world. Reality is thus viewed from the vantage point of aesthetic order rather than meaningless fragmentation." (p. 149)

Meira Likierman  (1989). Clinical Significance of Aesthetic Experience. Int. Rev. Psycho-Anal., 16:133-150