Transgenerational‐Affective Atmosphere: Encounters with the Psychoid Third

Abstract In this paper I present my concept of Transgenerational‐Affective Atmosphere (TAA), a phenomenon with psychic and material properties that emerges out of the undifferentiated and unknowable field of psychoid atmosphere. I call this emergent content the psychoid atmospheric third , or psychoid third . In Jungian and psychoanalytic literature, specific references to atmosphere are sparse, whilst there is abundant reference, for instance in Post‐Bionian Analytic Field Theory, to psychological phenomena that we might describe as atmospheric, including unconscious‐to‐unconscious communication, reverie, psychoanalytical intuition and negative capability (Ribeiro, 2022). To conceptualise TAA, I draw on three key Jungian concepts: the “psychoid unconscious” (Jung 1947, para. 368); “synchronicity” (Jung, 1952); and “feeling‐toned complexes” (Jung, 1934) which highlight particular aspects of TAA. Thematically interlinked, each demonstrates and elucidates distinct aspects of Jung's overarching interconnecting concept of unus mundus . Ursula Brasch and Claudio Mele describe how “Jung speaks of the “unification of the integral human being” with the unus mundus (Jung 1963, para. 760) and defines this as the unity of humanity with the world and the Cosmos” (2022, p. 469). Whilst atmosphere is currently of interdisciplinary research interest and has extensive applications, including music, art, architecture, philosophy, geography and science, my focus is on how TAA may be identified and worked with in Jungian psychotherapy and analysis.