When East and West Become Irrelevant: Neumann's "Unitary Reality" and Its Relevance to Sandplay Therapy
Michal Troudart
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Unitary state Relevance law Von neumann architecture Pure mathematics |
| Key points | Argues that Neumann's concept of the Unitary Reality offers a framework for understanding synchronicity and numinous experiences in sandplay therapy. |
Abstract
This article explores E. Neumann's concept of the Unitary Reality and its relevance to synchronicity and to numinous experiences in sandplay therapy. Our ego-consciousness differentiates and splits the reality into opposites. Neumann writes about another level of reality, the unitary reality, "which exists beyond and before the primal split and out of which the polarized reality of our conscious minds developed in the first place" (Neumann, 2017, p.71), and which embraces both the world and the psyche. It is a spaceless and timeless realm of diffusion, where the opposites are nonexistent, and we experience ourselves as one with the universe. This article represents a proceeding from "When East Meets West"—the ISST (International Society for Sandplay Therapy) 26 th Congress, Jerusalem, Israel, 2023 which was hosted by the Israeli Sandplay Therapists Association (ISTA).